Daryl Gregory is one of my all time favorite authors. His first book, Pandemonium, was a finalist for the Shirley Jackson award, and the World Fantasy award. His short fiction has been published in F&SF and Asimovs. If you’ve never read a Daryl Gregory story, check out (FREE) “Second Person, Present Tense.” I first met Daryl at World Fantasy Calgary, and can tell you he’s probably one of the nicest, coolest people you’ll ever meet, which is probably why he agreed to this interview for my little corner of webspace.
Sean: Your new book, The Devil’s Alphabet coming out on November 24, 2009. Can you give us the ‘elevator pitch’ for it?
Daryl Gregory: Hard SF Southern Gothic Murder Mystery. With heart.
S: Will fans of Pandemonium find any other similar themes/characters/worlds etc. in The Devil’s Alphabet?
DG: The two books aren’t part of a series, so there’s no overlap with characters or plot. However,they do share a world, in a way. Both books take as a starting point the real world, and then change only one thing. In Pandemonium, it was the demons. In The Devil’s Alphabet, it’s the Changes, a disease that transformed most of a small mountain town, but then never spread any further.
S: Was The Devil’s Alphabet easier or more difficult to write than your first novel?
DG: Yes.
S: Could you explain that?
DG: I was happy with how Pandemonium had turned out, so it was easier to write the second knowing it was at least possible for me to write a novel. I learned how to structure a book, and to pace it, and develop character over hundreds of pages instead of tens.
But it was harder to write The Devil’s Alphabet in that I decided to throw out some of my most-used tricks. Pandemonium was concerned with pop culture, and the main character, Del, and his brother banter in that kind of 21st century, smart-ass, irony-drenched way of people who know everything’s a reference to something else, and true emotion must be carefully masked.
With TDA, I wanted to write a more timeless book, something that concentrated on family and community, and was told through the point of view of someone who hasn’t figured himself out, who feels disconnected. The main character still has difficulty expressing emotions, but for different reasons.
Come to think of it, maybe all my characters have trouble expression emotion. Oh well, that can’t have anything to do with me.
S: What’s the one drink someone could buy you at a convention or a singing that you wouldn’t be ale to turn down?
DG: Westmalle Tripel. It’s a Belgian abbey beer, made by monks who are obviously guided by a higher power.
S: This isn’t really a question, but HOLY CRAP the cover of The Devil’s Alphabet freaks me out!! Your thoughts?
DG: Hey, it freaked ME out when I first saw it. I think that was the art director’s goal: to freak people out, to get them to pause a moment as they pass it on the racks, then reach out and turn it upside down to figure out what’s going on, and thereby lure them into reading the back copy and maybe flip through a few pages. And I have to admit, The Devil’s Alphabet IS a freaky-deaky book. It’s about transformation and the horror of strange bodies, and coming to love the strangeness. I have come to love the strangeness of the cover.
S: If the city was in trouble, and the mayor dialed your office, which super hero (existing or made-up-on-the-spot) would he find at the other end of the line?
DG: I have to admit there’s a character that I made up my freshman year in college for a roleplaying game called Champions that I still think of fondly. He is Traveler, the teleporting, staff-wielding albino martial artist! Kind of a cross between Nightcrawler and Elric with a stick. When I taught my kids how to play Champions a few years ago, I brought him back for a cameo as a non-playing character.
So yeah. Traveler. I’m a geek.
