1.How closely have you worked with Stephen King during the writing
of Road to the Dark Tower?
Since
the original proposal, I haven't worked with King at all. I've
asked him the occasional question, but I don't want to bother
him too much with my labors. He's a busy guy, with upcoming TV
series, Dark Tower rewrites, promotion for THE GUNSLINGER, etc.
For business-related things I generally correspond with his extremely
knowledgeable and helpful office staff. I've interacted with his
research assistant, Robin Furth -- whose Concordance will be out
very soon, as well.
That
being said, though, this project would never have gotten off the
ground as quickly as it did without King's cooperation. Perhaps
not at all. When I first conceived of THE ROAD TO THE DARK TOWER
last fall, I thought it would be something I'd be working on for
the next couple of years as the final three books appeared in
print, rather than something I'll be delivering to the publisher
at the end of the month. (July '03).
2.
What can we expect from your book?
I'm
looking at the series as a whole and as a sum of its components.
Some chapters will look at the individual books and other chapters
will examine the bigger concepts -- the epic sweep of the quest.
One chapter recounts the epic publishing history of the series
itself over the past twenty-five years since "The Gunslinger"
first appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine. Another
chapter looks at the major characters and how they evolve over
the seven books. I'm also pulling in the major non-series books,
because important concepts within the Dark Tower series were often
introduced in non-series books. The Crimson King, for example,
first shows up in INSOMNIA (though King has inserted him into
the newly revised edition of THE GUNSLINGER). Breakers are first
mentioned in "Low Men in Yellow Coats," and what the
Crimson King and Breakers are up to is explicated in BLACK HOUSE.
I'm not going fishing for every little tie-in -- there's already
a book out there that does that (THE STEPHEN KING UNIVERSE by
Wiater, Golden and Wagner). Rather, I'm concentrating on the major
external links, the ones that illuminate the series.
3.
With thousands of Dark Tower fans eagerly awaiting the final three
installments of the series it must feel great being one of the
few people that has read the series in it's entirety. How do you
feel about this?
I
think a lot of people believe that I'm being inundated with questions
about the last three books and this hasn't proved to be the case.
My feeling is that people don't want to know isolated details
about the series. They don't want to know "does Roland reach
the Tower" -- they want to experience the journey to find
out who gets where and why. I don't think I've gotten a single
serious question about a specific incident in the final three
books. Just lots of well-wishers who have been offering me support
and encouragement. A few volunteers to help with my project, but
nothing more than that.
There
are advantages and disadvantages to getting to read the series
early. Everyone else still has three more Dark Tower books to
look forward to over the next fifteen months. As far as the Dark
Tower goes -- I'm finished. There's nothing more to look forward
to, and that makes me a little sad. I've been with the series
almost since the beginning -- I read THE GUNSLINGER in 1984 --
and what a long, strange journey it has been, and part of me is
sad it's over. That's not to say that I didn't sit enjoy every
second of the reading process and the subsequent rereads over
the past six or seven months. The morning I finished reading THE
DARK TOWER the first time, I was late to work. I had about 200
manuscript pages left to go and I kept telling myself I'd stop
after the next paragraph, or section break or chapter...and I
just couldn't.
The
other disadvantage, though, is that I've had no one to talk to
about this. Literally no one I can call up and say -- did you
see the part where...? This is so cool! And can you believe...?
I remember back when THE GREEN MILE was being published in monthly
installments. For me, that was one of the most exciting and vibrant
times to be a King fan because everyone everywhere was on the
same page at the same time. No one could read ahead to spoil the
story for everyone else. The newsgroups and other on-line forums
were full of excited readers who grabbed the next installment
the minute it came out. We all played the on-line trivia contests
at the Penguin web site and speculated about what certain things
meant and what would happen in the next installment. The same
thing has been going on with the Dark Tower books, just on a much
longer scale. Everyone's been speculating about Susannah's pregnancy,
who's going to make it to the end, and what's Father Callahan
going to do in the series. I look forward to the time when other
readers catch up with me so I can join in these discussions. Lately
I find I've been holding back a little because I don't want to
accidentally let anything slip, and when I do join in I take extra
precautions to make sure that my contributions are based on knowledge
of the series up to and including the published books and nothing
beyond. It'll be a relief to be able to talk freely about this
with everyone else!
4.
Are you just a Tower Junkie, or are you a Stephen King fan in
general?
I
loved THE GUNSLINGER from the beginning. Part of the thrill was
getting to read a book few other people knew about or had read
at the time (1984). But I loved the dark, existential mood of
that first book. I've been caught up in the story as it has unwound
over the years but I haven't been one of the impatient ones chafing
for the next installment. I've taken them as they come and been
glad to get them. I didn't send letters demanding the next installment
and it would never have occurred to me to ask when the next book
was coming out when I first met him at a signing in Houston in
1988.
Now
that I have the entire series bouncing around inside my head after
six months of working with the books intensively, I'm a serious
junkie. I can spout trivia from the series at the drop of a hat.
Tiny details no person should have at the forefront of their mind!
The series' amazing scope has captured me.
But
I've been reading King since 1979 and have read everything he's
published. Only a couple of his books have disappointed me. I've
often said that if he decided to write romance novels I'd probably
still read him because, at the core, his books are about characters.
He is unchallenged at creating people readers fall in love with.
How else can you explain reader reaction when something bad happens
to a character? I remember reading THE STAND in 1979. When I reached
the section where the group of four is heading west and Stu falls
and King writes something like "None of them ever saw Stu
Redman again" I was distraught. Angry, but sad. When a major
character dies in BLACK HOUSE, I was equally disturbed. These
are just words on the page...but they take on lives beyond mere
ink. There's a real power in the ability to do that and it's something
I aspire to in my own fiction.
5.
What other King books do you like?
A
lot of people play the top-10 game but I have a hard time doing
that. It's easier for me to point out the books that I don't particularly
like. I was okay with the beginning of THE TOMMYKNOCKERS. I was
interested in Bobbi and Gard, but when the book went off on a
tangent and abandoned them for hundreds and hundreds of pages,
I got impatient. I wanted to get back to Bobbi and Gard. I read
pages like you do some mundane, mindless chore -- a necessity,
something you had to get through to get to the good stuff. For
that reason I'm not very fond of that book. With NEEDFUL THINGS,
I never found my character, the one I connect with and root for.
Pangborn, obviously, is the hero of the piece, but I didn't connect
with him and everyone else in the book turns into such selfish
little piggies, despicable, the whole lot of them. So, again,
not my favorite book.
I'll
always have a fond place in my heart for SALEM'S LOT, because
it was my first. I also strongly connected with BAG OF BONES for
some reason. It's a great book to listen to on audio because the
combination of the first-person narrative and King's voice makes
it seem like a personal campfire story. GERALD'S GAME gets rough
treatment from a lot of readers, but I think it is a real accomplishment.
When I first read it, I thought it was fine. When I read it again
a few years later, the perception and depth of character, the
awareness of what Jessie's mind was like constantly and how that
would run amok in her situation, that just blew me away.
6.
What other authors do you like?
My
tastes are diverse! Though people associate me with King and thus,
by extension, horror, I'd say that most of my reading tends to
be in the crime/mystery/suspense genre. Some books I read because
the authors are gifted storytellers even if they aren't particularly
artful writers. Clive Cussler, for example, writes some torturous
prose, but his novels are roller coaster rides that I always enjoy.
John Grisham can usually sweep me away for a day or two, though
his characters have little more depth than the pages they're written
on. Michael Crichton -- I always learn something from his books,
though I also don't rate him highly as a writer.
I've
read and enjoyed all of Peter Straub's books. Peter introduced
me to a British writer named Graham Joyce who I absolutely love.
He writes dark fantasy books where the line between what's real
and what's supernatural wavers back and forth. You can read most
of his books as supernatural and read them again with a completely
alternate interpretation of events that doesn't require anything
supernatural. THE TOOTH FAIRY, REQUIEM and DARK SISTER are award-winning
novels that don't get much play on this side of the Atlantic,
but you can't go wrong with any of his books. I'm hoping to do
a chapter on him for DISCOVERING MODERN HORROR III.
I
also liked Douglas Clegg's THE HOUR BEFORE DARK and Robert McCammon's
BOY'S LIFE and SPEAKS THE NIGHTBIRD a lot. I've read all of Dan
Simmons' books in every genre he's published and anxiously await
his upcoming science fiction reworking of THE ILIAD.
In
the crime fiction field, I read Robert B. Parker, Jonathan Kellerman,
Dennis Lehane, Laurence Block, Scottish writer Ian Rankin, Michael
Connelly, Spanish writer Arturo Perez-Reverte and David Lindsey.
Ed McBain, Elmore Leonard, Martin Cruz Smith, George Pelecanos,
PD James, James Lee Burke, Tony Hillerman -- the list goes on.
Take a look at my web site for the reviews I've written for the
Conroe Courier and you'll get an idea of what I've read recently,
though I read a lot more than I review.
I
met Michael Slade at a World Horror Convention a few years ago
and we've become good friends in the interim. So much so that
I'm a celebrity victim in his newest novel, BED OF NAILS. He writes
psycho-thrillers that would appeal to any Hannibal Lecter fan.
Non-supernatural horror and some of the sickest villains ever
to grace the page.
I
like some fairly obscure writers. Haruki Murakami is Japan's Stephen
King, they like to say. THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLES is a great,
strange, eerie and disturbing novel. I've read all of Umberto
Eco's novels from THE NAME OF THE ROSE to his most recent BAUDOLINO.
He's a deep and playful thinker and I wish I could read him in
the original Italian. Jonathan Carroll -- a hard to classify author.
THE WOODEN SEA is amazing.
My
wife signed me up for a World Literature course at the local community
college last year. It was a birthday gift, which sounds unorthodox,
but it is a testament to her understanding of and support for
my writing career. Everything is based on the classics in one
way or another and I was delighted to finally get the chance to
read THE ILIAD and THE ODYSSEY and BEOWULF and THE CANTERBURY
TALES, things like that which I believe everyone should be conversant
with because all of a sudden you see how they permeate everything
else you read. Roland takes Nort's body down after he's crucified
in Tull. It's a sign of respect for the dead body that has its
roots in Odysseus, who went many miles out of his way to bury
the body of one of his crewmen who fell to his death in THE ODYSSEY.
They don't assign these books in school purely out of cruelty!
I
also like to find a more modern classic to take with me when I
travel for a change of pace. Hemingway, Faulkner, the writers
whose names you'll also know from high school English. What is
it about them that made them classics? Sometimes I find things
in them I like, sometimes I'll admit to being unimpressed. Faulkner,
for example, left me shaking my head. I have a book of two of
Joseph Conrad's novellas for my next trip. One of them is HEART
OF DARKNESS, which was inspiration for APOCALYPSE NOW. Kurtz in
DREAMCATCHER is a nod to Conrad, and there's a line in THE GUNSLINGER
that echoes a line from HEART OF DARKNESS. "Mistah Norton,
he dead." Again, the influence of classics. If you read Dan
Simmons, you'll appreciate his books a lot more if you have at
least a passing knowledge of T.S. Eliot or John Keats.
7.
Which of your published works would you recommend to a die-hard
King fan like myself?
You
can read "Harming Obsession" at The Harrow's web site,
linked through mine. Its a creepy little Halloween story.
A lot of people have written me about that one and it's been republished
twice, once in Cemetery Dance magazine. I've been pleased with
the response to "Ever Had One of those Weeks?" by the
few people who've read it so far. It will be in this fall's BORDERLANDS
5, an anthology I'm thrilled to be part of, since it also includes
stories by folks like Stephen King, Whitley Strieber, John Farris,
and David Schow. It's a Twilight-Zone-esque story. See www.borderlandspress.com
for information and the table of contents.
One
of my personal favorites is called "Something in Store,"
which will be in SHIVERS 2 from Cemetery Dance Publications later
this summer. There are also links to a couple of my dark suspense
stories on my web site. I think King fans might like "Dig
In," or "Answer Me." It's hard to be objective.
They're all precious to me for various reasons. I have a story
coming out in All Hallows next summer that is a rather personal
piece. It's a quiet ghost story of the M.R. James sort called
"Unknown Soldier" and it arose from a trip to Hong Kong
where I made a side journey to a memorial wall that has my uncle's
name on it. He was killed in Hong Kong in World War II and my
trip there made me ask myself why Canadian forces were in Hong
Kong before Pearl Harbour.
8.
Do you think Stephen King has achieved his original goal of writing
an epic masterpiece?
Without
hesitation...yes! What more can I say about that? Well -- a whole
book's worth! THE ROAD TO THE DARK TOWER -- NAL, November 2004!
9.
Which book do you think is the best?
I
have a fondness for THE GUNSLINGER, even though it was a stumbling
block for a lot of readers and may have turned some people away
from the series. The best book, though, hands down, is THE DARK
TOWER. It's where everything comes together, all debts are paid,
all deals are closed, all disparate threads weave together to
make the complete fabric that is the Dark Tower series.
In
closing, Id like to invite your readers to come by my web
site (www.BevVincent.com) and visit the message board, where Im
keeping a weblog of whats going on as the book progresses
along the road to publication. Im discovering that writing
a book is only half the process and what happens in the next months
is terra incognita for me. Interesting times ahead, indeed.
I
also have a thread of current King publications, as well as my
own. Check it out!