Doing it Differently

The field of the fantasy saga is massively overcrowded, and much of the writing is leaden, driven by publishing imperatives rather than any true inspiration on the part of the author. So it's particularly refreshing when a writer like Chris Bunch comes along. Bunch is one of the true professionals in the genre, pushing out a vast number of the highly successful military SF series Sten (co-written with Alan Cole). The Sten books are professional pieces of work that deliver the high-octane Heinlein-style thrills to order. To call the series largely interchangeable (they are distinguished by numbers alone: Sten One, Sten Two, and so on) is not really criticism: these books are the work of a craftsman who knows what his audience wants and delivers this within the requisite 300 pages of each book.

But read something like Bunch's The Empire Stone and you realise that this kind of book is what really gets the author's juices flowing. This fantasy epic, like its predecessor, The Seer King trilogy, is highly coloured, luminous fantasy of the first order, packed with quirky, vividly realised characters and highly idiosyncratic plot strands.

Within pages of The Empire Stone (and such earlier books as The Demon King and The Warrior King), the reader relaxes in the hands of a master of the genre. But, it transpires there is even more to Bunch as a writer. His new book Corsair, while reading for the most part like a fantasy adventure, is actually a taut and dramatic naval adventure: a heady stew of pirates, lost treasure maps and bloody carnage on the high seas. The hero survives the destruction of his village and the murder of his parents by vicious pirates and ends up on one of his uncle's merchant ships where a life of blood-curdling action awaits him. Readers of fantasy may initially yearn for the fingerprints of the genre, but within mere pages of Corsair , they will find themselves as comprehensively gripped as in any of the author's earlier books.

Amazon.co.uk: Your new book, Corsair , is something of a change of direction, isn't it?

Chris Bunch: No, I don't think so.

Amazon.co.uk: No? There are fewer fantasy elements than usual.

Bunch: But I've always used a mixture of fantasy and historical elements. The Seer King trilogy was my take on Napoleon--I worked on the premise "What if Napoleon had been a magician?" And I still call Corsair a fantasy novel. Lester del Rey once said that all fantasy must have an element of magic: strip the magic out, and it doesn't work. And Corsair certainly has those elements.

Amazon.co.uk: But your publishers (in this country at least) are selling the book largely as a seafaring, blood-and-thunder epic.

Bunch: It is a seafaring, blood-and-thunder epic. I have no objection to it being sold that way--but, as I say, it is a fantasy novel.

Amazon.co.uk: Are you hoping to carry through the readers of your earlier books, or are you hoping to create a new audience with this one?

Bunch: Well, it would be nice to get new readers--what author is going to say otherwise? Perhaps I can seduce more people with the elements of high adventure and action that are foregrounded in this one.

Amazon.co.uk: Do you see your European and American readers as different in any way?

Bunch: Definitely. European readers of SF and fantasy are (generally speaking) more sophisticated than their American counterparts. And I hope there's sufficient extra texture in my books to appeal to that more discerning reader.

Amazon.co.uk: So what do you think is the basic appeal of fantasy?

Bunch: You have a blueprint in Tolkien, and many authors have followed it assiduously ever since. You have a happy, functioning society into which a menace is introduced. Your hero (or heroes), against insuperable odds, destroy the menace and it's party time again! But I've tried to do something different.

It's important to me that my heroes are irretrievably changed by their experiences. That's a cardinal rule of serious drama and for me it makes the SF and fantasy genres all the richer when applied to them. Similarly, my protagonists have to be flawed in some way. I'm simply not interested in merely heroic figures.

Amazon.co.uk: Why do you think that fantasy writing (with a few notable exceptions) has marginalised hard SF? When we were talking earlier, you mentioned some of the great writers of the 1950s--Hal Clement, Damon Knight--when those authors were writing, fantasy was the minority interest.

Bunch: It's not just hard SF that has taken a knocking from the fantasy saga; I've noticed that even historical writers are now genuflecting to the fantasy genre. Perhaps it's because there are so many possibilities. Although, it has to be said, there are a lot of writers around who are content to deal in cliché. Anyway, I'm not sure I agree that hard SF is up against the wall. The series I work on, the Sten books, are definitely hard SF--adventure tales, sure, but plenty of technological detail.

Amazon.co.uk: Most of us read and enjoy military SF, but we often feel a little guilty when we do so. Do you think that's because the genre has a reputation for being right wing?

Bunch: Well, that obviously relates to Robert Heinlein and Starship Troopers . We know that the author has right wing sympathies, as does Jerry Pournelle. Ironically, the Paul Verhoeven film of Starship Troopers rather cleverly sends up those right wing elements. But don't forget that the greatest of all military SF novels has a very different perspective.

Amazon.co.uk: Joe Haldeman'sThe Forever War?

Bunch: Right! Joe Haldeman was a guy who got his ass shot off in Vietnam, and that informs the perspective of his books.

Amazon.co.uk: In books like the Seer King sequence and Corsair , you're much more upfront with sexual elements than many of your fellow writers.

Bunch: It really pisses me off that people get upset about this sort of thing. My heroes are not smooth between the legs and I've every intention of dealing with sexual situations if they come up. But again and again I have readers saying to me that they are surprised at the erotic factor in my books. I can bloodily cleave a million heads and nobody bats an eyelid. But get some other kind of juicy activity going and you sometimes bring out old-maidish elements in your readers.

Amazon.co.uk: Do you think SF and fantasy readers can be a touch prudish? Philip José Farmer had a similarly hard time when he incorporated explicit sex into SF in the 1960s.

Bunch: Well, I'm happy to be part of a great tradition. And I don't mind unsettling my readers--I hope Corsair and the novel I'm just finishing now will unsettle as much as it entertains.

Amazon.co.uk: What can you tell us about the next book?

Bunch: I'm keeping my cards close to my chest about this one--and I'm particularly keeping the title under wraps. People would kill for this title if they knew about it!