SRM: There was period in the mid-Nineties, represented by Blindfold and Darksaber, in which your prose become much more densely descriptive. Were you consciously pushing your style in that direction?
KJA: I honestly couldn’t tell you. I keep writing and I’m not thinking about any particular direction. You’re probably the first person to read it all through in order and make that connection. When I’m finished writing a novel I tend to clear it from my memory because I’ve been over the manuscript so many times.
Although, I find it interesting to reread my old stuff—which I’m doing right now in preparation for a collection of my old short stories. A writer is afraid to read something old, and cringe and think, “Wow, I was a really bad writer.” But, thankfully I haven’t had that experience yet.
But it’s very hard for a writer to read his own work objectively. I have to leave that to other people.
Each project that I work on I try to see what I can do better, because if I just phone it in, it becomes a job, and to me, I’m enjoying this so much that I don’t want it to become routine.
For instance, the Dan Shamble, Zombie PI books…that’s the first time in my career I’ve been able to go flat-out hilarious for page after page—and I do have a decent sense of humor. But when I’m writing a huge Dune novel or a grim Terra Incognita novel, there’s not much call for slapstick or puns or gags. So I’m thrilled to be able to go somewhere different. Or I wrote a lot of hard sci-fi, but Terra Incognita was epic fantasy. I just don’t want to get in a rut.
