Adrian Tchaikovsky: Empire in Black and Gold

Title:  Empire in Black and Gold
Author:  Adrian Tchaikovsky
Publisher: Tor
Paperback: 612 pages
ISBN: 978-0230704138

1. First off, congratulations on the big novel sale!  Give us the elevator pitch.  What’s your book about?

Empire in Black and Gold is your simple, everyday story of the encroach of a conquering empire, and the people who are trying to stop it. Or not. The human protagonists of Empire are the “insect-kinden”, and they live in a world where giant invertebrates have wiped out most of the animals that we might recognise. To come to terms with these new predators, people have forged a kind of spiritual link with them, which has allowed human civilisation to develop, but has also given people access to insect-like abilities: flight, hive minds, speed of reaction, greater endurance and the like. The various tribes of the insect-kinden have come a long way from that, and the world that the Wasp Empire is set on taking over is a world of industry, politics, steampunk machinery and espionage, a long way removed from the elves-and-dragons drudge that the words “heroic fantasy” might normally conjure up.

2.  Most new novelists have an interesting story to tell about their journey to publication.  What’s yours?  Did you use an agent?  Make sure to tell us about the day you found out you’d sold a book.

It has been a long, hard toad. I’d been writing for publication for around fifteen years, working on a book, finishing it, submitting it, and getting the slew of rejection letters, over and over. It’s a rotten business,
frankly, and by the start of last year I was getting to the very end of my perseverence. Then my submission of Empire reached the Mic Cheetham Agency, and Simon there was good enough to read through and spot something in it he liked. After that, he and I tinkered with the book a fair bit, and some time later he was able to place me with Pan Macmillan. From my experience I’d say an agent’s inside knowledge of the industry is a huge help. I was at work when Simon called me to tell me he’d got the book sold, working through the
middle of a legal case. I didn’t get much more work done that day, frankly.

3.  Do you have another book in the pipeline?  What are you working on now?

Well, fantasy used to have a tradition of trilogys, and now has a tradition of enormous sequences. It’s a tradition I fully intend to contribute to. The deal I have with Pan Macmillan is for three volumes, and the second, Dragonfly Falling, is coming out February 2009. The first three books are already written, with the third being edited even now. I’m keen to push the series further, if they’ll let me.

4.  What’s your writing process like?  Morning writer, night writer, or something in between?

Late evening and night writer, always. Left to my own devices I’d still be living like a student, getting up at noon and going to bed in the small houds. The creative part of my mind definitely works best between 10am and 2pm. As for actual writing process, I’m one of those writers that plans a book out beforehand, with a chapter-by-chapter summary of what should happen. Needless to say, the plan doesn’t always survive contact with the enemy.

5.  There seems to be an unusually high percentage of writers who own cats. Here at The First Book, we’re doing a study to find out if there’s a direct relationship between writing success and cat ownership.  Do you own a cat? If so, tell us about him or her.  If not, tell us what you have against cats.

Er… yes, actually. I have an extremely small grey cat originally called Greymalkin, although, in TS Eliot fashion, this is now just “Malkey”. To be honest, he’s more my wife’s cat than mine, or at least if not for her I’d probably not have actually acquired one.