age 4

Have you ever thought of merchandising? I think a Contest watch would be killer!

I love the idea of computer game versions of my books - I think the structure of the books themselves lends them to the 'level'-structure of a computer game.

As for merchandising, I'd love to see action figures based on my books! As a kid, I was a huge fan of the Star Wars action figures, and to have some based on my own books would be very cool. And now that I think of it, there are a multitude of characters and vehicles that you could make from my books: Schofield and Mother and William Race, and the cats and caimans from Temple, the aliens from Contest, not to mention all the vehicles (like the Silhouette or the hovercrafts from Ice Station, or the boats and planes from Temple and Area 7).

The sky is the limit.

As an author, how much control do you have over:
- The final copy

I take a keen interest in the formatting of my books. With all the lists and diagrams, I like to make sure that they have been reproduced correctly. Since I often use those diagrams and lists for twist, it is crucial that they be done right, so I keep a close eye on them.

- The front cover

This is more of a collaborative thing - while I don't have cover approval, with my Australian and UK publishers, cover design is something we talk about as a group. In the end, though, the decision is my publisher's. That said, in the US, they don't give me any say.

- The blurb

I write my own blurbs (except for the US paperback editions of my books - they get their own guy to do it, and he comes up with very good blurbs). Obviously, I did the blurb for the self-published version of Contest, but when it came time for Ice Station to be released, I just thought about it and drafted my own blurb and it was used. I like to think that, as the author, I know the story best, but I also know that some authors can't stand condensing their 140,000-word novel into a 150-word summary!

I just think of it as drafting a movie poster and go from there (does anyone remember the original poster for Die Hard, that was my favourite: 'High above the city of LA, a team of terrorists has take over a building and declared war... ')

- The diagrams

I do them myself. I also deliberately try not to make them too detailed. They are there only as a reading aid. I absolutely do not want to take the 'imagining' of the book from the reader. I want readers to picture Wilkes Ice Station or Area 7 for themselves, I just try to help them out with the basic layout.

That said, I am most proud of the diagrams in Area 7. So far as I know, they are the only diagrams in a novel that 'evolved' with the story - as the underground facility floods, the diagram changes with it!

- The cover style (trade, hardback, etc)

That's a publishing decision, made by the publisher in whichever country I am being published. Hardbacks in the US and Italy, trade paperbacks in Holland.

In Australia, Ice Station was originally slated to be released straight-to-paperback, but when it got such good buzz in Pan Macmillan's offices, they decided to release it big-time as trade paperback (this was when trade paperbacks were a new thing).

- The advertising coverage

Publishing decision. Although I do help with the content - again, it's like designing a movie poster!

How much time per week, on average, do you spend working on your Golf Handicap?

8 hours.

How much time per week, on average, do you spend working? Do you have a set routine/writing hours? Do you treat it as a full time job?

Probably about 30 hours a week. I always like to do 4 good days' worth of writing a week. I used to write when it suited me, but now I tend to write between Monday and Friday - this allows me to catch up with my friends on the weekends.

I treat it as a career, but not a job. I have far too much fun doing it to treat it as a job! And if I wake up and I'm not in the mood to write, I won't. If it were a job, I'd have to make myself write, and I never ever do that!

Do you write your books as though you wish you were having the adventures of the hero?

Absolutely. I think that's also why people read them, to go on an adventure. Some people read to escape, I write to escape.

Have you ever had an adventure that could appear in one of your books?

Hiking up to the base of Mount Everest was an adventure - and will certainly appear in something soon!

Which scene out of all of your books are you most proud of?

There's a huge scene in Scarecrow, which I can't tell you about till it comes out, that I am very very proud of.

Apart from that, I love the scene at the end of Temple, where William Race is falling to earth inside a tank and he has to disarm the mother of all nuclear bombs. You don't write scenes like that everyday, and it took a long time to figure it out. Actually, for that matter, the whole of Temple took a lot of thinking. I am very proud of the entire structure of that book. Sometimes I think about it and can't believe I managed it!

Are you ever going to Direct a Television commercial for one of your books? Maybe with some explosions?

I'm thinking of doing exactly that for Scarecrow!

Which authors have influenced your writing most?

Michael Crichton - for the pace, the technology, and the sheer joy of going on a roller-coaster ride.
And Tom Clancy - for the geopolitics. I've loved the international intrigue of his books.

I like to think my books have the geopolitical complexity of Tom Clancy and the wonderful pace of Michael Crichton. They are the masters.

Are any of your characters based on people you know?

No. Sometimes I will use the facial features of friends on my characters (William Race's birthmark under his left eye is exactly the same as a birthmark my friend, Simon Kozlina, has!)

Do you enjoy killing likeable characters off?

No. But it was necessary for the story in each case.

But this is what a thriller is all about - wondering if the hero will survive. If minor characters that you love get killed, who's to say if the hero won't die as well? I also think this is what makes my books different: I make the tough calls.

And we've all seen so many movies, that we tend to know intuitively who will come out at the end and who will be eaten by the dinosaurs, so to speak! I try to overturn those assumptions.

How do you decide on the book title? When do you decide? (First, last?)

Contest was always the title of that book.
Ice Station came well after the book was finished (it was called Starfighter once, then South Pole, and I wanted Twelve Swordsmen at one point, as a reference to the Marines' dress-uniform swords - I may still use that title, I like it!).
Temple was always the title.
Area 7 came about halfway through writing that book. Its working title was POTUS, standing for President of the United States.
Scarecrow came about halfway through as well. Its working title was The Most Wanted Man in the World, but I decided that that was a little too long and static.

Which is the single most applicable piece of advice that you have received from a peer?

I once saw a poet say that he had written a thriller... for the money. I took that as advice... not to write in a genre that I don't love. He didn't seem to love thrillers as I do, and I reckon readers saw that in his 'thriller'. I don't write poetry because I know hard-core poetry readers will spot my weaknesses straight away.

Where do your characters' personalities come from?

Who knows! Schofield was always supposed to be a modern-day super hero. Mother's personality came in a flash in the space of 30 seconds.

I tend to think in terms of archetypes - so my characters' personalities come from the kind of person I want them to be: a hero, a mentor, a villain, a devious shapeshifter.

Do you ever get emotional over your own writing - apart from 'excited'?

Not really. Except for one scene I wrote recently.

We all know about your 'big animal' plot device, but why do you usually have a child or innocent civilian, too? Why do they keep surviving?

The presence of children in my stories is very deliberate: they soften the story. A child's innocence brings out the goodness in my heroes; because a true hero won't leave a kid behind, even if all good sense tells him to save himself.

That said, the only books of mine not to feature a child in the centre of the action, Temple and now Scarecrow, are to me, the 'hardest' of all my books.

Why do cover designs vary from country to country? Some are really bad!

Different publishers feel that their markets will respond to different covers. US covers tend to have more text on them, more 'blurbs' from other authors or quotes from good reviews. UK covers tend to be more spartan, 'cleaner', more refined. Australian covers fall somewhere in between. While in Europe and in other countries, they have design theories of their own. I love the Italian edition of Temple, called Tempio.

Will we ever see another book with the same background as Contest? I.e.: the aliens/sci-fi.

Potentially, but I don't think so. If I go that way again, it'll be more like Ice Station, with the premise centering on the possibility of alien life, not actual aliens. But then, never say never.

One of my recent screenplays is total sci-fi, with spaceships and planets and creatures, so I might leave my sci-fi dreams to the movie world.

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