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Now, with The Lightstone -- his first Fantasy novel -- Zindell has commenced a second Cycle, set on the continent of Ea on one of the many Earthlike worlds of a cosmos known as Eluru. Ancient wars between good and evil factions of angels continue in the superficially mundane conflicts of feudal Ea; a Dark Lord, Morjin, seeks to control the Lightstone, a sort of ultimate Holy Grail, and is defied by the paladin Valashu Elahad and his six fated companions. The intensity of the resulting narrative is extraordinary.
I (Nick Gevers) interviewed David Zindell by e-mail in June 2001, not long before The Lightstone was released in Britain by HarperCollins
Voyager.
The second part of the interview centers primarily of the Lightstone (fantasy) series...
NG: You've now, after a long immersion in visionary space opera, moved on to the extended quest fantasy. The Lightstone has obvious affinities with your earlier work, but there are critical differences too; how have the two experiences contrasted -- writing SF and writing Fantasy?
DZ: In many ways the kind of science fiction that I've written is very close to fantasy: far future, space-operatic, heroic, epic, quest-oriented and requiring a great deal of world-building and invention with a fantastic feel to it. That having been said, I have to admit that in one way, science fiction has been much harder for me to write. At its best, science fiction would demand all that's best of literature, in terms of character, setting, plot, theme, etc. -- and in addition, it would work in science and scientific ideas gracefully and seamlessly. As well, in works that take place in the future, there is the necessity of extrapolating and creating believable sciences and societies, and of course, doing the immense amount of research to make all this come together. It has been the hardest thing I've ever done.
Writing fantasy, by contrast, has been for me much more of a natural and organic experience. I've felt as if I've touched something very deep and ancient in the human soul and been swept away to the realm of pure Story. It's been, quite simply, much more fun. And in one strange way, it has been even harder: I've been so juiced by writing The Lightstone, so absorbed into the story, that each of my writing sessions has been very intense, almost more like an athletic or musical performance for which I have to psych myself up. At times, as after a battle scene, I've found myself typing furiously, with pounding heart and drenched in sweat. As The Lightstone is a very long book, and there have been many of these scenes and sessions, the whole process has been arduous. At times, I've written without a break for as long as two months without taking a day off. And so I've had to subject myself to a greater discipline than I've ever known and arrange my outer life as strictly as possible to serve my writing.
NG: Those who look for material linkages, however tenuous, between an author's different opuses (a la the connections between Asimov's Foundation and Robot sequences) may seize on the Ieldra, those luminous predecessors of humanity, as a common presence in the Neverness and Ea Cycles. Do you intend any physical overlap between the series?
DZ: Not at this time. The Ea universe, Eluru, is one ordered by magic, or rather a science of the gelstei crystals, mysticism and human potentials that looks very much like magic. It's a universe very like ours, but very different as well. For example, in Eluru, human beings have evolved as they have in our universe -- but on millions of worlds, simultaneously, by the design of the One. And there has been a Big Bang to kick everything off. But this has been the result of a host of gods -- I call them Galadin or angels -- in another universe exploding their bodies into light and transcending themselves as the Ieldra of the new universe. Now, it's hard to see how evolution by grand design, without natural selection, and such a miraculous creation can easily be reconciled with modern Darwinian and physical theories. (Though the creation through angel fire, so to speak, might just possibly be supported by the inflation models.) So it's hard to see how there can be an actual physical overlap between the two universes. I am, though, certainly interested in playing with thematic overlaps and resonances.
And there is definitely a sense in which Eluru and our universe have emerged out of the same greater cosmos, and have evolved in different, if weirdly parallel, directions.
NG: Indeed so: at various points in The Lightstone, you strike overt echoes off recorded myth, legend, history. There's the Lightstone as Holy Grail; there's Angra Mainyu (Ahriman), Morjin's mentor as Dark Lord; there are "Aryans" as conquerors in the historical background; there's the Lady of the Lake handing Valashu Elahad Excalibur, I mean Alkaladur. How systematically will the Ea Cycle recapitulate the mythic foundations of the "real world"?
DZ: I'm aiming here at less a systematic recapitulation than a resonance between the two universes. The effect for which I'm striving is that Ea, the key world of the Eluran universe, is more ancient than ours and is in some strange and vital way the "real world." There is a sense that much of what has occurred in the Eaean world has been communicated imperfectly to ours and been recorded primarily as myth. Of course, Tolkien does something very similar in his cosmology: the mythical world of Arda gradually loses its magic as the elves fade and diminish, and in the Fourth Age, evolves into the human-ruled world of the earth we know too well. His genius with languages permitted him, without specifically naming figures or places out of myth, to create a very strong feeling that Middle Earth is the more real reality and existed as the homeland of our distant past. But when I say "our," I mean primarily northern and western European, for the root words of his languages, as well as the actual myths that he drew upon, were taken from those places. I haven't Tolkien's facility at making up new languages. And since I'm hoping to create a sort of ur-myth for the entire world, or at least to cast a new light upon it, I've called upon myths from all across the globe to add depth and resonance to my story.
NG: A global emphasis, yes. Your UK publishers are billing The Lightstone as "The Lord of the Rings meets Le Morte D'Arthur". Are Tolkien and Sir Thomas Malory indeed your premier influences in writing the Ea Cycle? Or are there Asian predecessor texts as well, given the Asiatic texture of so many of the names and settings in The Lightstone?
DZ: I don't think I've ever told anyone this, but Le Morte D'Arthur was actually much more of a direct influence on the Neverness books. In fact, I had originally conceived Neverness as a sort of Morte D'Arthur in space: Neverness, the city, was Camelot, and the pilots of the Order were to be knights zipping around the universe in search of the Holy Grail: the Elder Eddas. Soli was to be Arthur and Justine Guinevere. As I had originally plotted it, she had a lover in Neville (Lancelot). Moira was something very like Morgan Le Fay. And Mallory was originally named Uella and played the part of Modred. Somewhere along the way, I lost Neville, and decided that Uella would be much more interesting as a protagonist who tells a story in which he overcomes his evil side eventually to do great good. I don't recall how he came to be Mallory. And then things evolved from there.
In the Ea Cycle, Thomas Malory's influence isn't nearly as great as Tolkien's. Asian predecessors include the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, but more as sources very much in the background. From western Asia, of course, I've drawn upon the Epic of Kalkamesh -- I mean, Gilgamesh. I've been inspired by many Hindu and Buddhist myths (Kalkin is the tenth and final avatar of Vishnu as the Maitreya is the last earthly buddha); I'll probably wind up using myths from China and Japan, but at this time, I have great ignorance of them.
NG: Is Valashu Elahad essentially a second Danlo, with similar attitudes and aptitudes? Is his friend, Maram, another Bardo, and his enemy, Morjin, another Hanuman?
DZ: One of the resonances between our universe and Eluru is that of incarnation. And so, yes, Maram is very nearly Bardo, while Valashu is somewhat less a Danlo. And least of all is Morjin another Hanuman -- though enough so that there are many similarities.
NG: A particularly fascinating component of the Ea Cycle is its background of space travel in the distant past, and a prophesied return to the stars. What form does interstellar transportation take in a Fantasy universe?
DZ: Certainly not through spaceships -- although there is a hint, in the tale of King Koru-ki, that the oceans of all Eluru's worlds are somehow connected and so it might be possible to sail from one world to another. It is the case that the telluric currents of all worlds touch upon every other and so open portals to other worlds through which various creatures and peoples pass back and forth. This winds up being, functionally, no different from the star gates of science fiction. The Galadin, I should say, possess a slightly different means of walking between worlds, but I don't think I want to say much more about this at this early stage of the Ea Cycle's genesis.
NG: Have you fully plotted out the titles and content of the remaining three books of Ea as yet? Will there be dramatic changes in period, setting, or the identity of the narrator?
DZ: The titles I've had from the beginning but I expect that they might have to be changed: the second book is The Red Dragon, which is perfect but already used by Thomas Harris for one of his Hannibal novels. The narrator will remain Valashu. At this time, I've no plans either to kill him off or divinise him and begin telling the story of his son. The setting will remain on Ea, at the end of the Age of the Dragon. And I have plotted out the remaining books, but only the second one in detail. And as for there being four books altogether, who knows?
These series have a way of growing, don't they? But I can say I have no intention of letting it metastasise, of sending my characters off on meaningless side quests or in developing too many subplots and story arcs. One of the constraints of telling a story in first person is that it's very difficult to go off on all these story-wrecking tangents.
*****
Before, you are wise; after, you are wise. In between you are otherwise.
Fravashi saying (from the formularies of Osho the Fool) <i>Edited by: danlo60 at: 3/26/04 11:47 am
</i>
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