IGMS Issue 11 (21 page)

Andy gripped the knob of cabin A37. He figured that the doors were probably locked. But even that might help Mary realize there were people on the other side.

The knob turned smoothly in his hand.

Andy eased the door open and peeked inside. An old guy was lying on the bed, fast asleep.

"See?" Andy whispered.

He waited until Mary nodded, then eased the door shut. "Look. It must be early. That's why everyone's still asleep. Come on. Let's see if they've put out any breakfast yet. I'm starving."

They went back up.

There was no food.

No waiters.

No crew.

"This is crazy," Andy said. He looked around the deck. Then he looked toward the ocean. There was no land in sight. They were far out at sea. "When we get back, I'm going to tell Brennan that Pace Cruise Lines sucks."

Mary let out a small whimper.

"What now?" Andy asked. He was starting to wish he'd asked someone else to come with him.

"It's not Pace," Mary said.

"Huh?" Andy wondered why she was whispering.

Mary didn't answer him. She pointed up at a mast above them. Andy noticed her hand was shaking.

Fluttering overhead, a flag displayed the name, "Pyre Cruise Lines."

"Pyre," Andy said. English wasn't his best subject. The word took a minute to register. When it did, he knew that the man he'd seen in the cabin below wasn't asleep. The man was dead.

Everyone on the ship was dead.

Pyre. As in funeral pyre.

Music began to play over loudspeakers. Slow, sad music. Beneath his feet, Andy heard the crackle of flames and felt the rising heat of the fire.

In the distance, Andy saw another ship. Squinting, he could make out the name PACE CRUISE LINES on the side. Dots of moving color told him that people were frolicking on deck, having the vacation of a lifetime.

Mary screamed.

The pyre grew. Andy turned to run, but there were flames everywhere.

"Look?" the first mate asked the passenger, offering his binoculars.

"Thanks," the man said. He peered across the water at the rising flames. "Wow. Pretty spectacular. What a way to go."

The mate nodded. "Yeah. At least they're feeling no pain." He stood at the deck and watched as the burning funeral ship slowly drifted into the distance. "Rest in peace," he whispered as the last glow vanished from sight.

It's very hard to sum up the career of Tanith Lee so far. There's just so much of it. She first came to the attention of most readers with
The Birthgrave
(1975) which clearly announced the arrival of a major talent. She is perhaps best known for her Flat Earth novels, and tends to focus on exotic, fantastic adventure in exotic settings, but she has written science fiction, straight horror (such as
Dark Dance
and its sequels), historical novels, detective fiction, screenplays (including a couple episodes of
Blake's 7
) and quite a bit more.
Two
special issues of
Weird Tales
have been devoted to her, which is only appropriate since it seemed to me when I was co-editor of that magazine that her work expressed the
Weird Tales
aesthetic more perfectly than that of any other living writer. Among her awards are two World Fantasy Awards for best short fiction (1983, 1984) plus eight more nominations; and a British Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1980 for
Death's Master
plus five more nominations. She has published over eighty books.

SCHWEITZER:
I notice that a lot of your recent books have been for Young Adults. I mean
Piratica
, etc. Your first novel, at least the first I am aware of,
The Dragon Hoard
, was also for younger readers. Is this a return to an early ambition for you? It is, of course, obvious that J.K. Rowling has made this sort of book more profitable, but I cannot imagine you chasing anyone's coattails. So why this change, now?

LEE:
No, I'm not returning to a previous interest at all. I've been writing YA books alongside adult work for most of my (mad) career. In fact, my very first published work was a short adult horror story, written when I was about 18. ("Eustace"). By the time
The Dragon Hoard, Princess Hynchatti
and
Animal Castle
were published in the early 1970s, I'd already written
Don't Bite the Sun
and the first draught (the first of only two novels of mine ever to have two draughts -- the second was
The Gods Are Thirsty
 in the 1980s) of
The Storm Lord
, I just hadn't found a publisher. While working with DAW books, between 1974-1988, I also published six YA/childrens' novels, and later on seven others (see the Unicorn series, and the
Claidi Diaries
(or
Journals,
as they are in the USA). The
Piratica
books are just part of an on-going commitment to this kind of writing.

SCHWEITZER:
How is writing for younger readers different for you than writing for adults?

LEE:
To me there's no major difference. Some ideas that come to me seem to fit the adult bill, others prefer the YA medium. Two exceptions I can quote --
Volkhavaar
was originally thought of by me as being for the YA range -- but before starting it, it seemed to me I could move more freely among some very adult themes if I began with an older viewpoint. The other is a recent proposal turned down by my YA publishers over here, which I have frankly now seen might work much better as a very dark adult novel. (Incidentally they had already rejected the idea of a fourth
Piratica
. Nor did the American firm of Dutton wish to print the third already published Piratica, though all these books seem to have done well in both Britain and the USA, not to mention in translation -- Russia, Spain, Japan etc. I still get endless worldwide letters asking for another book in the series.

The only criteria I keep in mind when working on YA is that violence should not be gross, and certain more awful things, though spoken of, stay "off-stage" as it were. And the same with the sexual act. Though there are, of course, sexual reactions evidenced if not adultly described, and things left unsaid that the older, or more experienced reader will pick up on.

As for so called "Bad Language" I don't use it, save in "invented" form. Examples of Lee-invented really vile language exist in both the
Claidie
s and the
Piratica
s. Have a look, say at the noun "tronker," maybe, and see what you think it might be . . .! (
Claidi
) or many of the terms in the
Piratica
novels . . .

SCHWEITZER:
Isn't all fantastic fiction to some degree aimed at youth? After all, it's about newness and wonder, the discovery of things we (or the characters) did not previously know to exist, and that is very much the condition of youth.

LEE:
This presupposes any writer aims at anyone or thing. Some writers, of course, simply write, as they feel they are driven to do, by outer/inner inspirations. If, after the work is written and, hopefully, published, others respond -- that is the Champagne. But we, or some of us, don't write for the Champagne. We write because we write. However, to address the premise that Fantasy and all Fantastic literature is "aimed" at youth, well, perhaps then at the youth of the heart and mind, that is if we apply the criterion of "newness and wonder." Not everyone who grows older loses this ability (yes, ability, skill, not failing). C.S. Lewis had a glorious and most aware comment in his Narnia novels, to the effect that nothing was worse than a child who was too childish, and an adult who was too grown-up. We all know these awful kids, but thankfully they may (ha!) grow out of it. I suppose the dire aged may also grow out of the over-adultness.

Your question equates the wonder and surprise, the delight of finding, with all we "didn't know previously existed." OK. In the 1500s grown ups thought the world was flat. But apparently it isn't. (Or
is
it? Another new thing to find out, maybe . . .) What I mean is, new facts are always coming to light, and I don't just mean in the cosmos, or the outer environ. In ourselves. That is, if we stay, at least on some level, pliable enough to listen, to see, to feel. The "condition of youth" is a state we should, and must, internally, hang on to, and try to preserve (a juxtaposition of notions -- preserving -- pickled youth!) Basically that trite phrase the "inner child" -- trite phrase, yet intelligent thought. The "fantastic" therefore may be a key component in arousing the sleeping spirit in our physical souls. If I ever get to 100, I'd want to be filled with wonder and wild, adolescent, wide-eyed interest in newness. So let's keep the flame burning. Let's stop thinking everyone over 29, or 49, has to be reinforced by concrete.

SCHWEITZER:
When did you start reading and writing fantasy?

LEE:
I couldn't read anything until I was almost eight -- dyslexia. (Unrecognised at the time, in the early 1950s.) The first book I read, Hans Christian Anderson's
Fairy Tales
, was, of course, Fantasy, like all fiction (and indeed, some non-fiction.) To clarify, my mother was a great aficionado of all SF and fantasy, the early
Galaxy
and later
Weird Tales
, and early novels by Asimov and Clarke --
Childhood's End
and
The City and the Stars
being two favorites -- were well known in our various homes. The first Fantasy story I am conscious of having read as such was "The Silken Swift" by the amazing Theodore Sturgeon. I suppose I read that in my early teens, just as I read Mary Renault's
The King Must Die
when I was eleven-ish. These wonders were like finding a major truth of books, (just as first hearing Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Rachmaninov was like finding music I had always known, but somehow mislaid -- or been robbed of.) When I read Jane Gaskell's
The Serpent
(at about eighteen) however, I suddenly realized the scope of what one might be "allowed" to write. By which I mean, breaking-all-rules of sticking to the so-called Real World, might be allowed into print. Pathfinding genius that Gaskell was/is, she lit a special light for me along the road. Not long after, I embarked on my first draught (only one of the two -- the other was my French Revolution novel
The Gods Are Thirsty
-- books I ever did two draughts on) of
The Storm Lord
. But I must add I'd already written a fantasy novel, set in a parallel ancient Mediterranean, when I was sixteen. It came naturally. As writing should.

SCHWEITZER:
Most writers report, as you do, that writing is just what they
do
, rather than something they decided would make them a lot of money. That being the case, when you discovered you were a natural writer, and had written an entire novel by the time you were sixteen, how much deliberation did you then apply? Did you read books on writing technique? Did you find that the way you read other people's fiction changed? Did you start reading critically, to see how stories were put together?

LEE:
I have
never
read
anything
to see what I should be doing, or how to plot, construct, voice a particular story. I read to enjoy myself, to be transported elsewhere, and yes, to learn -- but for its own sake, not in a self-conscious or precise way. I read what entices, terrifies, amuses, enlightens me -- as a human thing. Meanwhile, I must suppose that reading wonderful writers may, inadvertently, teach an avid reader a great deal -- not only about life and other matters, but about how to write. Therefore doubtless I have benefited from frequent immersions in the glowing genius of others. It would be nice to think so. (I do actually think so). But to improve my skills will never be the prompting force of my reading -- that's just literary lust.

SCHWEITZER:
Did you have the worry, as many people do in such a situation, "This is what I want to do with my life, but what if I don't make it professionally?" and then have a back-up plan, or did you just plunge into writing?