Kaffeeclatch with Max Gladstone
Aug. 20th, 2014 07:04 pmPersonal comments (Max, if you ego-google this, pretend you didn't read this bit :)) He was really nice and friendly, though a bit jetlagged. He recognised me in the food court later, which was flattering. He was really young, well, maybe my age, but that's young for writing such a prominent book. He wore jeans and a smart jacket, rather than a black T-shirt with a slogan, he looked like he had a place in the real world :)
He reminded us what I'd read before in his "big idea" post on Scalzi's blog but forgotten, that the inspiration for gods being made of bundles of agreements and contracts with worshippers, other gods, and other entities and organisations was the financial crash: the feeling of everyone standing around looking at their "god" who had suddenly gone overdrawn.
He had a lot of ideas about the world, and books 2, 3 and 4 (which I've not read yet) explore different aspects of it, which often goes badly, but sounded to have gone well in this case.
I asked if it was coincidence that the two major characters in the first book were women, and he said he did the same thing I do, that whenever he invents a new character, he doesn't let himself stop at whatever is the most "obvious" sex/race/etc, but asks "could this be different" and develops a character from there, which often turns out more interesting than another rip-off of Harry Dresden or Anita Blake. And he was appropriately diffident, that he was still trying to write diversely, but not assuming he was succeeding.
He reminded us what I'd read before in his "big idea" post on Scalzi's blog but forgotten, that the inspiration for gods being made of bundles of agreements and contracts with worshippers, other gods, and other entities and organisations was the financial crash: the feeling of everyone standing around looking at their "god" who had suddenly gone overdrawn.
He had a lot of ideas about the world, and books 2, 3 and 4 (which I've not read yet) explore different aspects of it, which often goes badly, but sounded to have gone well in this case.
I asked if it was coincidence that the two major characters in the first book were women, and he said he did the same thing I do, that whenever he invents a new character, he doesn't let himself stop at whatever is the most "obvious" sex/race/etc, but asks "could this be different" and develops a character from there, which often turns out more interesting than another rip-off of Harry Dresden or Anita Blake. And he was appropriately diffident, that he was still trying to write diversely, but not assuming he was succeeding.