In this third installment of the Rabid Squirrel Interro-views of online reviewers and bloggers, I turned to Mihir Wanchoo, who is part of the dastardly cabal that runs the popular SF/F review site Fantasy Book Critic (I kid; I've known most of their team for years now and have a great deal of respect for each of them). Hopefully, this interview will be of as much interest to readers here as were the first two installments.
Fantasy Book Critic is one of the few
SF/F-related group blogs that aren't operated by publishers. How did you
come to join the team there?
We are mighty proud of
the fact that we don’t accept any money from anyone or advertise anything on
the blog. Fantasy Book Critic is run entirely as a passion project started by
Robert Thompson and backed by a team of contributors (Liviu, Cindy, Sabine,
Casey, Lydia and me). As to me joining the team, I think it was serendipity.
Back in the early 2001-02 was when I started getting into fantasy after
discovering Winter Warriors by David Gemmell. Previous to that I was primarily
a mystery/thriller reader. At that time
in India, it was very hard to find SF &F books so I slowly went about
finding rest of DG, Tolkien, Jordan, Eddings, Brooks, etc. A few years later I
discovered fantasy blogs like FBC, Pat’s Hotlist, and Graeme’s Fantasy review
among others. These blogs were my only way of getting to know about upcoming
fantasy books as at that time I was still living in India and barring a couple
of places (who had limited titles) there were still no major bookstores that
carried any SF/ fantasy titles (This has changed vastly now).
After regularly following FBC’s posts, I started interacting with Robert
Thompson and I would like to think I became a friend of his. I was also
interested in interviewing authors and so when I got an opportunity to
interview one of my favorite authors Sarah Ash. I requested Robert if he would
be interested in posting Sarah’s interview and he replied in kind.
After that Liviu and Robert asked if I would want to be a part of the FBC
team and I’ve counted that day as one of my luckiest ones J
How does the FBC team divvy up books for
review? Is there constant communication
between the team members?
That’s very simple we stick
to “Rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock” on skype and that
usually helps settle all email inquiries. The not-so-fun part is when Liviu gets
into his Clint Eastwood mode and keeps calling us punks ;)
Jokes aside, we usually divvy all email queries within our group and
since we kinda know what interests each person. It becomes easier plus when
interests overlap we have 2 people co-reviewing it. This isn’t a perfect method
but sure beats the alternative of Rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock.
So who
gets “lucky” and covers vanity-press offerings?
Or is that something that is agreed never to be discussed?
That
falls under the latter part but we always like to give all books/authors a chance
and so if the blurb or excerpt excites any of us, we give it a shot (no matter
the route of publication)
FBC covers
primarily SF/F. Do the books you read/review there correlate to the books
you read outside of FBC?
The primary focus for Fantasy
Book Critic has always been Sci-Fi and Fantasy however from time to time; we
have also focused on thrillers, historical fiction, urban fantasy and horror.Usually
the books I review on the blog are the books I want to read in various genres
such as fantasy, UF, SF and thriller/mystery.
That being said while I still read thrillers and mystery titles, Ihaven’t
reviewed much of them on FBC as with my previous reviews, we used to get a rash
of comments saying that this is a SFF blog and the readers would like us to
focus more on that. So with that in mind I still read thrillers but I don’t
review most of them. Lastly I also enjoy urban fantasy and in this regard I
think Bastard and I are the only male bloggers who enjoy this field IMO. So I
always make it a point to review or keep with UF books on both the blogs (FBC
and Bastard books).
So
pretty much you split what you review between two different blogs? Does this affect the way that you approach
writing a review for each site?
Oh
yes, with FBC, there’s a pattern to the reviews. With Bastard Books, it’s more
informal. Overall though the review matter doesn’t change one bit just the way
it is showcased. That and I’ve call Bastard my overlord all the time!
Bastard
overlord, huh? What if there were a pack
of chittering rabid squirrels that demanded that you review more
squirrel-friendly literature? Would you
cave in or would you stick to your (reviewing) guns and cover only what
interests you?
MW:
One can never say no to anything
that has the adjective rabid to it ;) but honestly I often try to expand on my
reading habits. Time though is the biggest factor that determines which books I
read and review. So to be fair if you have any recommendations for me I’ll be
glad to take them on with the caveat that maybe we could also see a more recent
fantasy/sff book on the OF blog.
Fair enough. If FBC will consider reviewing some of the shortlisted titles for either the National Book Award or the Man Booker Prize, I'll endeavor to review a few more recent SF/F books here.
I see that
you are active on Twitter. How has Twitter impacted what you cover on FBC
or what you read in your spare time?
I’ve
been handling the FBC twitter handle since the last year. Twitter has been fun
as I’ve gotten to interact with a lot of cool folks (both authors and bloggers).
The best of it has been that I’ve discovered a lot of new and upcoming authors
whom I wouldn’t have necessarily gotten to know about quite so early.
The not-so-good
part is trying to stay out of twitter arguments and similar ilk.
What are
some of those “twitter arguments” that you wish could be laid to rest, perhaps
with a stake through the heart?
Oh
I don’t think most of them are ever going to go away. But the one perception
that I wish to change is that UF and PNR are pretty much the same thing. Not
all UF books are the usual trope-laden stuff. For example Myke Cole’s Shadow
Ops series is a fantastic example of an urban fantasy series that basically
stretches the imagination of its readers as well as the magical boundaries of
the world.
I would urge SFF
readers not to shrug and roll their eyes at this fab sub-genre which is slowly
finding its feet. There are so many
good and different UF series out there that I implore all naysayers to give
those hidden gems from Ilona Andrews, John Connolly, Tim Marquitz, B. Justin
Shier, Kari A. Stewart and many, many more. Hell, just bug me on Goodreads and I’ll be more than happy to point all the
titles out.
But I’m
one of those philistines who refuses to use Goodreads out of general
principle! You’ve mentioned urban
fantasies a few times now. As someone
who is not very familiar with it, what are some of its characteristics?
Ah
that’s a very touchy subject. Most detractors would gladly point to the covers
featuring females in various awkward poses and leather pants/tight pants. Then
there’s the sassy/tough female protagonist who might have parent issues and
needs to find love with a big, bad misunderstood dude. Lastly there’s the
smoldering love looks that occur with them in vicinity of each other. All this
is true of all PNR and some UF books. But this trope is the same as the earlier
fantasy books that had the same pseudo-tolkien outlook and very derivations of
the same LOTR themes.
In the past few years, there have been a few
UF books that are different and are willing to pave newer roads in this
sub-genre. There’s Ilona Andrews who explore a fascinating culture of the
were-humans in a post-apocalyptic world as seen through the eyes of a mercenary
anti-hero with a sharp sword and a laconic wit. Then there’s Myke Cole who’s
rather ambiguiously exploring how the world and governments would react to the
presence of magic in his Shadow Ops series. There’s John Connolly who in his
Charlie Parker series tries to connect human suffering, choices and actions
with the supernatural world in a very sublime way and with absolutely stunning
prose. There are so many more examples which I don’t wish to bore you with by
enumerating them all.
Lastly philistine
or not, Goodreads would be fun for you Larry. There are all sorts of folks and
with that comes all sorts of drama and flame wars. They might not be of the
intellectual sort but every once in a while you do come across like-minded
folks and book suggestions that might surprise you.
Perhaps, but I really don't have the time for even considering that right now. Plus I have a history of wanting to have fewer "voices" influencing me, but that's another time/place discussion, as I'm not being interviewed here! Moving on...
Frequently
there are discussions online, both on blogs and on Twitter, regarding "the
state of genre." What is your first (and maybe second) reaction to
that term, "the state of genre?"
That’s a very interesting
term “state of genre”. If you listen to different people, you’ll get different
definitions of what it means. My first reaction is honestly that there’s no
exact definition to it. Are we talking about the slow movement away from the
pseudo-European world setting (the sooner this occurs, the better) or the
advent of grimdark fantasy and the slightly nonsensical backlash against it?
I can’t say what my second reaction is
because I am still a bit confused as to what my first reaction is. I honestly
think that the fantasy field is an evolving one, in the 90s and the early 2000s
we saw the advent of long-winded series. From the latter half of the first
decade there has also been a rise in morally ambivalent fantasy and characters.
So I would think the state of the genre is definitely heading in interesting
directions. What I want to see more of: World settings (focussing on
non-European history/civilizations, fat protagonists and possibly a
series/trilogy where the apocalypse isn’t prevented and the world actually ends
(I know J. Fallon has done something similar in one of her series, but there’s
a caveat to it).
I believe “state of genre” as a term is a
very fluid concept and it’ll be interesting to hear what others think of it
though.
You said earlier that you grew up in
India. How available were Anglo-American
SF/F in India during your youth? Also,
how different would “state of genre” be if we weren’t implicitly talking about
Anglo-American SF/F but instead how this literary genre is viewed in other
parts of the world?
Aah
my youth was spent looking for books to read but back in the 90s decade as well
as the earlier half of 2000s, SFF books were very hard to find. In Bombay/Mumbai
we had this are called Fort wherein along a long road, there were lots of
roadside vendors/hawkers who used to sell SF, fantasy, mystery, thrillers and
loads of other stuff. I often found lots of new books over there and not in the
stores like (The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker, Most of Terry
Brooks’ and David Gemmell’s bibliography among others.)
However after 2006, there have been newer
bookstores coming up that catered a lot of the SFF books that weren’t available
earlier. I would like to hope that currently there’s definitely more if not
less of the same.
When you think of State Of Genre and look
it up from the desi viewpoint, it’s
hard to find any similarities as it’s fairly European based. I had written a
short post about Indian
Speculative fiction and how our rich cultural heritage could often be viewed
as SFF from a non-religious point of view. We have had very few fantasy stories
wherein the culture mined is not a European one or a facsimile of it. Some
examples that come to mind are Martha Wells’ Wheel of the Infinite, Kate Elliott’s Crossroads trilogy (not entirely
Indian but has some small ties to a south Asian outlook), Robert Jordan’s WOT
which had its core belief of time being a wheel and various cycles that
followed, sounded awfully similar to some of the stuff in Hindu and Buddhist
scripture.
But overall there’s
almost next to nothing that connects to us desi readers based on our historical and mythological background. Of course
there have been a few authors like Amish Tripathi, Krishna
Udayasankar and Samit Basu who have made their work know to audiences away from the Indian
subcontinent but I believe we are yet struggling to compete with Anglo-American
SF/F from a SFF writer point.
You
bring up authors like Jordan’s mammoth WoT series that utilize elements of
Hindu mythology? How do you feel about
this adaptation of Indian stories/beliefs to suit a Western audience?
While I
enjoyed that bit and the start of the WOT series. I honestly can’t call myself
a fan, I gave up on it after book 7 when the plot still wasn’t escalating much
and the braid-tugging was going on at full steam. I enjoyed RJ’s scope and
vision for the series and how he incorporated several different aspects of
various cultures and religions (The age cycle, Arthurian mythos, etc) to make up
his world that basically launched the EPIC back into the epic fantasy genre. It
also heralded the dawn of long winded series and inspired many more writers (I
believe GRRM acknowledges this and had a couple of nods to RJ and his series in
his books).
But honestly
that was a very small nod to Desi mythology; a recent and more pronounced
acknowledgement was to be found in Mage’s Blood the first book of the MoonTide
quartet by David Hair. The book is about
a clash of civilizations in this case literally the East versus the West. The
author has quite interestingly portrayed a land which is a facsimile of the
Indian subcontinent and has modelled it quite sharply down to the narrow
details such as festivals, Gods, swear-words, etc. (The swear word bit was a
bit amusing to read as the author quite smartly captured the Indian swearwords
and kept them to the same biting context).
Obviously I
would love for authors to explore more of the Indian culture, history and
mythology and Max Gladstone has also written a fascinating post about the ignorance of the Western world with the
world’s longest epic The Mahabharata which is also
my favorite story of all. Also I would have given my left kidney to see David
Gemmell write about Shivaji Maharaj, the founder of the
Maratha Empire and a heroic figure who is perhaps worthy of an equal status
among the nine worthies such as Hector, Charlemagne, etc.