You only ever get one first book. And, being the first book, I could fill it with a book's worth of people to thank. So here's the stripped-back version.
Off the bat, I'm in no way the first to play with Death. This book is very much a fusion of my love for Fritz Leiber, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's Deaths, and Charon from Clash of the Titans, not to mention Piers Anthony's On a Pale Horse. All of these have left a wonderful and, no doubt, influential impression.
Now to the people I know.
Thanks to Marianne de Pierres for getting the ball rolling. Thanks to Travis Jamieson and Veronica Adams for reading early drafts, and to Deonie Fiford for pushing the book to the next level, and giving support at the right time.
And of course, there's my brothers and sisters in writing, ROR. They're the best writing group you could ever want, really.
For the last stages, a big thank you goes to my publisher Bernadette Foley, my structural editor Nicola O'Shea and my copy-editor Roberta Ivers. You've helped make this book better than I thought it could be.
And a thank you to every bookstore I've ever worked in, and the wonderful people I have worked with. Thanks to everyone at Avid Reader Bookstore (and the cafe) for being amazing, and for putting up with the least available casual staff member in the universe (particularly Fiona Stager and Anna Hood). And a massive thank you to Krissy Kneen, and to Paul Landymore, my SF Sunday compadre.
Oh, and there's Philip Neilsen at QUT, my mate Grace Dugan, and Kate Eltham at the QWC, and the SF Writer's group, Vision. And the city of Brisbane, with which I have taken some liberties… I really better stop-well, not yet.
Thanks to my family, always supportive. And finally, to the one who puts up with everything, and who has never doubted me, Diana, thank you, my heart. extras meet the author TRENT JAMIESON has had more than sixty short stories published over the last decade, and, in 2005, won an Aurealis award for his story "Slow and Ache." His most recent stories have appeared in Cosmos Magazine, Zahir, Murky Depths and Jack Dann's anthology Dreaming Again. His collection Reserved for Travelling Shows was released in 2006. He won the 2008 Aurealis Award for best YA short story with his story "Cracks."
Trent was fiction editor of Redsine Magazine, and worked for Prime Books on Kirsten Bishop's multi-award winning novel The Etched City. He's a seasonal academic at QUT teaching creative writing, and has taught at Clarion South. He has a fondness for New Zealand beer, and gloomy music. He lives in Brisbane with his wife, Diana. Trent's blog can be found at http://trentonomicon.blogspot.com. interview Have you always known that you wanted to be a writer? Pretty much. I've wanted to write since I was about five, and it was always fantasy or science fiction. It only took me three decades to sell my first book, but I've been writing in all that time. The only thing I ever really thought I might like to do is be a stage magician, but I don't have the eye-hand co-ordination for that nor the patter. When you aren't busy writing, what are some of your hobbies? I like walking-I live next to a fair bit of brush, we have wallabies and koalas in there, and right now the young Kookaburras are learning to laugh, it's a really really horrible sound, until they get it. I love reading, of course, and, occasionally, I'll sketch one of my pets. But I don't really have a hobby, it's that lack of eye-hand co-ordination, I think. When I stop writing I sit in a corner and power down. Who or what inspired you to write about Death? Fritz Leiber's Death in the Lankhmar books for starters. The depiction of Charon in the old Clash of the Titans movie. There's a bit of Neil Gaiman's Death in there as well as Pratchett's. Though in my world there are thirteen deaths, collectively called the Orcus, and none of them get along all that well.
I've always had an interest in death, and the brevity of life. It's the wall we all end up hitting. It's fun to imagine various scenarios for what might come after.
I've thrown in a lot of Death folklore as well, though I've mixed it up. Terms like Ankou and Orcus hold slightly different meanings in different cultures' folkstories-an Ankou for instance, is Death's helper, but is sort of death as well. How did you develop the world of DEATH MOST DEFINITE? It all started with that first scene. I had no idea what was going on, but it made me want to find out. Pretty quickly in I had the idea of people working for Death, and what might happen if someone starts murdering them.
Of course, at its heart it's still a love story. And Steven always fell in love at first sight. If death really was run like a corporation, how well do you think it would succeed? Like any corporation. Really well when everything's working, and utterly terribly when it's not. Oh, and someone would always be stealing the paperclips and pens. And the phones would never work, and we'd all be crashing towards some sort of apocalypse.
Hmm, kind of like the DEATH MOST DEFINITE, I suppose. Do you have a favorite character? If so, why? Other than Steven and Lissa, who I see as the heart of the story. I think it's Wal. I never expected to have a plump Cherub show up at all, until, well, until he did. He's part conscience part troublemaker, and quite tolerant for a creature stuck on someone's arm most of the time.
Oh, but I also love Tim, Don and Sam, Mr D, and Charon. And, in book two there's Aunt Neti. She guards the stone knives of Negotiation, and the secret back ways into hell, and has many eyes and many arms and likes to cook scones-they're delicious, just don't ask what's in them or the jam. (You can tell that I'm deep in edits for book two can't you?) What can we look forward to in Steven's next outing, MANAGING DEATH? Well, Steven has to learn how to be Death while organizing a meeting of the Regional Managers called a Death Moot.
You'll meet Aunt Neti, the mysterious Frances Rillman, and the even more mysterious and disturbing Hungry Death. There's betrayals, great battles, an approaching evil god, and scones and jam to be had.
And Steven still has a lot of growing up to do: lucky he's got Lissa and Tim by his side, and Wal, stuck on his arm. This book is a good deal darker, but I suppose that's what happens when you move up the ladder at Mortmax Industries. Finally, what has been your favorite part of the publication process so far? I may sound like a glutton for punishment, but so far it's been the editing. I've loved reworking these stories, making them as tight as I can. I've learnt a lot-the publication process is such a team effort-and I think that's going to really show in book three-but you'll just have to wait and see.
I'm dying to see the books in print. I know how hard I've worked on them, as have my editors at Orbit, and, after thirty years of waiting and writing, it'll be great to finally see one of my own novels in a bookstore! introducing If you enjoyed