Subj:Fwd: Emperor's Hammer Interview Date:3/4/03 6:49:42 PM Eastern Standard Time From:RO KeiranIdanian To:GA Ronin Enjoy! :) -Keiran ----------------- Forwarded Message: Subj:Re: Emperor's Hammer Interview Date:2/19/03 12:48:21 AM Eastern Standard Time From:sperry@easystreet.com To:ROKeiranIdanian@aol.com Sent from the Internet (Details) Greetings Mr. Perry, My deepest apologizes for the amount of time it has taken me to send you this interview. Much has happened in my personal life, it just interfered with my work in the Emperor's Hammer. No problem. Life does that. 1.) What do you think about the Emperor's Hammer? I confess I haven't time to consider it all that deeply, but it seems like a fun place. 2.) Why did you want to become an author? Always wanted to tell and write stories, and I especially wanted to impress my 11th grade English teacher, Mary Ann Brown, who was drop-dead gorgeous, which is where and why I wrote my first science fiction story. (It did impress her. And I still send her copies of my new books every time one comes out.) 3.) Who are your inspirations? Too many to list, really. I like all kinds of writers, from Isaac Asimov to Roger Zelazny, and most of the alphabet in-between. 4.) What is your favorite book, and why? Can't really narrow it down to one, there are too many I enjoy. (If you are talking about my stuff, I like them all ...) Zelazny's Lord of Light is a favorite, but I a fan of Bill Gibson's stuff, and most of what John Irving has written -- Hotel New Hampshire was one of my favorites. I have eclectic tastes. 5.) What is your favorite movie, and why? Pretty much the same reply as the favorite book. I can list bunches -- here are a few: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; The Big Chill; Grand Canyon; Personal Best; All that Jazz; Forbidden Planet; The Day the Earth Stood Still; and the first SWs trilogy, considered as one movie. I have to confess I thought the first two LOTRs were pretty spiffy, too. 6.) Where did you first see Star Wars? Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the first week it came out. On a Tuesday, around noon. Enjoyed it tremendously, though at the time, I thought Lucas took my idea -- I had written a story about a mystical fighter who used something very similar to the Force a month or two before I saw the movie -- I called it The Wave. Great minds and all ... 7.) What is your favorite thing about Star Wars, and why? The sense of wonder, the fun of it. It's a Samurai Western with all those wonderful Hero's Journey archtypes. Great stuff. 8.) What are some of your hobbies, and why do you like them? I study an Indonesian martial art, penjak silat, which I love, and I am trying to learn how to play classical guitar. They engage my mind, body, and spirit. 9.) What is your favorite thing about being an author? I can get up as late as I want, set my own hours, and I get to make up stuff and get paid for it. How terrific is that? 10.) Do you have any current projects that you are working on that you are allowed to talk about? Sure. I'm working on a novel in my Matador series, called The Musashi Flex. Doing another book in the collaborative Net Force series, from Tom Clancy. A couple of spec movie scripts with Mike Richardson at Dark Horse. Oh, and a pair of Star Wars novels with my friend Michael Reaves (he wrote Shadow Hunter, the Darth Maul book). These are paperbacks set during the Clone Wars. My magic realism novel, Windowpane, just came out from Five Star Press. 11.) What kind of music do you like? All kinds: Rock, blues, classical, country, jazz, doo-wop. I'm not a big rap fan, being a middle-aged Louisiana cracker and all, and I think it's a young person's genre, but I respect the folks who can pull it off. 12.) Who is your favorite band, and why? Beatles. Because ... they're the *Beatles.* All time favorite piece of music would have to be Pachelbel's Canon in D, but I like Hey Jude and Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water, a lot, too ... 13.) Who is your favorite character in Star Wars (movies and books), and why? Hard to nail that one down. I love the orginial cast for ANH, ESB, and ROTJ. Princess Leia was always the coolest character for me. I have to say I think Xizor is a pretty neat villain. I always identified most with Han Solo, of course. Smartest character in the all the movies? I'd have to go with Threepio ... 14.) Was there a reason you decided to write Shadows of the Empire? Well, they asked me. . More seriously, it was a chance to put my favorite characters through their paces, to answer some questions I'd had, and to get inside their heads and see what made them tick. What Darth Vader thinks when he goes into the hyperbaric chamber? I know. I got to say. How Luke built his new light saber and how he went from whinning boy to Jedi Knight? I got to show that. How Princess Leia felt about Han being frozen? I got to tell readers that, too. I loved it, it was a great experience. 15.) What did you use for inspiration when you wrote Shadows? I set out to make SOTE the movie that should have gotten made between ESB and ROTJ. I got to use Darth Vader, and a neat new villain, Xizor (pronounced "Shee-zor," by the way.) 16.) Is Dash Rendar really dead? Nope. Dash lives. He even got a cameo at the end of the five issue miniseries I wrote for Dark Horse Comics: Shadows of the Empire: Evolution. Once again, thanks a lot!!! You are most welcome. Highest Regards, -Keiran Idanian High Admiral/Emperor's Hammer www.emperorshammer.org -- Steve http://users.easystreet.com/~sperry/