I don’t consciously model characters on real people very much. I’ve never been particularly comfortable working with characterizations that I haven’t created myself, which is why I’d probably be lousy at licensed fiction for established universes.

That said, there are traits that will tend to be attached to people who achieve certain types of success. So when you’re writing a character that’s following a particular path, you’ll find that those traits will tend to follow along with the traits you associate with personalities you’ve studied or envisioned.

I’m no historian. I don’t have a library of primary source documents and a half-finished thesis resting on my drive. I’m just a hobbyist, somebody who tends to read at least a couple of history books a month and loves learning new things about the past. So when I looked at Warpworld somewhere during the process of the rough draft for the second book in the series, (coming next Spring!), it was a historical comparison that came to mind for the male protagonist of the series. Segkel Eraranat, to me, is something of an Alexander figure. Not entirely — remember he wasn’t created for the parallel, Alexander is just who he reminded me of. Seg will never, in the entire series, get accused of being a military genius. He is, however, possessed of a burning ambition and, (most notably in the first book), sees absolutely no reason why his pursuit of this ambition should be impeded.

Therein lies another crucial difference between the two  — environment. One could never call Alexander’s home environment nurturing or gentle, to be certain. But it was an environment that supported his ambitions. Conquering the entirety of Persia? Hell yes, that’s the sport of kings! In the end what limited Alexander was the exhaustion of troops who’d been marched to the end of the known world with no promise of when, if ever, they’d be able to return to their own land.

On the other hand, Seg Eraranat’s People do not reward boundless ambition. Daring is appreciated, to a certain extent. But ultimately the People prioritize the survival of their society above all other things, exacerbated by the fact that the imminent threat to their survival is directly assaulting them daily. The Storm directs the World far more than any individual or group could ever dream of doing, and every action the People take is done with one eye cast back at the lurking doom awaiting them.

Warpworld touches on that conflict. It lays the foundation for a broader examination of how dynamic individuals act or fail in such circumstances and, as the series goes on, becomes an exploration of the meaning of freedom as well as morality in extremes.

Also there is romance and things blow up.

In short, it’s going to be a hell of a ride. Come for the book, stay for the series.

~ Josh

Don’t forget to keep following the National Reading Campaign and to encourage Canadians everywhere to read!

A career nomad, Josh Simpson has driven trucks through the lower forty-eight states, treated and and disposed of hazardous waste, mixed mud as a stonemasonry laborer, failed abysmally in marketing, got on people’s nerves as a safety man, and presently gets on their nerves even more using nerve release techniques in musculo-skeletal pain relief. He lives amidst the scrub and mesquite of West Texas, cohabiting with the requisite writer’s minimum of two cats. Warpworld is his first published novel.

Q: What are you reading right now?

A: John Campbell’s Lost Fleet: Victorious

Q: As a kid, why did you love reading?

A: There’s no simple answer for that. I grew up in a family that read extensively, and so it wasn’t as if reading was a novel activity that transported me away from the humdrum of life. It was simply something we did. My family consumed food, cigarettes, and books.

Q: Are there any books that changed your life?

A: Undoubtedly any number of the loads of books I read had influence, again we read so much that pointing to a few, singular works is difficult. However, there was one story I read when I was about six or seven that does stand out. I can’t remember the name of the story, but it was a book I’d fought to read because we had fairly strict age-restrictions in the elementary library and it was considered over my ‘reading level’ in the first grade. The story was the tale of astronauts on the moon, and at the end the ‘jerk’ character sacrificed himself to save the others. The characters were on the far side, away from their base, they had enough lift in their vehicle to save two of the three they had there, and they wouldn’t be able to come back and recover the third for a week, while they had 48 hour air supplies. So at the end of the story they come back and find out that rather than wait for his air to run out, he’d popped his suit and gone out on his own terms. This ending was very different and that’s why it stayed with me so long, because at that age the typical fare would have had the jerk be redeemed and become a nice guy, and there’s always a way to save everyone. This was my first exposure to a Cold Equations type of story where the reality is that people are lost along the way.

Q: Dog ear-er or non dog-ear-er?

A: Dog ear-er, for sure. I usually keep a nonfic in the bathroom and they typically have a dog-ear for every page or two.

Q: Your favourite fictional hero and/or villain?

A: Dirk Struan from Clavell’s Tai-Pan. Such a well-rendered character. As for favorite villain I’d pretty much have to go for Tyler Brock from same novel. The conflict between the two was deep and multi-faceted, strangely honorable yet utterly cutthroat.

Q: Anything else you want to say about reading?

A: Heinlein put it best – slightly less addictive than heroin, more expensive than weed.

Thanks Josh! (Now get back to work, we have a third draft to finish!)

If you’re a parent, how do you encourage your kids to read? If you’re a teacher, how do you keep reading fun? And how can we all make sure that future generations continue to experience the simple but profound joy of reading?

Hear what People for Education have to say on reading.

Today’s author, Michael F Stewart, introduced me to the National Reading Campaign and was one of many authors who offered me a very warm welcome when I was recently accepted as a member of SF Canada. Thanks Michael!

Michael F Stewart

After crewing ships in the Antarctic and the Baltic Sea and some fun in venture capital, Michael anchored himself (happily) to a marriage and a boatload of kids. Now he injects his adventurous spirit into his writing with brief respites for research into the jungles of Sumatra and Guatemala, the ruins of Egypt and Tik’al, paddling the Zambezi and diving whatever cave or ocean reef will have him. He is the author of 24 Bones, The Sand Dragon, Hurakan, Ruination and several award winning graphic novels for young adults.

Q: What are you reading right now?

A: The Dead of Winter by Lee Collins—A monster hunter / Western.

A: I lost myself in fantasy. Who wouldn’t want to be transported to Middle Earth rather than my dusty suburb?

Q: Are there any books that changed your life?

Books in general changed my life. I’m a writer

A: Dog ear-er. I’ve ruined so many iPads that way.

Villain: Hannibal.

A: Reading is a contract. I’ll suspend disbelief if the author agrees to take me on an adventure I could never otherwise go on. There’s no other medium like it. Nothing so immersive. Let’s ensure everyone has the chance to discover it.

Agreed! Come back tomorrow for one final mystery guest.

Our author Q&A series continues, in celebration of the National Reading Campaign. You probably won’t surprised to hear that reading is good for you but, for those who want proof, you might be interested in What Reading Does for the Mind by Anne E. Cunningham and Keith E. Stanovich.

Rita Moir is the author of four award winning (or close to) books of creative non-fiction and plain old non-fiction: Survival Gear; Buffalo Jump; The Windshift Line; and The Third Crop: A personal and historical journey into the shoeboxes and photo albums of the Slocan Valley, 1800s to early 1940s. She lives in Vallican in the Slocan Valley in rural BC.

Q: What are you reading right now?

A: Unrepentant: The Story of an Era by Gary Lee Wright and Corky Evans; The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny, WarpWorld by Kristene Perron and Joshua Simpson, and (aloud) The Taliban Cricket Club by Timeri N. Murari.

A: The gold stars pasted into our columns.

A: The Diviners and The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence; The Education of Everett Richardson: The Nova Scotia Fisherman’s Strike, 1970-71 by Silver Donald Cameron; The Glace Bay Miners’ Museum (Margaret’s Museum) by Sheldon Currie.

A: Non.

A: Fictional heroes: Morag Gunn (The Diviners) and Hagar Shipley (The Stone Angel).

Villain: Voldemort.

A: Somewhere we still get to be thoughtful or quiet, to dream or mull or rage or laugh out loud, admire craft and artistry, and use our own senses and brains.

Thanks Rita! Voldemort definitely makes my favourite villain list, too.

Tomorrow we wrap up this week-long reading lovefest with author Michael Stewart. In the meantime, don’t forget to pop tweet what you’re reading at #whatdidyoureadtoday

It’s not author Claude Lalumière’s birthday, but his thoughts on reading are worth celebrating, too.

Claude Lalumière (lostmyths.net/claude) was born in Montreal, where he spent most of his life, and now lives on the West Coast. Claude was a bookseller from 1986 to 1998; he sold his two bookstores to become a writer and editor. He has edited or co-edited twelve anthologies, including the Aurora Award finalist Tesseracts Twelve: New Novellas of Canadian Fantastic Fiction and the forthcoming Masked Mosaic: Canadian Super Stories, the latter co-edited with Camille Alexa. He’s the author of two books from CZP: the collection Objects of Worship and the mosaic novella The Door to Lost Pages. With Rupert Bottenberg, Claude is the co-creator of the multimedia cryptomythology project, Lost Myths (lostmyths.net).

Q: What are you reading right now?

A: Plumage from Pegasus, a collection of literary satires by Paul Di Filippo.

Q: As a kid, why did you love reading?

A: It showed me that there was more to the world and to life than the mundane tedium presented to me. It nurtured my inner life, making me live more in the world of the imagination than in the real world. Not always a good thing, that, but considering how boring and tedious life around me was at the time, it was a great thing to have reading provide that.

Q: Are there any books that changed your life?

A: That’s a pretty big thing, to claim that a specific something changed your life. My first impulse was to say no — but then the memories of various books harrumphed in the back of my mind … So, in no order whatsoever:

Unquenchable Fire, by Rachel Pollack. There’s something about that novel that simply won’t let go of my imagination. The semi-eponymous story of my debut collection (“The Object of Worship” in Objects of Worship) is in many ways a response to that novel.

Weird Heroes, edited by Byron Preiss. Billed as “new pulp” for the 1970s, the Weird Heroes series of paperbacks had a deep impact on my imagination. The first Weird Heroes volume is where I first encountered the lunacy of Philip José Farmer, who would go on to become a formative influence on my writing.

Lost Pages, by Paul Di Filippo. This collection contains one of my all-time favourite stories, the gleefully subversive “Campbell’s World” — but more importantly I “borrowed” the title of this book to name the bookshop that serves as the connecting thread in my second book, The Door to Lost Pages.

Interzone: The Second Anthology. In the 1980s and 1990s, the fiction from UK fantasy & SF magazine Interzone was featured in a series of anthologies. The first one I read was the second one; I eventually read, devoured, and loved all of them. Those were the days of David Pringle’s tenure as editor/publisher of the magazine. That was to my mind, the greatest run of any fiction magazine ever. When I started to write, Pringle was still editor/publisher (he has since retired), and my fondest wish was to be part of that conversation, to be an Interzone writer. My dream was fulfilled: my very first fiction sale went to Interzone in 2002. Pringle went on to publish two more of my stories in the span of one year, before ceding the reigns of the magazine.

This Immortal, by Roger Zelazny. It was the first book I read that made me realize that there was more to fiction than the story being told, that something ineffable beyond the plot could be conjured through some strange creative alchemy.

The World Inside, by Robert Silverberg. I’d strayed from reading in my late teens — for any given combination of reasons involving girls, music, parties, poverty — but then my girlfriend at the time took an SF course and was assigned three books to read. I read them, too. One of them was The World Inside, which hit me like a punch in the gut. I spent the next few years reading everything by Silverberg I could get my hands on, and thus internalized important lessons about structure, language, and storytelling.

The Terminal Beach, The Drowned World, Crash, The Complete Stories … four books by my favourite writer ever, J.G. Ballard. Why those four in particular? The Terminal Beach is the first of his collections that I read. The Drowned World and Crash are vastly different novels that each loom extremely large in my imagination as perfect pieces of art, as something to aspire to: The Drowned World for the depth of its evocative imagery, Crash for its unabashed bravura and unflinching courage. The Complete Stories because rereading all of Ballard’s stories in chronological order at a time when I was actively finding my way as a writer was an invaluable experience.

On a different day, I might come up with a different list. These are not necessarily my favourite books, though some of them are, but those that, because of some fortuitous synchronicity, had an impact that changed the course of my reading and/or writing in a significant way.

But I’m back to my original impulse of wanting to say no … because, rereading my answer, these books had a deep impact on my reading and writing life … but on my life in general? I want to say no … but then I remind myself that I have become a writer, and that my entire life as I know it has come to be because of the writing life. So, yes, those books, and so many others, irrevocably changed my life.

As an aside, interpreting your question in a slightly different way: the publication of my first book, Objects of Worship, changed my life more radically than I could ever have imagined. So that book definitely, more than any other, change my life.

Q: Dog-ear-er or non-dog-ear-er?

A: No! Emphatically, NO.

Q: Your favourite fictional hero and/or villain?

A: “Hero” is often used interchangeably with the more generic “protagonist” but I’m glad to see that you’re not doing that here, as you contrast it with “Villain.” Sticking to prose fiction, I’d say that Latro from Gene Wolfe’s Soldier series is my favourite hero. (In comics: the original Captain Marvel from the 1940s; in film, James Bond; on TV, John Drake; in animation, Bugs Bunny.)

Q: Anything else you want to say about reading?

A: I’m huge fan of short fiction. Anthologies and collections are my favourite types of books. Want to discover new writers? Read anthologies, and you’ll be introduced to a variety of voices. You probably won’t like all of them, but you’ll likely love several of them. You’ll discover new writers you might never know about otherwise, leading you down paths that might impact you in ways you could never otherwise imagine.

Today we welcome author Adrian Barnes, freshly returned from his book launch in the UK. (Do they dog-ear in London, I wonder?)

Adrian Barnes is the author of the novel NOD, published by BlueMoose Books. He is also a partner in Lone Sheep Publishing and teaches English and Creative Writing at Selkirk College in Castlegar, BC.

Q: What are you reading right now?

A: Longitude, by Dava Sorel–the true story of how a working class Yorkshireman discovered how to reliably calculate longitudinal positions for ships at sea in the 18th century. Also, Pig Iron by Benjamin Myers–a novel about a young ‘traveller’ or British gypsy and his struggles to escape his past. Just got back from England so it’s all Brit Lit right now…

A: My mom put me in the Dr. Seuss book of the month club and I felt important when the books got delivered! End of story.

Q: Are there any books that changed your life?

A: Rainer Rilke’s Selected Poetry as translated by Stephen Mitchell. Also The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts.

Q: Dog ear-er or non dog-ear-er?

A: Woof!

A: Holden Caulfield. Hamlet. Both are anti-heroes. I’m not big on villains…just don’t see life in that way.

Q: Anything else you want to say about reading?

Although ‘watching’ is now ascendant in society and I’m a movie lover myself, reading is far more important and far more beneficial to the brain and the soul. In the same way, just because we have cars, that doesn’t mean we don’t need to still go for regular hikes and runs! And when you’re old and grey will you remember the drive to the mall or the hikes and runs? Hmm…

Thanks Adrian! And that makes two authors whose love of reading was sparked by Dr. Seuss. Start with Seuss and…oh, the places you’ll go!

Tomorrow: Claude Lalumière

Today’s guest is author Angie Abdou.

Angie Abdou began writing fiction in 2000 and has since published three books. Anything Boys Can Do was praised by the Times Colonist (BC) for its original take on female sexuality. The Bone Cage, a novel about Olympic athletes, was the inaugural One Book, One Kootenay as well as a 2011 Canada Reads finalist and the 2012 MacEwan book of the year. It is taught in university Sport Literature courses across the continent and topped CBC’s list of “Top Ten Sports Books”.  Her newest novel, The Canterbury Trail (Brindle & Glass 2011), is a dark comedy specifically about mountain culture and more generally about community and our relationship with the environment. The Canterbury Trail was a finalist for the Banff Mountain Book of the Year. Angie was born and raised in Moosejaw SK. She currently lives in Fernie, BC and teaches full-time at College of the Rockies.

Thanks Angie! And, whew, at last a fellow dog-ear-er. I was beginning to feel guilty.

Tomorrow, more reading confessions from Adrian Barnes.

On that note, today’s reading confessional comes from author Douglas Smith.

Doug Smith

“Doug Smith is, quite simply, the finest short-story writer Canada has ever produced in the science fiction and fantasy genres, and he’s also the most prolific. His stories are a treasure trove of riches that will touch your heart while making you think.”

—Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of Hominids and FlashForward

Douglas Smith is an award-winning Canadian author of speculative fiction, with over a hundred short story publications in thirty countries and twenty-five languages.

His collections include Chimerascope (2010) and Impossibilia (2008), as well as the translated fantasy collection, La Danse des Esprits (France, 2011). His first novel, The Wolf at the End of the World, will be released in 2013.

Doug has twice won Canada’s Aurora Award, and has been a finalist for the international John W. Campbell Award, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Bookies Award, Canada’s juried Sunburst Award, and France’s juried Prix Masterton and Prix Bob Morane.

A multi-award winning film based on Doug’s story “By Her Hand, She Draws You Down” will be released on DVD this year, and other films based on his stories are in the works. Doug’s website is smithwriter.com  and he tweets at twitter.com/smithwritr.

Q: What are you reading right now?

A: I tend to have several books on the go. Right now they are “The Castle of Otranto” by Horace Walpole (written in 1764 and generally considered the first gothic novel, which is why it’s on my list), “Under My Skin” by Charles de Lint (Book One in his new YA “Wildings” series, because I love de Lint and want to write YA in the future), plus I’m rereading Roger Zelazny’s “Jack of Shadows” and E.R. Eddison’s “The Worm Oroborous” because I love them both.

A: Not sure how I would have answered that question back when I actually was a kid, but looking back I think that it was just such a great way to have wonderful adventures and make my world a lot bigger than my house and neighborhood and school. I was reading by age four and I am so thankful to my parents for introducing me to reading (via the nightly bedtime story) at such an early age and getting me hooked on books for a lifetime to come.

Q: Are there any books that changed your life?

In fiction, not really,beyond the ones that opened up my eyes to new genres as a young reader or other styles of writing as an adult writer.  At a very young age, a series of writers hooked me on animal stories, all of which, I think (with the benefit of hindsight), led me to the love I have for writing shapeshifter stories now. Those were A.E. Milne’s “Winnie the Pooh” books (apparently my favourite bedtime stories), followed by Walter Brook’s “Freddie the Pig” series (the first books I remember knowing how to find in a library), and then by everything Jack London wrote. Later, about grade 5 or 6, the Heinlein juveniles defintely got me hooked on SF, which led easily to fantasy. John Creasey and Dorothy Sayers introduced me to mystery and crime fiction somewhere in there as well.  As an adult, I remember the first time I read Hemingway and being blown away by the simple clarity and freshness of his prose. I recommend a heavy dose of Hemingway for any new writer. Favourite writers in my adult years include Zelazny, Bradbury, Tim Powers, Charles de Lint, and Neil Gaiman. 

One non-fiction book that definitely did change my life was Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way.” I read it the year I decided to chase my writing dream, and it had a profound and beneficial effect on how I went after that dream. I’d recommend it to any creative person, or anyone who wants to recapture the creativity that we all have as a child, until our Western society beats it out of us.

Non-dog-ear-er.  Even when I was reading print books.  I read almost exclusively on my Kobo now, which I absolutely love, and so dog-earing is no longer even an option.

My favourite villain is without a doubt the Bishop of Rerek, from E.R. Eddison’s “Zimiamvian” trilogy.  If any of your readers have never read Eddison, I heartily recommend those three books, along with “The Worm Oroborous”.  It’ll take a while to get into the prose style, but it is worth the effort.

Favourite hero is tougher, but if I can include TV, the answer becomes very easy: Buffy. In written fiction, it would likely be one of Roger Zelazny’s. Corwin from the Amber Series, Sam from Lord of Light, Jack from Jack of Shadows. Sherlock Holmes would be on the list as well. Michael Valentine Smith in Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land,” too. Tough question. Just too many options.  

Read. Read and keep reading. Teach your kids to love reading right from the start by reading them a bedtime story EVERY night, from the day you bring them home. And I mean, every night. Make it a fun time, too, something they look forward to it and expect and associate reading with a wonderful experience. And make books a good thing, a natural thing to have around. When we were out with our kids when they were young, they knew that they’d get a “No” to requests for games, toys, or candy. But they also knew that we’d always let them pick out a new book. And if you’re a writer, then you better be a reader by nature or habit, or you’d better cultivate that habit now. You can’t be a writer if you’re not a voracious reader. Period.

Thanks Doug! Jennifer Craig, (yesterday’s guest), would be happy to know you read the “Winnie the Pooh” books as a child.

Tomorrow, come back to learn what Angie Abdou has to say about reading.

~ Kristene

1. Follow the campaign on Facebook (/national readingcampaign), Twitter (@readingcampaign) & Pinterest (readingcampaign).

2. On November 14th  Tweet @readingcampaign with #whatdidyoureadtoday and, of course, what you’re reading! This will help raise money for the campaign (from Kobo) and enter you in a contest to win 1 of 10 kobos.

3. For the kids,  librarians or teachers can create a ‘What did you read today?’ wall and send a photo to @readingcampaign to be entered into a contest to win $1,000 for their library.

4. Visit the website, read more about the campaign and sign up for the newsletter: http://nationalreadingcampaign.ca/

5. Read!

To celebrate the National reading Campaign launch, I decided to quiz some of my favourite authors about their reading habits.

Today’s guest is Mark Nykanen

Mark Nykanen is the author of seven novels and his books have been translated into seven languages.  He’s the author of the #1 Kindle bestseller, Primitive.  Nykanen won an Edgar Allan Poe Award and four Emmys as an investigative reporter for NBC News.  He blogs on climate change at www.marknykanen.com

Q: What are you reading right now?

A: Yellow Dog Coming by Bill Moore.  I’m actually rereading it, and I’m astonished at what Moore has done with his first novel.  It’s one of the most honest books I’ve read in a long time.  By that I mean he brings readers into the dark unsparing inner world of an unforgettable killer, while limning the lives of wonderfully fresh characters in a small Canadian logging town.  I’m also reading Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.  I thoroughly enjoyed the first half.

Q: As a kid, why did you love reading?

A: I think for the same reasons so many other children loved books, and why I still love to read.  Books introduced me to worlds I didn’t know.  I think by doing that, by ushering me into the inner lives of other people, I was brought to a greater understanding of the wild variety of people in the world.  I think that’s a key to developing empathy in a child.

Q: Are there any books that changed your life?

A: That’s a tough one. Nothing jumps out at me.  The cumulative effect of reading was the most important thing for me, as I look back.  I’d have to sat that A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman made the experience of senses come so alive that I don’t think I’ve written a character since who doesn’t carry some debt to that beautifully written and instructive work on non-fiction.

Q: Dog-ear-er or Non dog-ear-er?

A: Non dog-ear-er

Q: Your favourite fictional hero and/or villain?

A: They are so clearly my own characters that I will leave it there.

Q: Anything else you want to say about reading?

A: Only that I trust I’ll be able to read to my dying moment.

I second that! Thanks Mark!

Check in tomorrow to hear from author Jennifer Craig!

~ Kristene