Interview With Jagex's Mechscape Ap Alex Janaway, Associate Producer speaks of his novel Redoubt, and MechScape Options

[Ren]

I recently had the opportunity to interview Alex Janaway of the MechScape team about his novel Redoubt. He also answered a few MechScape-related questions for us. So read on...

0. Hello, thanks for giving us an interview.

It's a pleasure.

1. Can you tell me a bit about yourself?

Hmm. Where to start? Well, other than my day job as an Associate Producer on Mechscape, I am a graduate in English Literature & Film Studies, I was an Army officer for ten years where I travelled round the world and blew up lots of things, I'm a tabletop wargamer, I have a complete Jedi Knight outfit, am a trained Swedish masseur, I'm married, have two cats, I think Nick Frost and Simon Pegg should star in every movie imaginable, I want Garth Marenghi to have a second series, I saw Matt Berry in concert last night, my favourite movie director is Kevin Smith and my favourite movie (unsurprisingly) is Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope!

2. What is Redoubt about and what audience is it aimed towards?

Well, the best way of describing it would be a mix of Zulu and the Alamo but with more axes! It's a story about a bunch of fighting men, double-crossed and outnumbered who have to make a choice. Run or stay and fight. I didn't really think about an audience when I was writing it, I just tried to tell the story in a way that I would like to have it presented to me. I didn't pull any punches with the dialogue because it was important for me to portray the characters as humanly as possible. The stories I have enjoyed the most are the ones which centre on the little men, those guys in the thick of it, the ones who have to do the dirty work but never get the air time in a lot of novels.

3. Most writers are big readers. Who are your favourite authors and what are your views on the fantasy genre?

Yup - I'm a big reader - but less so now because my spare time is taken up with trying to write my own stuff! However, top of the pile of favourite authors is Sir Terry Pratchett. I remember picking up The Colour of Magic when it was first published in the early 80s and that was it, hooked ever since. Genius. My others and the ones who have influenced me the most are David Gemmel, Glen Cook, Stephen Erikson and Simon Green.

I fell in love with fantasy/sci fi from an early age - ever since Star Wars started me down the dark path at the age of 4 (in 1977) it has dominated my destiny. I must admit, romantic/heroic fantasy leaves me a bit cold (unless the hero is a hard bitten warrior like Druss) but that's fine. Fantasy is such a broad church and that is what makes it such a great medium to write in. You can see how Pratchett has taken all the classic conventions, turned them on the head and now can pretty much cover any topic he wants to within the world he has created. He has helped, amongst others like Rowling and the LOTR movies, to bring the fantasy genre into the public consciousness and that can only be a good thing. It means readers are more prepared to give the genre the time of day. It has more respectability now. I'm an unashamed geek and it is great to be able to sit with my dad and cheer when Gimli takes out another orc!

4. Did you make a deliberate effort to avoid many of the tropes and clichés of the fantasy genre?

I guess I did, yes. Not because I object to them, but I just felt they didn't fit with the tone and story I wanted to write. This story needs to be low down and dirty. It's about a bunch of guys just trying to survive in a hard world. They haven't got gods in their side; they haven't got any uber warriors on their side. They've just got their brains, brawn and each other. The overt fantasy elements in the story I have used with a light touch. Magic is used but not excessively, there are references to other events like the goblin pacification campaigns. There are dwarves and elves that exist in the world but we don't see any of that. That's the bigger picture, to give a sense of scope. But I wanted to keep this focused on just the one incident and what it means to those involved. But that's not to say that any sequel wouldn't expand on those things.

5. A lot of time and energy must have gone into writing this novel and getting it published. What compelled you to write it?

Ah, I was sitting in a portacabin in Germany, at the Sennelager Army training area on a construction exercise when the idea came to me. That was in 1999. I guess I experienced the same compunction that drove me to join the Army in the first place. A desire to go and achieve something, to not just be a spectator but to get involved. I got the bulk of it written whilst on the night shift in British Headquarters during the Second Gulf War. I didn't actually finish it until 2005. And it got picked up for publication at the start of 2008. A long old process!

6. How close is the novel to your own experiences, and what are the other major influences?

The initial set-up of an interventionist expeditionary army is a situation we are used to witnessing quite often. What I have done is to distil some my experiences of the character and behavior of what it is like for soldiers to be stuck in those situations. The tone, dialogue and attitudes are something that I have seen plenty of and I feel are pretty much universal. As soldiers we always complain about the same things; the food, the kit, the weather and how useless the chain of command is. But irrespective of that, and this is a very British thing, they get the job done anyway they can with whatever they have to hand. Quite deliberately, the soldiers of Ashkent are Brits - the best army in the world!

7. Can you describe the creative process you went through to write this novel and come up with a name for it?

A number of people have asked how I come up with ideas for my stories. I actually find it quite easy - my mind is a scary place. Basically I find that I come up with a specific situation, like a scene from a movie that plays out in my head. I see the characters involved and immediately flesh out their backstory. So with that scene I go on from there; looking at what events lead to that scene and where it's leading to. Often it is a few scenes - the challenge comes in linking them together in a coherent, believable way.

As for the name - I can't remember! It was originally The Redoubt but then a good friend of mine (another writer) suggested shortening it to make it punchier. And that was that.

8. Did the publisher have a problem with the novel having coarse language and adult themes? What led you to use such language?

They did comment on it! But, I think there is a justification and context for it. And they did agree with that. I wanted to create honest, human characters that people could identify with. It keeps it grounded in a believeable world. They are soldiers. They swear. A lot. I could have made up some swear words but that would have been avoiding the issue and not in keeping with my intention. Keeping the language allowed me to create some snappy dialogue and some comic situations. The adult themes weren't so much of a problem - it is a war story after all.

9. What do you think are the most important things you learned from writing this novel and trying to get it published? Do you have any advice to aspiring authors?

First thing is - patience! Don't try and force it. They say everyone has a novel in them. Well I don't know about that. But a lot of people say they want to write one. But if you don't enjoy it. If you don't enjoy the process, it's never going to work. Some authors highly plot and structure their stories before writing. I don't really do that - for me half the fun is actually discovering for myself what is going to happen to the characters as I go along, so the story unfolds for me too.

Second things is- patience! Publishing is a mad, random thing and there is no one route to getting there. Do anything, try anything. And if at first you don't succeed. Try again. Then if that doesn't work. Write something else and try it again.

10. How do you believe your experience with writing your first novel has affected MechScape?

Well, having come on board well into the development cycle of Mechscape, much of the backstory has been created. But what I can bring is a sense of how stories need to be structured and plotted to ensure they hold together, make internal sense and are compelling. For us, the establishment of strong, interesting and exciting story arcs are critical and fundamental to what we are trying to achieve. So I hope to play my part in ensuring we do just that.

11. Similarly, how has your time working on MechScape affected your approach to storytelling and what was it like transferring from a fantasy to a sci-fi genre?

I think, with Mechscape, we have created a game universe that has a history of its own and a future that is...to be discovered! You know there are different species involved and for us it means we have to be mindful of how we develop each species. As their own story arcs develop, the challenge for me and the rest of the team is being able to manage those to ensure they interweave seamlessly. So having this multidimensional approach to storytelling is definitely a new experience for me. The transfer from fantasy to sci/fi does mean an alteration to how you shape a story, there's no such thing as magic, there's science. So you need to have an eye towards how you use technology and what it can do. We respect our players and don't want to fob them off with utterly improbable plot devices/justifications. So we spend a lot of time ensuring that the science in our science fiction has at its roots in science fact/theory. We want o keep it real and that goes for the characters who populate the game.

12. Are there any parallels between what you were trying to accomplish with your novel and what Jagex is trying to accomplish with MechScape?

I think the biggest parallel is that we are trying to create an exciting, involving world that you can immerse yourself in, with characters you care about and more than anything else, you have been thoroughly entertained by and want to experience it again.

13. At present a book has been released based in the RuneScape universe. Do you think a MechScape novel may be released in the future and how keen would you be to write it?

We have certainly talked about it - there is such a rich vein to tap into. I guess it depends on what our players would like to learn more about once they have played the game. As for my involvement in any future novel, of course I would love to! But I'd have to butter up Henrique up first :)

14. Finally, can you tell us anything about your second novel?

Of course. It's called The Coming of Night. It's another fantasy novel, although darker and more apocalyptic in tone. It's set in a world where a plague has wiped out huge swathes of the population. Surviving communities now live behind well defended settlements. The cause is a force that anyone who practices any form of magic into blood thirsty demons. The demons shun the day and hunt a night. In order for humanity to survive, children are tested for any traces of magical ability. If they have, they are killed. The story centers on a girl who is found to have a very unexpected ability - it means she is hunted by the demons and her own people who view her as just another threat. Her human hunters are a band of demon fighters- so rest assured they are bad asses Redoubt style! The book is due for publication this Christmas.

--------------------------------

I enjoyed reading Redoubt. You can purchase Redoubt from Amazon.

[Mechable]

That's awesome! I can imagine all the Mechscape storylines will be deep and interesting, I'm really looking forward to the quests already :)

[Pliigi]

I'm going to order his book tonight.

If they did release a MechScape book that would be awesome

Another great interview!

[Unin]

If there was a mechscape book, I'd most likely get it, it depends on how I'm doing on money though...

Well, I don't wonna start talking about money, or I'll never stop O_O, so, I might buy it. :D

This post has been edited by Godscrysis: Apr 24 2009, 06:41 PM

[Asfastasdark]

Wow, awesome interview, Ren! Both of these novels sound great and I'd buy them if I had money for a book... but I have to save up for some other things... some expensive chips for a synth and a big red Firebird.

[Psioptics]

Very nice interview!

It certainly seems that with MechScape they've created a solid storyline that content will revolve around, as opposed to RuneScape's storyline which came in the form of wishy-washy quests that felt like they were being stuck on for the sake of bulking out the game.

[Arain321]

Nice interview! Seems like an interesting book. Also I'm glad they're not gonna bore us with too much detail in MechScape.

[Rick Astley]

Nice interview, i can't wait to choose a specie (I still gotta be careful with it though)

[EchoNova]

He sounds a lot like me
I'd like to read Redoubt soon, and Coming of Night sounds even better!

[EliteZeon]

The transfer from fantasy to sci/fi does mean an alteration to how you shape a story, there's no such thing as magic, there's science. So you need to have an eye towards how you use technology and what it can do. We respect our players and don't want to fob them off with utterly improbable plot devices/justifications. So we spend a lot of time ensuring that the science in our science fiction has at its roots in science fact/theory. We want o keep it real and that goes for the characters who populate the game.

No Magic? Nuuu!!! Telekinesis and-or Mind Powers then pl0x?

Eh... hope maybe characters are with high knowledge of physics, chemistry and biology, and mastery of the mind, which allows them to have capabilities similar to these powers in this game.

If this kinda system still isn't input... dangit...

Anycase, good interview mate.

[Neven]

Very well done interview Ren. I'm still amazed at your ability to pull of these great interviews, keep it up. I'm really looking forward to seeing more interviews from you Ren. :)

[Max]

I will probably get the book when I get the chance as it sounds very interesting. I really do hope he write a story about/related to MechScape. I'm excited that he isn't stopping his creative writing of stories. That's something that I love to do and that is to write and read.

[Ren]

No Magic? Nuuu!!!

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" -Isaac Asimov

If Jagex released a MechScape book I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

Very well done interview Ren.

Max, Oscar and Mike (I think it was those three, I was quite tired at the time) helped with some of the questions.

[mike470]

Very interesting, thanks for the interview.

[Stellar]

Great interview!

I really liked how you kept strictly to his Novel, rather than badgering him about Mechscape.

I'd also love a MS book, however I doubt I would read it. I'm not a huge fan of books from games. It would have to be one heck of a book, and it would have to be one heck of a good writer.

I loved Fight Club, so if you, Jagex, could look into re-writing fight club in a Space Theme, that would be lovely.

[JJ17400]

Very cool interview.

[mesheke]

very nice ren i actually love it....this book sounds pretty good have you read it?

[Sofee]

The cover looks convincing, but the saying 'don't judge a book by its cover' comes to mind . Nice interview Mike, Ren etc.

[Ren]

this book sounds pretty good have you read it?

I read the book and quite enjoyed it, but I'm a big fan of the alternative fantasy genre popularised by those such as George R. R. Martin. It's very much as Janway described it. It isn't your typical "you may have thought you were normal, but you have a DESTINY!" fantasy novel. It is basically a lively war novel set inside the fantasy universe.

[MC]

I suppose I should pick up this Redoubt book. It looks interesting -- Except I've still got the entire Song of Ice and Fire series to read, plus another five books I said I'd read after that...

I need to read more.

Anyway, this interview was interesting. I didn't care for Janaway's ultra-British patriotism, but otherwise, he was interesting.