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CDK:
What a pity. Sure we'll never see the film in Spain.
ANS:
And they, evidently, have taken all the success of the book, without
the false modesty, as far as foolish situation of the polish writers
is concerned. So they imagine that all the success is based of such
things, the contents of the book are completely completely not important.
The important is the history of a guy who kills people, and sometimes
fucks the ladies [laughs].
CDK:
Conan.
ANS:
Conan!, not Conan, it's worse [laughs]. Dialogs! Not important at
all, because, you know, who's reading? [the author takes a copy
of the Spanish edition from the table] Look at these small letters,
can you read it? No!, it's impossible [laughs]. They cannot read
any books.
CDK:
For example, The Lord of the Rings...
ANS:
Oh, if I may ask you one thing, let's not speak about the movie.
CDK:
Not the film but the book, ok. The film has brought many people
to read fantasy. They have LOTR as their first books on fantasy.
Do you think this is good? People starting in LOTR?
ANS:
It was the case with me. And I consider is by good.
CDK:
But every time Tolkien, Tolkien,...
ANS:
Sorry, he was the first. The first, together with Robert E. Howard,
who created this all. So they have all the right to be great and
to be on the first place, all the right. For sure, a respect on
Tolkien. Everywhere is Tolkien.
I'm
not saying that the film is nothing. I didn't see it. I've no time
to comment it.
CDK:
You haven't?
ANS:
No, no. People stay with the open mouth when they hear that I haven't
seen it. I've heard very good opinions from many people, so maybe
I will see it.
CDK:
I'm going to tell you something about Spanish fantasy, not the authors,
but the readers. What they use to read is Dragonlance, Forgotten
Realms, what we call "dragonadas" [dragon stories]. For
these people, what does have Geralt different, than, for example,
let's put a similarity, Drizz Do'Urden.
ANS:
I don't like Drizz Do'Urden. Maybe Geralt has nothing in special.
I suppose is just a well-conceived personage. The point is that,
in my opinion, what it's most important is the story. What you call
"dragonadas" we call "game-books", because they're
mostly set in a world of RPG, Forgotten Realms, for example, or
Dragonlance. Dragons of Winter Dawn, Dragons of Autumn Dawn, or
Winter More [laughs]. They're simply sessions of RPG written, so
there's no story at all.
It's,
eh, one guy walks, hits the dragon, dragon is death. Guy walks walks
walks, meets two goblins, two goblins are death, and so on! Without
stoping, without thinking, without anything. Sometimes he sits and
thinks what to do next. Who shall I kill? It's not a story at all,
just a protocol, a protocol from the book [laughs]. The stories
set in the world of Warhammer are very popular in Poland. For me
there's no story at all.
CDK:
So you write "in your own way".
ANS:
I suppose, a lot of people write like this, I told you. I'm not
a great fan of long sagas, or cycles. There are cycles and cycles.
Look at the cycle Amber, from Robert Zelazny, look at the cycle
Lyonesse, look at Stephen Donaldson, and the story about Thomas
Covenant. They are also cycles, where you have tome I, tome II,
Tome III, and so on, but they are very well told stories.
CDK:
Did you ever imagine the success you have in Poland?
ANS:
Frankly speaking, no.
CDK:
And when it came, like a writer, like a man, what did you think?
ANS:
It's was quite unexpected... it's considered something it cannot
be repeated. People don't talk about the book but the sociological
event. Will never happen again, because it was the right time, the
right place, the right moment, the right people, and the right book.
Everything was right at the moment.
CDK:
Luis is trying to create the same "effect" here...
ANS:
Let's go, let's go [laughs]. Of course, right now I can count on
a wide group, an "elite", of polish fans, but I'm still
very far from the selling of Stephen King.
CDK:
Stanislaw Lem is polish, is the "unique" polish writer...
ANS:
Is not the writer of the writers anymore. Maybe forty years ago,
not anymore.
CDK:
Some people think that you have inherited Lem's spirit, what do
you think?
ANS:
I know what science fiction is from the histories of Lem, that's
for sure, because Lem was to be read in many polish newspapers,
when we have practically not imports of English books, translations,
and so on... because, you know, political times where not so good
for an author in Poland. So if you wanted to read something about
science fiction you must buy Lem. Lem has written many books that
are milestones, "canonical" books, there's no doubt about
it.
CDK:
With communism in Poland it was difficult to find foreign books,
did it change with the "change"?
ANS:
Absolutely. Science fiction was translated in Poland without any
problem, we had Tolkien, LeGuin, Zelazny, a lot of Russian as Strugatsky,
but they were very hard to get, don't know why, in bookshops. After
the economical and political change, like mushrooms after the rain,
some people started to publish books, maybe three of four, mostly
fans, and saw that fantasy and science fiction sells well. It's
quite a good business. You approach foreign authors, you translate
them, very quickly, translate the books in weeks, not months. Everywhere
is full of these colorful covers, everywhere.
In
my city, for example, there are a few bookstores which consider
themselves "higher", on the "higher level".
They only sell "very serious books", not science fiction.
"Not speak about fantasy at all!". But now they are falling,
Sapkowski is there, because money is money.
CDK:
Typical question, sorry. How Geralt was born, and why? Were you
inspired by something, not an author, but an idea?
ANS:
Ok, again, it's very typical. I was writing the story for a competition.
I tried to make something very untypical, something that made people
say "oh! something new", not a Conan, or another RPG.
This "something new", in my opinion, should be made taken
something typical, a fairy tale, and make out of this fairy tale
a fantasy history. A fairy tale is just that, a tale, for children.
A fantasy story is something that happens for real. In fantasy dragons,
goblins, unicorns, exists. A fairy tale is like this: in some city,
there is a princess, which is under a spell, by some creature, like
a magician or a witch. Here comes the hero, the small, very poor
guy who is the seventh son of the shoemaker. Everybody try to kill
the monster or the witch, knights, warriors, no one success. And
this shoemaker successes, gets the princess for wife and gets the
kingdom. So, how to do fantasy out of such a fairy tale? You make
it real.
If
someone have to do this work, who comes? A professional.
CDK:
A professional monster-killer [laughs].
ANS:
He looks on the trees or on the sticks put on the markets squares
for "We need someone to kill the witch", "We need
someone to kill the demon". So he comes he and kills it. My
hero was born, who is a professional, let's say, "Rating Exterminator".
CDK:
Would you have changed things, literally talking, of the first books
of this series, when you were writing the last?
Did you feel your
hero was changing in this process, maybe even your way of writing?
ANS:
Not really. If was the result of some deeper thinking, never the
result of searching the market. But of course I would rewrite many
things that I've written. Many things that I was sure that will
be not important, just an episode, I made them bigger. Sometimes
another people appear, another things happen. But it never was like
a RPG, "I don't know what to do, I take two dices, I roll the
dices. If it'll be one, I'll kill you. If it'll be six, I'll heal
Mary the Princess". No.
CDK:
Then, nothing to regret about the first books.
ANS:
Everything it's ok, nothing it's ok. Every thought was according
to a plan, planned so and made it so.
CDK:
Do you have any goal in the future? You're now writing historical
fantasy, will you write again heroical fantasy?
ANS:
I don't know. I cannot tell it for sure. Zelazny also said he would
never write another Amber book, and he did. But now I have another
plans, I'm not planning another story of such type, like Geralt
ones.
CDK:
Well, you can afford that. You're famous, I suppose you've earned
money; you can relax and decide what you'd like to write.
ANS:
More or less, more or less, it's never that way. The writers in
Europe don't earn as much as American ones. In America, if you have
one best seller, you get rich.
Also,
many famous writers, like Silverberg, Eddings, Jordan, publish in
many publishers. It Poland it's completely different.
CDK:
Are your books published in the United States?
ANS:
No. I'm trying to do something but it's very hard without a good
agent. I've plans, an anthology of polish short stories, and one
story is mine.
CDK:
Would Geralt be the new Conan?
ANS:
Let's hope no [laughs]. I consider Howard a milestone of fantasy,
the grandfather of fantasy, but I've never write so. You must to
know who Howard was.
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Una, Grande y Rara. Diccionario Ilustrado de la España Alucinante y Alucinada - ilustrado
