Author Interview with the legendary Guy T. Martland @guytmartland
How Many Published, Professional Authors do we have at Steemit?
See if you recognize this guy:
His debut novel ‘The Scion’
was published by Safkhet Fantasy in 2015. Guy had just finished Book Two, “Line of the Dead,” when Safkhet closed their doors. Now Book Three is nearly finished. Another novel, “Machine Songs,” is in an agent’s hands.
"Machine Songs"is fantastic,
but I cannot even begin to do justice to the story in 25 or 50 words or less. It's tremendous. There's a steampunk vibe, a Harry Potter vibe with an orphan whose extraordinary talents have been hidden since he was born--and two spinster aunts who take Jocard in at the outset of the novel--and they are soooo much better than Harry Potter's guardians; there's an "Ender's Game" tech vibe when this orphan, exiled to a new country, encounters technology for the first time; and there are alien invaders who've vanquished Earth and turned it into a pasture to feed the behemoth alien cattle herds which in turn feed the masters of the Beast Herders from Outer Space...
What an epic movie it would (will) make!
Here are links to just a few of his Steemit posts:
An author’s battle with social media
Time Out at the Café Metropole
But wait - he left Steemit
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Aha! You can still find him at Twitter
Science Fiction Writer, Violinist and Pathologist. But not necessarily in that order. | Sandbourne | guytmartland.co.uk
Follow that link - guytmartland.co.uk - for more links to his published works, links to stories you can read for free, and an on-going series of short stories narrated by The Cat. This endearing and thought-provoking #caturday series first took form right here at Steemit as The Gift.
How did the awesome Caturday series
slip through Steemit's nets? Well, that's a story someone else could tell. All I'm gonna say is that my interview with Guy, two years ago, fell through the cracks as well. So here is a bit of a recap on that.
As an ardent fan of the lurid imagination,
richly drawn characters, riveting adventures, and rarefied storytelling of Guy T. Martland, I already had a few years’ emails to cull when it came time to deliver an Author Interview on our Number One Contributor to the Science Fiction anthology (which, sad to say, never came to pass).
Taking my cue from Inna's Conversations with Authors - Yahia Lababidi, I thought I should start with a fresh question:
What do you want the general public to know about @GuyTMartland, author?
Guy:
Um...
Not much?
I'd prefer they read my stuff!
END OF INTERVIEW!
{{{ Just kidding }}}
By day, he’s a hospital pathologist.
On weekends, he might travel to art galleries and rock concerts, visit his father (a retired veterinarian) on the Scilly Islands, or play a 200-year old violin in his local orchestra.
At night, he writes.
Pay no attention to the cat behind the curtain, a handsome Scottish Fold pedigree who claims the stories as his own. This cat calls his Chewbecca-the-Wookie-sized “Slave” a literary thief. Saturday has become "Caturday" as readers await the next installment of a story that first started to evolve at Steemit. Fans are as eager for the next picture as they are for the next story, thanks to Guy's extremely photogenic cat [who will not be named here].
A growing cast of characters includes this little black Scottish Fold:
LONG BEFORE "THE CAT'S" appearance on planet Earth,
Guy was writing and publishing short stories:
Guy T Martland has been writing Science Fiction since he was a teenager. The flow of adolescent words was interrupted by a medical degree at Trinity College, Cambridge. He subsequently qualified and then became a pathologist, because he had a thing about cells and microscopes.
Guy’s stories have been published in various places, including Perihelion, Noesis, Xenos, Lexikon, Jupiter SF, Bento Box and Albedo 2.0. He is an alumnus of the Milford SF course. He has also occasionally been known to publish poetry.
... He can sometimes be seen riding around Bournemouth and Poole dressed in unfashionable fluorescent clothing on an extremely large bicycle, which has been likened to a gate. On Friday evenings he usually scrapes away at a 19th century fiddle with a local orchestra, before going to the pub to sink a few pints of Boondoggle. His collection of vinyl records is extensive, and he has a Cure T-shirt for every day of the fortnight.
Guy shares one of his Cambridge photos:
photo by Guy + Note the 'Please Keep Off The Grass' notice. These were always being nicked.
Guy tends to wince and cringe
when I call attention to this Ivy League stuff, but for me, it's too cool to ignore.
TRINITY COLLEGE was founded by Henry VIII in 1546, with lots of buildings from the 16th and 17th centuries still standing alongside modern bicycle racks. Guy's daily world also includes Dr. Who portals, the quintessential British police boxes.
As if that isn't enough historic scenery to feed a writer's imagination, Guy lives in Bournemouth, a stone’s throw from where Robert Louis Stevenson wrote “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.”
Now, for the Exclusive-to-Steemit Interview...
Me:
Guy, you must allow me to share one of your DMs about who crossed paths with you at Cambridge. Professor Stephen Hawking, back in the day, was "always charging around" campus, you wrote.
Guy:
I was outside a pub called The Mill in Cambridge.
He was coming up the path from somewhere or other.
And I literally had to jump or he'd have hit me.
(Accused of "fangirling" over the fab Brit, Carol digs in her German heels, fiercely dragging more "bragging" stories out of Guy*)
Guy:
Cambridge really is like a book of crazy characters all thrown into a cauldron.
As a writer you just take your pick.
Trinity College. The biggest.
You studied under Andrew Huxley (that family), who invented nerves. And a medic in the year below was called Olly Darwin (that family).
If I was to say stuff like this here in England, it would annoy people... “I'd be 'showing off' or something.
Me:
I'm not in England. Go on!
Guy:
One of the benefits of having a Cambridge education was meeting people outside medicine.
Such as Sophie Hannah, who ran a writing group which provided a great impetus at an early age...
Blah blah.
I am usually mentioned at the front of her novels.
For providing a useful medical nugget.
So - the Odyssey thing. Age five? Really?
Guy:
My mother did indeed give me a copy to read when I was 5. I remember enjoying it and even crying when Odysseus returns home and doesn't recognise his faithful hound, Argos - that was a real heart wrench!
Me (frozen in silent, stoic anguish for Argos)
Guy:
The copy I read was a regular English translation, not a kid's version (it wasn't in ancient Greek though!) Not wanting to boast, but I think I also read Brideshead Revisited that year, although didn't quite get the differences between Protestants and Catholics at the time. Although I like the bit about Sebastian spanking his teddy bear Aloysius! Maybe I was a bit precocious... I also read tons of Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl and Arthur Ransome though!
Me:
Not enough of you Martlands were produced.
Guy:
A sad fact. Although there are a few Martlands in the US. I told you about Harrison Martland...first to diagnose the Radium Girls (1). And who also came up with the term 'punch drunk' (2).
Me:
That reminds me of your response when I first mentioned you were nominated for a Curie.
Guy:
... to be 'curied' sounds interesting. As long as it doesn't involve anything radioactive.
I envision Marie in her garden and her greenhouse which glowed in the dark.
Me:
Your reaction to the @OCD nomination was also entertaining.
Congratulations on being nominated by @OCD, Operation Curation Delegation!
Guy:
I wasn't sure what this was all about! What does it mean?
Nominate?
What could I possibly win?
A car?
A spaceship?
A planet of my own?
A whole galaxy?
(OK, I'm getting carried away now...)
Back to "The Scion," that epic, that haunting novel.
The annoying poet, Drangus, for one...
Guy:
He came to me from Gormenghast ...
OMG
You haven't read it?
Stop everything you are doing, right now.
And start Titus Groan....
Gormenghast may change your life forever. (3)
:wink:
Seriously...
Almost everyone I've met who read them has said they were changed a bit by the experience...
Titus Groan is the first
I read it when I was 16.
I am still staggered by its scope, and dark beauty.
When I started writing The Scion, I wanted to try and write a gothic version of a space opera.
Much as Titus was a gothic fantasy novel
Those books will haunt me until my dying days...
Me:
I'm haunted by the Scion. Especially the art show Sep attends, and the glass house.
(We cannot discuss this scene however desperately I want to, due to spoilers)
Guy:
When you finish writing a book, it is sometimes hard to detach yourself and think about it objectively. So that other people like yourself are having fun with it is just great. As you know, this book was originally meant to come out last year for Safkhet, so finally finishing it was a bit of a mental struggle.
I was planning on working on something else now, but I feel I've been bitten by the trilogy bug!
As George R. R. Martin once said, to paraphrase, he wasn't sure he'd ever get another book published, but he sure as hell was going to write another one.
He Lives in a Literary Landscape
Me:
Digging out some old quotes from our emails of 2016
Guy (June 2016):
Currently having a lot of fun with The Scion 2. Title: The Line of The Dead. It seems that metamorphosis is a general theme in the book. A lot to draw on there from the classics! And I even added some Arkenthrians with their cool tails. Just for my favourite reviewer!
As they removed their masks, Huwred stared in disbelief. The three pirates were humanoid in shape, but there was a difference ...... hypertelorism which was characteristic of the species. Like the form Huwred had taken, these beings were also Arkenthrian.
Me:
.... Off to look up hypertelorism - ah, an abnormally large distance between the eyes.
Later, in 2017, Guy sends me the ARC of "Line of the Dead," which has an opening scene as lurid and horrific as the opening of "The Scion"
Guy:
Hope you got all the Greek refs. Obviously metamorphosis plays a big part... a few slightly more obtuse ones: the statues at the end are meant to be akin to Daedalus using quicksilver to enable statues talking; the Aracha's subspace web is meant to represent the weaving contest of Arachne. There are others... (4)
Writing is a solitary practice
but sometimes, a week with fellow writers is a good way to recharge.
Every year a small group of published writers of speculative fiction get together for a week-long residence in Milford. I've stalked them--followed them!--at Twitter and read their short stories whenever I can find them.
Back to 2018
Me:
All the art and music references in your fiction make me wonder if you minored in art in college.
Guy:
I am a Culture Vulture, basically..
I consume all art, as if it were food.
For me, books and music ARE as essential as food.
I can't live without them.
But that appetite can also be satisfied by films and art.
Anywhere I go on holiday, I'll find the art gallery.
GemmGakk’s Glass House in "The Scion"
Greatest Scene in any Horror Story, ever! Sorry, I have to ask, at the very least,
if your work as a hospital pathologist got to you?
Guy:
It came from work... just...
I was looking at some mega slides.
Big slides of whole organs...A whole tray of them
And then I imagined a window from it, and then a house
….Sitting at a microscope for 10+ hours a day kind of has that effect.
Me:
Sounds like a grueling job for an Ivy League literati, the kind most readers would dismiss as pompous and arrogant for having read Homer at age five.
Guy:
Pathologists are rarely arrogant.
We leave that kind of behaviour to surgeons. :wink:
Gothic Space Opera!
Do you purposely write Horror, or do you intend the genre to be Science Fiction?
Guy:
I have written horror before. But not recently.
Everything these days tends to morph into science fiction.
I tried to write an M R James style short story a few years ago. But then spacecraft kept appearing.
That was the story that became The Leather Bracelet...
...(Now listening to Rammstein!)
And so ends another interview session via Discord,
late nights in UK, afternoons for me. We pick start again the next day.
Me:
Rammstein. You're a heavy metal fan--were you also a Suzuki prodigy?
Guy:
Music training - no Suzuki.
I just had a few good teachers.
And I put the hours in.
Ended up getting a music scholarship to a school.
We don't call it college...
School, then university.
I got a music scholarship aged 13 to Sherborne School for Boys
So as a music scholar, it was expected of me to do lots of music, be in the school choir, lead orchestras etc.
I almost went down that route.
But the rational, scientific part of me decided my course...
Not without moments of regret, however.
Me:
Sep (In "The Scion") conveys that, doesn't he? The young, idealistic Sep, mixing music, listening to old vinyls...
I'm pillaging Guy's Twitter page again
Septimus, the hapless young musician, finds his grandfather's antique vinyl records from 20thC planet Earth.
4 Jan 2016
Guy:
And about the harmonics!
The idea was that they form a pattern which shatters the auriculathe apparatus of the Wraith….
I have been obsessed with the idea of a piece of music or series of tones being able to kill someone
ever since I heard of a musician who had died while playing the piano ...
I imagined that she’d hit a certain pattern of notes which had a fatal effect.
Kate Bush also wrote about music which could kill in her song Experiment IV. I extrapolated this and made it a weapon which could kill aliens rather than humans - maybe a bit of a flight of fancy! And this weapon was of course hidden in the DNA of (spoiler deleted).
Got a bit distracted writing another novel, which is now finished. Machine Songs. Finally. It is a bit of a whopper - rolls in at 641 pages!
I’m returning to The Scion’s sequel all guns blazing…
Me:
Your knowledge of art and music comes through in your fiction.
Eserhazy's Cadence is brilliant. Er, "The Esterhazy Cadence," as it were, because Sam Bellotto purges "The" from Perihelion titles. And this idea of a fatal composition...it's as phenomenal as the harmonics as weaponry in "The Scion."
Guy:
Glad you liked Esterhazy's Cadence.
That story took some time coming.
And Sam made me edit it a bit…
In fact I added an entire scene, where they visit the Musician's Guild.
But I trusted Sam, because he knew the genre in and out.
Being Edited....
We will save that discussion for another day.
Guy:
Right, I must be off.
Au revoir...
No, that doesn't quite work: au rediscord?
Auf Wiederdiscorden.
Thank you, Guy, for popping in, and thanks be to The Cat!
Congratulations! One of your previous entry last month to the #dailypetphotography was selected for the Month of Sep contest. The monthly contest closes on 8th. Hurry up and come and vote for your favourite three pets of the month at the following post!!
https://steemit.com/dailypetphotography/@dpet/en-dailypetphotography-monthly-election-or-sep-2019
Hello @carolkean, thank you for sharing this creative work! We just stopped by to say that you've been upvoted by the @creativecrypto magazine. The Creative Crypto is all about art on the blockchain and learning from creatives like you. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon. Steem on!
Thank you!