Dr. Simon Morden, B.Sc. (Hons., Sheffield) Ph.D (Newcastle) is a bona
fide rocket scientist, having degrees in geology and planetary
geophysics. Unfortunately, that sort of thing doesn’t exactly prepare a
person for the big wide world of work: he’s been a school caretaker,
admin assistant, PA to a financial advisor, and a part-time teaching
assistant at a Gateshead primary school. He now combines a busy writing
schedule with his duties as a house-husband, attempting to keep a
crumbling pile of Edwardian masonry upright, wrangling his two children
and providing warm places to sleep for the family cats. As well as a writer, he’s been the editor of the British Science Fiction
Association’s writers’ magazine Focus, a judge for the Arthur C Clarke
awards, and is a regular speaker at the Greenbelt Arts Festival on
matters of faith and fiction. In 2009, he was in the winning team for
the Rolls Royce Science Prize. In 2011, the first three Petrovitch books
were collectively awarded the Philip K Dick Award.
1. Tell
us three things about yourself.
I
never thought I’d end up being paid to write fiction. I was all set
for a career as an academic scientist, then the early nineties
happened and the department just ran out of money. Being a junior
researcher and on a short-term contract, that was it. So I did a few
of the crap jobs that are supposed to grace every writer’s bio,
before becoming a full-time house-husband and parent-in-charge.
I
try to write the stories I’d enjoy reading. When I was young
(turning 50 this year...) I read everything I could lay my hands on,
and most of that was second-hand sf and fantasy novels from the 50s
through to the 80s. I’ve read an awful lot of rubbish. I’ve read
a great many wonders. The best of those gave me the feeling of being
transported, physically and emotionally: that’s what I try to
emulate.
I’ve
designed a board game by accident. I was writing a story set in a
historically accurate but slightly alternative Persia, about an
inventor plotting the downfall of a prince, using nothing but a game.
I thought I could wing the actual game mechanics, but rapidly
realised that wasn’t going to work. So I set the story aside,
worked out how it would look and how it would play, then went back to
writing. When I’d done, I remembered that I had a game that
actually worked, was easy to learn, and fun to play. Handmade sets
are now for sale via my website!
2. What
was the first thing you had published?
I
think that honour goes to a short story, “Bell, Book and Candle”,
which appeared in Scaremongers 2, edited by Steve Savile. That was
1999. Due to a tortured production history, it popped out just before
the much-later penned “Empty Head”, which was in Noesis #2, in
March that year. “Bell, Book and Candle” was also the first story
I wrote set in the Metrozone: playing the long game even then.
3. Which
piece of writing are you proudest of?
It’s
normally the thing I’ve just finished. I try very hard to do the
very best I can in all my writing – I’m never going to be the one
who just phones it in – and I try to challenge myself to do better
each time. But if pushed... my short story "Whitebone Street." I was
called up by the organiser (and personal friend) of a ghost story
evening at very short notice to ask me to be a replacement. I didn’t
have time to write anything new, but I had this one old piece I
realised would be perfect. But I couldn’t read it out loud without
choking up (it’s a elegy to old age and dying, and I’d recently
lost my father to cancer). And yet it was so obviously right that I
persevered: I practised and practised until I could guarantee I could
make it to the last line. And on the night itself, it was a triumph.
Not a dry eye in the house. So yes. That. [NB both "Bell, Book and Candle" and "Whitebone Street" appear in Simon's story collection Brilliant Things.]
4. …and
which makes you cringe?
The
stuff that people will never, ever see. Some of my very early
unpublished and unpublishable stories are, well. Terrible would be an
understatement. But we all have to start somewhere, right?
5. What’s
a normal writing day like?
I
stagger from my pit in time to wave the kids out the door (now that
they’re old enough to get themselves up and get their own damn
breakfast), throw some food at my face, and take my first mug of tea
of the day to the computer. That’s where I start. There are
interruptions – shopping, the washing, running various errands,
cooking dinner, diy of some sort – but it always comes back to the
writing. Sometimes I’m still going at one in the morning.
6. Which
piece of writing should someone who’s never read you before pick up
first?
That’s
a really difficult question, because I’ve written across the
spectrum of genre fiction and it depends what floats their particular
boat. If it’s SF, then the first Metrozone book, Equations of Life,
is probably the place to start. If you like your fantasy big and fat,
then Arcanum. But a lot of my work doesn’t fit neatly into one
category.
7. What
are you working on now?
It
feels like a bazillion things. I’m gearing up for the launch of my
first book for Gollancz, the first Book of Down, Down Station, which
is a post-pre-apocalyptic portal fantasy set on a sentient world. I’m
about to embark on the edits for the second, The White City. I’ve
got three other extant novels I’m trying to sell, and a synopsis,
all at my publisher for consideration. My next new work is somewhat
dependant on what they say. But there’s also a diamond-hard SF
novella being considered at another place, and I’m busy pimping my
board game, too. I’ve lots of ideas: it’s just that the paying
projects have to come first.
