Official Mike Carey WebsiteOrder âVicious Circleâ HERE (US) + HERE (UK)
Read An Excerpt HERE
Read Fantasy Book Criticâs REVIEW of âThe Devil You Knowâ
AUTHOR INFORMATION: Mike Carey got into writing through comic books where he is best known for the Eisner-nominated horror/fantasy series Lucifer, Hellblazer and The Sandman Presents. Current comic book projects include Ultimate Fantastic Four, Crossing Midnight, X-Men: Legacy, Secret Invasion, Coalition Comix, The Stranded, etc. Mike is also the author of the Felix Castor novels, has penned two screenplays for Hadaly Pictures in âFrost Flowersâ and âRed Kingâ, is working on The Stranded TV series for Virgin Comics/SciFi Channel, and has a short story collected in the âSubterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasyâ anthology.
PLOT SUMMARY: At a time when the supernatural world is in upheaval and spilling over into the mundane realm of the living, you would think that life would be good for freelance exorcist, Felix Castor. Unfortunately the reality is a very different story. His friend Rafi is still possessed by a demon, one of his associates is a succubus that was summoned to kill him, and business is not exactly booming. Doing some consulting for the local police helps pays the bills, but Felix needs all the work he can get, so when a distraught couple comes to him requesting his services to find the kidnapped ghost of their daughter, how can he refuse? But what starts out as a strange, yet seemingly insignificant case soon becomes something much more perilous as Felix finds himself and his loved ones drawn into the middle of a horrific plot to raise one of Hell's most powerful demonsâŚ
CLASSIFICATION: Like its predecessor, âVicious Circleâ is an R-rated urban fantasy infused with a healthy dose of detective noir. So expect a contemporary settingâin this case Londonâa sardonic first-person narrative, and supernatural elements like ghosts, zombies, werewolves and demons mixing it up with police procedural and murder mysteries. Romance however, is not part of the equation. Still, the Felix Castor novels are highly recommended to anyone who reads urban fantasy, but especially fans of Charlie Hustonâs Joe Pitt Casebooks, The Dresden Files, Simon R. Greenâs Nightside series, and Hellblazer :)
FORMAT/INFO: Page count is 448 pages divided over twenty-seven chapters. Narration is in the first-person exclusively via exorcist Felix Castor. âVicious Circleâ is the second book in the Felix Castor series and takes place around a year or so after âThe Devil You Knowâ, and like that novel is self-contained. In fact, readers can easily pick up âVicious Circleâ without reading âThe Devil You Knowâ since the author does a terrific job of revisiting Felixâs backstory including his sister Katie; his first exorcism; the complicated love/friendship triangle between him, Pen and Rafi; the demon Asmodeus; and the succubus Juliet. The third book in the series, âDead Menâs Bootsâ, is already out in the UK since September 2007 and I imagine will be released stateside sometime in 2009. The fourth book, âThicker Than Waterâ, is already scheduled for UK publication March 2009.
July 28, 2008 marks the US Hardcover Publication of âVicious Circleâ via Grand Central Publishing. The UK version has been available since October 2006 via Orbit Books.
ANALYSIS: Out of all of the urban fantasy novels that I read in 2007, Mike Careyâs prose debut (The Devil You Know) was one of my favorites. Basically, Mike took everything that I love about the genreâincluding the supernatural tangoing with the ordinary, mixing humor with horror, and creating a protagonist that is impossible not to root forâand gave the formula a refreshing makeover. Even so, there was room for improvement and in âVicious Circleâ Mike Carey has delivered a sequel that is in every way bigger and better than its predecessor.
For one, the writing is sharper. By that, I mean the story is better plotted, the pacing is more consistent, and the voice of Felix Castor is more vibrant, particularly his ability to describe London with such unique flair, and a talent for clever barbs, descriptive metaphors and humorous commentary:
âHarlesden is like Kilburn without the scenic beautyâthe stamping ground of Jamaican gangsters with itchy trigger fingers, predatory minicab drivers whose cars are their offices, and a great nation of feral cats.â
âSo. Youâre dead, then. Howâs that working out?â
âI prowled about the house all day like a hermit with hemorrhoids.â
âAnother reason is that Iâm an unsociable bastard who hates shoptalk worse than dental surgery.â
Secondly, the supporting cast is wilder and more creative. So not only do we have such memorable returning characters as conspiracy-theorist zombie Nicky, succubus Juliet, and the demon-possessed Rafi, but we also get to meet such colorful new characters as the Ice-Makerâa faith-healer who deals exclusively with zombiesâa five-hundred year old ghost named Rosie Crucis, and a pair of nasty Catholic loup-garous (were-kin) in Zucker & Po.
Speaking of creative, the plot in âVicious Circleâ is excellent, mixing together noir-esque mystery and misdirection with such paranormal fun as a kidnapped ghost, necromancy, human sacrifices, satanists, and a haunted church/congregation. Also included in the cocktail is the Anathemata Curialisâan old sect of the Catholic Church that opposes the forces of hellâthe Collective which is a floater community for exorcists, the Post Mortem Rights Bill, and a new branch of science called metamorphic ontology which I believe will feature more prominently in future Felix Castor novels, along with such yet-to-be explored subplots as giving the dead legal protection, what happens to ghosts when exorcists dispel them, why there is such an influx of the returning dead in recent years, and where demons fit in the pictureâŚ
As far as complaints, I thought âVicious Circleâ followed the pattern of its predecessor a little too closely, some of the noir-influenced elements were a bit predictable, and characters like Pen and his brother Matt are still underutilized, but otherwise the sequel is a huge step up from âThe Devil You Knowâ.
CONCLUSION: As good as âThe Devil You Knowâ was, the book was still a debut effort and it shows when compared to Mike Careyâs sequel which is just an all-around much stronger novel, be it content, execution or imagination. Not only that, but âVicious Circleâ is a lot more fun to read too and makes a strong case for being one of the top urban fantasy novels released this year. Simply put, I think Mike Carey is one of the most exciting new authors in supernatural fiction today and I canât recommend the Felix Castor series enoughâŚ
BONUS FEATURE â Mike Carey Author Q&A:
Q: âVicious Circleâ, the second book in your Felix Castor series, is making its US debut July 28, 2008, after it was originally released in the UK in 2006. First off, what kind of response has your debut novel, âThe Devil You Knowâ, had in the US so far and are you satisfied with the reception? Secondly, some authors that see a notable gap between their UK + US releases are afforded the opportunity to make additional edits. Did you get to do this with âVicious Circleâ, and if so, could you talk about these changes? Lastly, what do you feel are the differences between the UK/US book scenes?
Mike: I was very happy with the critical response to âThe Devil You Knowâ. The reviews were all very positive, and I got great word-of-mouth feedback while I was doing my book tour last summer. Everyone seemed pretty excited about the book and interested in where the series might go. I donât have any info on actual sales, though, so I have no idea at this point whether Iâm a niche market, a runaway success or yesterdayâs news. Iâm hoping to be pleasantly surprised. Like, you know, the next time I come over Iâll step off the plane and it will be the same sort of reception the Beatles got. Iâm from Liverpool too, so it could happen. Scouse alchemy: itâs potent stuff.
We did make some changes to the US editionâremoving some cultural references which just donât travel beyond these shores, and changing the terminology in places where it would have been confusing or unfathomable. We were pretty sparing, though: the Britishâand specifically Londonâvibe of the series is important to how it works and how it feels. We wanted very much to leave that intact.
The book sceneâŚIâm really not best placed to answer that question, because Iâm a newcomer in that respect. Iâve spent fifteen years working in comic books (overwhelmingly for American publishers) and TV (mostly European). The book scene is something I visit as a tourist. I think the different scale of the American market makes some things possible that arenât possible in the UK, but in many ways I think British and US publishers are facing the same pressures right nowâcaught between the rock of online retailers and the hard place of celebrity book deals.
Q: Your fourth Felix Castor novel, âThicker Than Waterâ, is coming out in March 2009. What can you tell us about the new book and when might US readers see the release? For that matter, when can US readers see the third Felix Castor novel, âDead Menâs Bootsâ?
Mike: Weâre actually working those details out right nowâthe publishing schedule for the next book and the plan for the ones that follow itâso itâs difficult for me to say anything specific about scheduling, beyond saying that the gap between British and US publication should be getting shorter.
âThicker Than Waterâ is the most intensely personal novel in the series so far. A lot of it is to do with Castorâs relationship with his older brother, Matt, and the reasons why theyâve grown apart over the years. It sees Castor going back to Liverpool and facing down some of his old ghosts in a number of different senses. And it has a major revelation about what demons are and how they function.
In a way weâre getting bigger with each book. Thereâs always still the murder mystery element, but increasingly Castor is chasing another mystery which is more intractable: why are the dead rising now, after so many millennia of human history? Whatâs changed, and where is this heading? Weâre building up to answer all those questions in book six, but weâre hinting at some of the factors from âDead Menâs Bootsâ onwards.
Q: Staying on the subject of Felix Castor, how far along are you on the fifth novel in the series and has anything developed regarding TV, film or other media spin-offs?
Mike: Iâm approaching the halfway point on book five. Iâm amazed at how easily itâs coming. âThicker Than Waterâ was tough going at times, perhaps because parts of it are so confessional, but this one is just pouring out of me. Iâm sure it wonât last, but right now Iâve got the sense that all the beats are sitting in my head in a three-dimensioanl array. I know exactly where I want to be at each stage. Itâs a new experience, and a very pleasant one.
The discussion of where we go with a Castor movie (which is looking more likely than a TV series) is still ongoing, but Iâm hoping that something solid will be mapped out this summer.
Q: Your Felix Castor novels fall under the âurban fantasyâ umbrella which is extremely hot right now. How do you feel about the subgenreâs popularity and the fact that publishers are signing and releasing so many new urban fantasy titles?
Mike: Iâm cool with it. Generally Iâm not very interested in labels. I think they can be like flags of convenience for pirate ships: disguise an authorâs true intentions and make you fatally misinterpret whatâs really going on.
But Iâm conscious that Iâm part of a wave, and that itâs not a wave I originated. The Castor novels look at the life/death interface differently from a lot of the books that are out there, and ultimately theyâve got a different core metaphor, but they draw inspiration from a lot of placesâa lot of media, too. Hellblazer is there in Castorâs pre-history. So are TV shows like Buffy and American Gothic. So are the novels of Raymond Chandler, because weâre very much working with noir tropes.
I think the point is that any text is like part of the cloth on a loom: youâve got threads weaving through it in a lot of different directions, linking it to things that came before and other things that are happening now. There are reasons why genres give birth to other genres in a jerky, disontinuous rhythm. Reasons beyond the commercial reasons, I mean. Weâre all on the same loom. Weâve all got the same stuff weaving through us, more or less.
Q: In July/August 2008, Subterranean Press is releasing âSubterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasyâ, an anthology edited by William Schafer that includes original stories by Poppy Z. Brite, Joe R. Lansdale, Tim Powers, Mike Resnick, Kage Baker, Patrick Rothfuss, Caitlin R. Kiernan and yourself. Can you tell us how you got involved with this project, what you think of the anthology, and what your short story, âFaceâ, is about?
Mike: Bill approached me after reading the first Castor novel and asked me if Iâd be interested in doing something for Subterranean. Weâve actually got some more ambitious plans bubbling away in the background, but âFaceâ was the first thing I wrote for him. It was just really good timing. He told me about the anthology he was preparing, and I had a story in my head which Iâd just done in comics form and still hadnât got out of my system. I wanted to take another crack at the main character and maybe tell the story in a slightly different way, so I pitched it to Bill and he thought it would be a good fit for the âTales of Dark Fantasyâ book. Itâs an exploration of a couple of issues that are very loaded and very topical in Britain right now: the question of how minority groups engage with a mistrustful political establishment, and the wearing of the Muslim veil. The setting is a city in a fictional empire, very much modeled on the British Empire of the nineteenth century. A new colonial governor in this far-off outpost is trying to be a defender of civilized values: but his conception of what that means is kind of flawed, and we get to see the tensions between his private and public stances. Itâs told in the first person, and heâs something of an unreliable narratorânot because he lies but because he understands so little about his own motivations.
Q: In the last interview we did HERE, you talked about some other short stories that you were writing and a YA novel. Whatâs the latest word on these, or any other books/short fiction that you might be working on?
Mike: The short stories havenât really materialized, but the YA novel is at an advanced stage of planning. Itâs actually turning into something very exciting and different from anything Iâve done before, but it would feel like tempting fate to describe what itâs about before Iâve written any of it. Iâm pretty confident it will happen, though: the only question is at what point I try to slip it in between Castor novels. Maybe after book six, because book sevenâI should live so longâis going to be something of a new departure.
Q: We also talked about Frost Flowers, a film that you wrote the screenplay for and is in development through Hadaly Pictures with a cast that includes Holly Hunter, Andy Serkis of Lord of the Rings fame, and the singer Gavin Rossdale. How are things progressing with the film and what do you think of the cast? I also noticed that Hadaly Pictures is developing another screenplay you wrote called âRed Kingâ. Can you tell us what that is about?
Mike: I have to admit that I havenât had any updates on the Hadaly situation in a while. The last I heard, they were looking into a US funding stream that would allow for a bigger initial release. Andrea, the director, said heâd have big news for me soon. Iâm waiting to find out what that is.
Red King is a sci-fi movie about angels and drug addiction and the interface between the human and the divine. Itâs at the outline stage right now.
Q: Regarding comic books, youâre involved in a lot of cool projects right now including Ultimate Fantastic Four, Crossing Midnight, X-Men: Legacy, Secret Invasion, Coalition Comix, The Stranded, etc. Of these, Iâm most impressed with your collaborations with Virgin Comics. How did you first get involved with Virgin, what sets them apart from other comic book publishers, what was it like working with Nicholas Cage and his son on Voodoo Child, what are your thoughts on Coalition Comix and the reaction it has received so far, and can you talk some about The Strandedâitâs genesis, your thoughts on the concept and how the SciFi Channel pilot is progressing which you wrote?
Mike: Virgin is doing some truly innovative and exciting things at the moment, and Iâve felt very lucky to be a part of that. Theyâre a very new company in the comics world, as you know, and they hit the ground running. With the Voices line theyâve set up astonishingly successful collaborations between Hollywood and comics talent: theyâve got the Sci-Fi imprint going now, which allows them to tap the experience and creative smarts of the Sci-Fi Channelâs top producers. Theyâve done Coalition, which is a joint project with MySpace, and so on. They seem to be moving forward on so many fronts, itâs hard to keep track of them all.
Whatâs happening with The Stranded is very exciting for me, because Iâm being allowed to take the concepts forward into an entirely different medium and expand on it in ways that really enrich the story. Like a lot of science fiction stories, it really has its origins in a situation thatâs very mundane and instantly recognizable. A lot of us have had the experience of learning something previously unsuspected about our childhood that makes us see ourselves or someone close to us in a different light. And almost all of us have at least played with the idea, in an idle moment, that we might not be who we think we are: that there might be some secret buried in our past. Itâs a thought experiment. What if my parents arenât my parents? What if gypsies or fairies or extra-terrestrials worked a switch when I was in the cradle? What if this me isnât the real me?
I wanted to play some riffs on that idea and then pull it off in an unexpected direction and build it up into a wider science fiction concept. Thatâs what we got to do in the Virgin miniseries, and thatâs very much what weâre doing with the TV pilot, but with a different pacing and slightly different emphasis. Creatively, itâs a really exciting process.
Q: Are there any other comic book/graphic novel projects that youâre currently working on or plan on starting that you could talk about?
Mike: Well youâve mentioned most of my Marvel projects. Iâm still very active in the X-Men line right now, which is a labour of love in a lot of ways. Chris Claremontâs X-Men got me back into comics at a time when I thought Iâd outgrown them, and Iâve loved these characters ever since. Thereâs something really thrilling about getting my hands on them and adding some beats to their stories. Secret Invasion X-Men, with its colossal cast, was particularly enjoyable.
Iâve also got a project on the launch pad at Vertigoâan ongoing book thatâs very hard to categorize in terms of genre. It has fantasy elements, but really itâs a story about stories: an exploration of what stories mean to us, seen from the point of view of someone whose life is more or less defined by a story written by someone else. Itâs going to be on the schedule for some time in 2009, but Iâm writing it now and the artistâa very good friend of mine, a spectacular talent and one of my favourite people in the world to work withâis already working on issue one. I canât say any more about it right now, but itâs something thatâs really exercising my mind in a lot of good ways.
Q: Lastly, with entertainment becoming more technology-based, which in turn is becoming more advanced, is the print format (novels, comic books) in any danger of becoming obsolete, and what can publishers & authors do to adjust to the changing times? Additionally, what are your thoughts on ePublishing?
Mike: Iâm all in favour of ePublishing, but I really canât ever see it replacing the printed format. Maybe Iâve got my head in the sand here, and maybe itâs a generational thing, but Iâm fetishistic about the physical object that is a book. I like its smell and its feel. Reading words on a computer monitor is a fundamentally different experience, even whenâas with this new generation of reading devicesâan effort has been made to simulate the exact look of a printed page. I can see the advantages in terms of portability, sharing, use of scarce resourcesâI just donât think it will ever replace the real thing.
Having said that, ePublishing is a great way to get people turned onto new books and new authors. Itâs part of a revolution in how we access the cultural tapestry I was talking about earlier, and only a complete Luddite would balk at that. I bought the first series of Dexter on DVD recently, and one of the extras was a complete chapter from the latest Dexter novel. It seemed like a very obvious and very natural thing to do. And obviously the internet is now a hugely important tool both for marketing people and for readers of books and comics: youâre never going to get a totally frictionless flow of information, but my God, weâre converging on it. Strange days indeed, you could say. But Iâm honestly not complaining.
PLOT SUMMARY: At a time when the supernatural world is in upheaval and spilling over into the mundane realm of the living, you would think that life would be good for freelance exorcist, Felix Castor. Unfortunately the reality is a very different story. His friend Rafi is still possessed by a demon, one of his associates is a succubus that was summoned to kill him, and business is not exactly booming. Doing some consulting for the local police helps pays the bills, but Felix needs all the work he can get, so when a distraught couple comes to him requesting his services to find the kidnapped ghost of their daughter, how can he refuse? But what starts out as a strange, yet seemingly insignificant case soon becomes something much more perilous as Felix finds himself and his loved ones drawn into the middle of a horrific plot to raise one of Hell's most powerful demonsâŚ
CLASSIFICATION: Like its predecessor, âVicious Circleâ is an R-rated urban fantasy infused with a healthy dose of detective noir. So expect a contemporary settingâin this case Londonâa sardonic first-person narrative, and supernatural elements like ghosts, zombies, werewolves and demons mixing it up with police procedural and murder mysteries. Romance however, is not part of the equation. Still, the Felix Castor novels are highly recommended to anyone who reads urban fantasy, but especially fans of Charlie Hustonâs Joe Pitt Casebooks, The Dresden Files, Simon R. Greenâs Nightside series, and Hellblazer :)
FORMAT/INFO: Page count is 448 pages divided over twenty-seven chapters. Narration is in the first-person exclusively via exorcist Felix Castor. âVicious Circleâ is the second book in the Felix Castor series and takes place around a year or so after âThe Devil You Knowâ, and like that novel is self-contained. In fact, readers can easily pick up âVicious Circleâ without reading âThe Devil You Knowâ since the author does a terrific job of revisiting Felixâs backstory including his sister Katie; his first exorcism; the complicated love/friendship triangle between him, Pen and Rafi; the demon Asmodeus; and the succubus Juliet. The third book in the series, âDead Menâs Bootsâ, is already out in the UK since September 2007 and I imagine will be released stateside sometime in 2009. The fourth book, âThicker Than Waterâ, is already scheduled for UK publication March 2009.July 28, 2008 marks the US Hardcover Publication of âVicious Circleâ via Grand Central Publishing. The UK version has been available since October 2006 via Orbit Books.
ANALYSIS: Out of all of the urban fantasy novels that I read in 2007, Mike Careyâs prose debut (The Devil You Know) was one of my favorites. Basically, Mike took everything that I love about the genreâincluding the supernatural tangoing with the ordinary, mixing humor with horror, and creating a protagonist that is impossible not to root forâand gave the formula a refreshing makeover. Even so, there was room for improvement and in âVicious Circleâ Mike Carey has delivered a sequel that is in every way bigger and better than its predecessor.
For one, the writing is sharper. By that, I mean the story is better plotted, the pacing is more consistent, and the voice of Felix Castor is more vibrant, particularly his ability to describe London with such unique flair, and a talent for clever barbs, descriptive metaphors and humorous commentary:
âHarlesden is like Kilburn without the scenic beautyâthe stamping ground of Jamaican gangsters with itchy trigger fingers, predatory minicab drivers whose cars are their offices, and a great nation of feral cats.â
âSo. Youâre dead, then. Howâs that working out?â
âI prowled about the house all day like a hermit with hemorrhoids.â
âAnother reason is that Iâm an unsociable bastard who hates shoptalk worse than dental surgery.â
Secondly, the supporting cast is wilder and more creative. So not only do we have such memorable returning characters as conspiracy-theorist zombie Nicky, succubus Juliet, and the demon-possessed Rafi, but we also get to meet such colorful new characters as the Ice-Makerâa faith-healer who deals exclusively with zombiesâa five-hundred year old ghost named Rosie Crucis, and a pair of nasty Catholic loup-garous (were-kin) in Zucker & Po.
Speaking of creative, the plot in âVicious Circleâ is excellent, mixing together noir-esque mystery and misdirection with such paranormal fun as a kidnapped ghost, necromancy, human sacrifices, satanists, and a haunted church/congregation. Also included in the cocktail is the Anathemata Curialisâan old sect of the Catholic Church that opposes the forces of hellâthe Collective which is a floater community for exorcists, the Post Mortem Rights Bill, and a new branch of science called metamorphic ontology which I believe will feature more prominently in future Felix Castor novels, along with such yet-to-be explored subplots as giving the dead legal protection, what happens to ghosts when exorcists dispel them, why there is such an influx of the returning dead in recent years, and where demons fit in the pictureâŚ
As far as complaints, I thought âVicious Circleâ followed the pattern of its predecessor a little too closely, some of the noir-influenced elements were a bit predictable, and characters like Pen and his brother Matt are still underutilized, but otherwise the sequel is a huge step up from âThe Devil You Knowâ.
CONCLUSION: As good as âThe Devil You Knowâ was, the book was still a debut effort and it shows when compared to Mike Careyâs sequel which is just an all-around much stronger novel, be it content, execution or imagination. Not only that, but âVicious Circleâ is a lot more fun to read too and makes a strong case for being one of the top urban fantasy novels released this year. Simply put, I think Mike Carey is one of the most exciting new authors in supernatural fiction today and I canât recommend the Felix Castor series enoughâŚ
BONUS FEATURE â Mike Carey Author Q&A:
Q: âVicious Circleâ, the second book in your Felix Castor series, is making its US debut July 28, 2008, after it was originally released in the UK in 2006. First off, what kind of response has your debut novel, âThe Devil You Knowâ, had in the US so far and are you satisfied with the reception? Secondly, some authors that see a notable gap between their UK + US releases are afforded the opportunity to make additional edits. Did you get to do this with âVicious Circleâ, and if so, could you talk about these changes? Lastly, what do you feel are the differences between the UK/US book scenes?Mike: I was very happy with the critical response to âThe Devil You Knowâ. The reviews were all very positive, and I got great word-of-mouth feedback while I was doing my book tour last summer. Everyone seemed pretty excited about the book and interested in where the series might go. I donât have any info on actual sales, though, so I have no idea at this point whether Iâm a niche market, a runaway success or yesterdayâs news. Iâm hoping to be pleasantly surprised. Like, you know, the next time I come over Iâll step off the plane and it will be the same sort of reception the Beatles got. Iâm from Liverpool too, so it could happen. Scouse alchemy: itâs potent stuff.
We did make some changes to the US editionâremoving some cultural references which just donât travel beyond these shores, and changing the terminology in places where it would have been confusing or unfathomable. We were pretty sparing, though: the Britishâand specifically Londonâvibe of the series is important to how it works and how it feels. We wanted very much to leave that intact.
The book sceneâŚIâm really not best placed to answer that question, because Iâm a newcomer in that respect. Iâve spent fifteen years working in comic books (overwhelmingly for American publishers) and TV (mostly European). The book scene is something I visit as a tourist. I think the different scale of the American market makes some things possible that arenât possible in the UK, but in many ways I think British and US publishers are facing the same pressures right nowâcaught between the rock of online retailers and the hard place of celebrity book deals.
Q: Your fourth Felix Castor novel, âThicker Than Waterâ, is coming out in March 2009. What can you tell us about the new book and when might US readers see the release? For that matter, when can US readers see the third Felix Castor novel, âDead Menâs Bootsâ?
Mike: Weâre actually working those details out right nowâthe publishing schedule for the next book and the plan for the ones that follow itâso itâs difficult for me to say anything specific about scheduling, beyond saying that the gap between British and US publication should be getting shorter.âThicker Than Waterâ is the most intensely personal novel in the series so far. A lot of it is to do with Castorâs relationship with his older brother, Matt, and the reasons why theyâve grown apart over the years. It sees Castor going back to Liverpool and facing down some of his old ghosts in a number of different senses. And it has a major revelation about what demons are and how they function.
In a way weâre getting bigger with each book. Thereâs always still the murder mystery element, but increasingly Castor is chasing another mystery which is more intractable: why are the dead rising now, after so many millennia of human history? Whatâs changed, and where is this heading? Weâre building up to answer all those questions in book six, but weâre hinting at some of the factors from âDead Menâs Bootsâ onwards.
Q: Staying on the subject of Felix Castor, how far along are you on the fifth novel in the series and has anything developed regarding TV, film or other media spin-offs?
Mike: Iâm approaching the halfway point on book five. Iâm amazed at how easily itâs coming. âThicker Than Waterâ was tough going at times, perhaps because parts of it are so confessional, but this one is just pouring out of me. Iâm sure it wonât last, but right now Iâve got the sense that all the beats are sitting in my head in a three-dimensioanl array. I know exactly where I want to be at each stage. Itâs a new experience, and a very pleasant one.
The discussion of where we go with a Castor movie (which is looking more likely than a TV series) is still ongoing, but Iâm hoping that something solid will be mapped out this summer.
Q: Your Felix Castor novels fall under the âurban fantasyâ umbrella which is extremely hot right now. How do you feel about the subgenreâs popularity and the fact that publishers are signing and releasing so many new urban fantasy titles?
Mike: Iâm cool with it. Generally Iâm not very interested in labels. I think they can be like flags of convenience for pirate ships: disguise an authorâs true intentions and make you fatally misinterpret whatâs really going on.
But Iâm conscious that Iâm part of a wave, and that itâs not a wave I originated. The Castor novels look at the life/death interface differently from a lot of the books that are out there, and ultimately theyâve got a different core metaphor, but they draw inspiration from a lot of placesâa lot of media, too. Hellblazer is there in Castorâs pre-history. So are TV shows like Buffy and American Gothic. So are the novels of Raymond Chandler, because weâre very much working with noir tropes.
I think the point is that any text is like part of the cloth on a loom: youâve got threads weaving through it in a lot of different directions, linking it to things that came before and other things that are happening now. There are reasons why genres give birth to other genres in a jerky, disontinuous rhythm. Reasons beyond the commercial reasons, I mean. Weâre all on the same loom. Weâve all got the same stuff weaving through us, more or less.
Q: In July/August 2008, Subterranean Press is releasing âSubterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasyâ, an anthology edited by William Schafer that includes original stories by Poppy Z. Brite, Joe R. Lansdale, Tim Powers, Mike Resnick, Kage Baker, Patrick Rothfuss, Caitlin R. Kiernan and yourself. Can you tell us how you got involved with this project, what you think of the anthology, and what your short story, âFaceâ, is about?
Mike: Bill approached me after reading the first Castor novel and asked me if Iâd be interested in doing something for Subterranean. Weâve actually got some more ambitious plans bubbling away in the background, but âFaceâ was the first thing I wrote for him. It was just really good timing. He told me about the anthology he was preparing, and I had a story in my head which Iâd just done in comics form and still hadnât got out of my system. I wanted to take another crack at the main character and maybe tell the story in a slightly different way, so I pitched it to Bill and he thought it would be a good fit for the âTales of Dark Fantasyâ book. Itâs an exploration of a couple of issues that are very loaded and very topical in Britain right now: the question of how minority groups engage with a mistrustful political establishment, and the wearing of the Muslim veil. The setting is a city in a fictional empire, very much modeled on the British Empire of the nineteenth century. A new colonial governor in this far-off outpost is trying to be a defender of civilized values: but his conception of what that means is kind of flawed, and we get to see the tensions between his private and public stances. Itâs told in the first person, and heâs something of an unreliable narratorânot because he lies but because he understands so little about his own motivations.Q: In the last interview we did HERE, you talked about some other short stories that you were writing and a YA novel. Whatâs the latest word on these, or any other books/short fiction that you might be working on?
Mike: The short stories havenât really materialized, but the YA novel is at an advanced stage of planning. Itâs actually turning into something very exciting and different from anything Iâve done before, but it would feel like tempting fate to describe what itâs about before Iâve written any of it. Iâm pretty confident it will happen, though: the only question is at what point I try to slip it in between Castor novels. Maybe after book six, because book sevenâI should live so longâis going to be something of a new departure.
Q: We also talked about Frost Flowers, a film that you wrote the screenplay for and is in development through Hadaly Pictures with a cast that includes Holly Hunter, Andy Serkis of Lord of the Rings fame, and the singer Gavin Rossdale. How are things progressing with the film and what do you think of the cast? I also noticed that Hadaly Pictures is developing another screenplay you wrote called âRed Kingâ. Can you tell us what that is about?
Mike: I have to admit that I havenât had any updates on the Hadaly situation in a while. The last I heard, they were looking into a US funding stream that would allow for a bigger initial release. Andrea, the director, said heâd have big news for me soon. Iâm waiting to find out what that is.
Red King is a sci-fi movie about angels and drug addiction and the interface between the human and the divine. Itâs at the outline stage right now.
Q: Regarding comic books, youâre involved in a lot of cool projects right now including Ultimate Fantastic Four, Crossing Midnight, X-Men: Legacy, Secret Invasion, Coalition Comix, The Stranded, etc. Of these, Iâm most impressed with your collaborations with Virgin Comics. How did you first get involved with Virgin, what sets them apart from other comic book publishers, what was it like working with Nicholas Cage and his son on Voodoo Child, what are your thoughts on Coalition Comix and the reaction it has received so far, and can you talk some about The Strandedâitâs genesis, your thoughts on the concept and how the SciFi Channel pilot is progressing which you wrote?
Mike: Virgin is doing some truly innovative and exciting things at the moment, and Iâve felt very lucky to be a part of that. Theyâre a very new company in the comics world, as you know, and they hit the ground running. With the Voices line theyâve set up astonishingly successful collaborations between Hollywood and comics talent: theyâve got the Sci-Fi imprint going now, which allows them to tap the experience and creative smarts of the Sci-Fi Channelâs top producers. Theyâve done Coalition, which is a joint project with MySpace, and so on. They seem to be moving forward on so many fronts, itâs hard to keep track of them all.
Whatâs happening with The Stranded is very exciting for me, because Iâm being allowed to take the concepts forward into an entirely different medium and expand on it in ways that really enrich the story. Like a lot of science fiction stories, it really has its origins in a situation thatâs very mundane and instantly recognizable. A lot of us have had the experience of learning something previously unsuspected about our childhood that makes us see ourselves or someone close to us in a different light. And almost all of us have at least played with the idea, in an idle moment, that we might not be who we think we are: that there might be some secret buried in our past. Itâs a thought experiment. What if my parents arenât my parents? What if gypsies or fairies or extra-terrestrials worked a switch when I was in the cradle? What if this me isnât the real me?I wanted to play some riffs on that idea and then pull it off in an unexpected direction and build it up into a wider science fiction concept. Thatâs what we got to do in the Virgin miniseries, and thatâs very much what weâre doing with the TV pilot, but with a different pacing and slightly different emphasis. Creatively, itâs a really exciting process.
Q: Are there any other comic book/graphic novel projects that youâre currently working on or plan on starting that you could talk about?
Mike: Well youâve mentioned most of my Marvel projects. Iâm still very active in the X-Men line right now, which is a labour of love in a lot of ways. Chris Claremontâs X-Men got me back into comics at a time when I thought Iâd outgrown them, and Iâve loved these characters ever since. Thereâs something really thrilling about getting my hands on them and adding some beats to their stories. Secret Invasion X-Men, with its colossal cast, was particularly enjoyable.
Iâve also got a project on the launch pad at Vertigoâan ongoing book thatâs very hard to categorize in terms of genre. It has fantasy elements, but really itâs a story about stories: an exploration of what stories mean to us, seen from the point of view of someone whose life is more or less defined by a story written by someone else. Itâs going to be on the schedule for some time in 2009, but Iâm writing it now and the artistâa very good friend of mine, a spectacular talent and one of my favourite people in the world to work withâis already working on issue one. I canât say any more about it right now, but itâs something thatâs really exercising my mind in a lot of good ways.
Q: Lastly, with entertainment becoming more technology-based, which in turn is becoming more advanced, is the print format (novels, comic books) in any danger of becoming obsolete, and what can publishers & authors do to adjust to the changing times? Additionally, what are your thoughts on ePublishing?
Mike: Iâm all in favour of ePublishing, but I really canât ever see it replacing the printed format. Maybe Iâve got my head in the sand here, and maybe itâs a generational thing, but Iâm fetishistic about the physical object that is a book. I like its smell and its feel. Reading words on a computer monitor is a fundamentally different experience, even whenâas with this new generation of reading devicesâan effort has been made to simulate the exact look of a printed page. I can see the advantages in terms of portability, sharing, use of scarce resourcesâI just donât think it will ever replace the real thing.
Having said that, ePublishing is a great way to get people turned onto new books and new authors. Itâs part of a revolution in how we access the cultural tapestry I was talking about earlier, and only a complete Luddite would balk at that. I bought the first series of Dexter on DVD recently, and one of the extras was a complete chapter from the latest Dexter novel. It seemed like a very obvious and very natural thing to do. And obviously the internet is now a hugely important tool both for marketing people and for readers of books and comics: youâre never going to get a totally frictionless flow of information, but my God, weâre converging on it. Strange days indeed, you could say. But Iâm honestly not complaining.
3:01âŻAM | 
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4 comments:
This is one that's on my wish list because I loved, 'The Devil You Know'. Great review, I want it even more now, and I really enjoyed reading the interview. :)
Great interview. This makes me want to read one of this author's books
Kimberly, if you loved "The Devil You Know", you should love "Vicious Circle" even more :D
Cheryl, thanks! I highly recommend reading anything my Mr. Carey, be it his books or his comics...
Magic interview. This makes me want to read more and more and just to second your previous comment "Vicious Circle" is a fantastic book.