Interview: Ian McDonald
Cheryl Morgan talks to author Ian McDonald at the P-Con convention in the Central Hotel, Dublin, Ireland. They are both on black coffee after the superb Irish hospitality the night before. Ian talks about his current hit novel, The Dervish House, and his plans for future books.
Here are some links to items mentioned in the interview:
- The Coode Street Podcast
- Clarion West
- Wikipedia has articles on the legend of the Mellified Man
- and on Long QT Syndrome
- The comic character with the radio-controlled toys was General Jumbo
- Ian got to play with Muppets on Sesame Tree
- The Clock of the Long Now
- and of course, The Dervish House [Purchase]
About the Interviewee
Ian McDonald burst onto the science fiction scene in 1988 with Desolation Road, which won the Locus Award for First Novel. He has gone on to win a raft of other awards including the Philip K. Dick Award for King of Morning, Queen of Day, The British Science Fiction Association Award for both River of Gods and Brasyl, and a Hugo for his novelette, “The Djinn’s Wife”. His current novel, The Dervish House, is a nominee for the British Science Fiction Association Award and Arthur C. Clarke Award. Ian lives in Belfast where has has a parallel career in television. You can follow him on LiveJournal.
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I wish we could get a transcript of your interviews. The background noise makes the first minute hard to understand and I gave up then.
I wish we could too. I have looked at automatic transcription software, but it only works well when you train it to an individual voice. It is no good for interviews and podcasts. So to get a transcript I’d have to get someone to transcribe it manually, which I know from experience is a very long and boring task. Also, as I have no time myself, I’d have to pay someone to do it, and we don’t have the money for that right now.
What I will do is try to get better locations for the interviews, but that can be difficult when the only time you get arrange to meet people is at conventions.