An Interview with a Wizard
Questions by Peter Vincent-Jones - find him here
Do you have an ‘attitude to reality’?
Yes.
Do you seek to engage with reality, or to distort reality?
Both. I use the latter, like a lens, to focus on the former. It is much like an astronomer who uses a lens to study the stars, or a biologist with her microscope, or—closest to me—a computer scientist with his simulations.
Do you consider your future world(s) ‘real’ in the sense of being plausible, and governed by ‘rational’ science such as the ‘laws of physics’ (accepting that such laws are not fixed but change and develop with new scientific discoveries)?
I am a materialist—for the moment. And my stories are grounded in my understanding of physical laws and mathematics and cause and effect. I’ve spent a great deal of my life studying these things and use that to govern the worlds I make. I do extensive research for the science in my stories, but eventually there comes a point when reality breaks under my distortions. It needs to feel plausible, coherent, and transparent.
Does your writing contain elements of fantasy or related genres?
In some ways it is all fantasy. I like invoking my own universe—my locations, both spatially and temporally, are uncertain—because it allows me to present the reader with a warped and torn reality. One in which they have no preconceived interpretation of. One in which the human experience can be lived without distortions from their reality.
What does warped and torn mean?
Warped and torn is how my mind, soul, and life feels when I stare out my window or read the news. You need to be insane in this world to think things are going well. I nearly went insane when I was young because no one was listening to me—I was pointing out all the bullshit, and no one really had a clue if I was making sense or not; warped and torn is my heart crying out for love; warped and torn is me trying to express myself. I hope to be understood. But the trouble is, you can sound like a bit of a tit! A bit pretentious or an arty-pontificator! But I’ve done my homework, man. The world is fucking nuts!