An Interview with John DeChancie
Q. I've never heard of you. Who the hell are you, anyway?
A.You'd be amazed at the number of published, well-known, and even award-winning authors I could name, none of whom you would know from Ugghh, the first guy to hose his name on a cave wall. No offense, but how many writers can you name, just off the top of your head? I haunt bookstores endlessly, and run into writers I never heard of every time I scan a shelf. It's amazing how many writers there are in the universe of letters. So - what was your question again? Oh, who am I, anyway. Well, I'm a writer of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. My name is on the by-line of about two-dozen books, and about the same number of articles, short stories, and odds and ends. Go to the bibliography link for details. Getting published was the shock of my life. For some absolutely inexplicable reason, people have actually bought and read my SF, fantasy, horror, and other stuff.
Q. How did you get started writing? Did you go through the usual bout of rejections before you had something accepted for publication?
A. No. Although my very early efforts, my juvenilia, as it were, came bouncing back from magazines, the first book I wrote was accepted by the first publisher I sent it to unsolicited. The chances of this happening are akin to any given neutrino's statistical probability of interacting with your Aunt Martha as it propagates through the galaxy, i.e., close to, but not quite, zero. Explanation? Kismet, serendipity, karma, good ju-ju. Clean living, proper outlook? I dunno. Seriously, though, the thousands of novels, short stories, nonfiction, and other reading matter than I processed through my eyes and brain in the preceding years up to that happy day had something to do with it. I've always contended that writers are readers first. I learned the art of writing fiction-the techniques, the processes, the tricks of the trade-by close reading of those who did it well, the writers I loved and admired. I don't know of any other way it can be done.
Q. Which writers did you admire? Who influenced you?
A. There are two ways to go here. I could list the usual science fiction writers that most SF writers name-Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury, and on and on-or I could go the high-flown route and start talking about Kafka, Borges, and Barth, and cast a very snooty aura about myself. The truth is that all the writers I mentioned, and more, influenced me in some way. I'll never forget Giles Goat-Boy or The Sot-Weed Factor. Barth's prose mannerisms survive in my style to this day. I will also forever retain in my psyche the character of the Mule in Asimov's Foundation series, and turns of phrase, techniques, and nomenclature found in Heinlein's juveniles can be traced directly back to their source from my work. At the same time, Kafka's The Trial was like a new dimension opening. And so it goes. I can be snooty, or I can spit pulp with the best of the hacks. To me, there is no dividing line between literature and entertainment.
Q. Anybody else? Are there any other writers you'd like to mention?
A. Oh, sure. Harlan Ellison, Roger Zelazny, Philip Jose Farmer, Poul Anderson, William Tenn. On the snooty side, James Joyce, Henry Miller, Thomas Wolfe, Tom Wolfe, Vladimir Nabokov, and oh hell. Why go on?
Q. Steady, steady. Are you primarily a writer of science fiction or of fantasy? You say you did some horror, too.
A. Very little horror. One novel, and that was a collaboration with the Godfather of horror, Thomas F. Monteleone. I should have a link to his web site. Anyway, my first three novels were a trilogy squarely in the "hard" SF vein. They are now regarded as minor classics, sort of underground, undiscovered cult novels, although they got little critical attention. I next tried my hand at light fantasy, and the resulting series became paperback best sellers. Eventually, I went back to SF, but with less success. As it stands now, I'm ready to veer off into mystery and mainstream. But we'll see.
Q. Have your reviews been generally bad or good?
A. I have to say generally good, from the start. But I have had a few killer reviews, an unpleasant thing to happen to a writer, especially when produced by ignoramuses. In one of my comic SF novels, I did a riff on the routines that Groucho Marx did with Margaret Dumont in just about every Marx Brothers movie. An idiot reviewer accused me of sexism. Upon further query, I discovered that the bone brain had never seen a Marx Brothers movie. A subliterate nincompoop such as this has no business judging any cultural artifact of the last century, nor of this one, for that matter.
Q. You seem bruised and tender. Do you brood much about this?
A. On the contrary, I rarely think about bad reviews. Go to Amazon.com and take a look at on line comments on my SF trilogy or the Castle novels. Most of them are raves. Readers like me, they really like me, to coin a phrase. I have no trouble pleasing a wide audience. On the other hand, I will in all likelihood never become a darling of the critics. I can live with that. No, I just had to get a few things off my chest. Most writers have grudges, resentments, etc. I feel better for airing them.
Q. Well, that's good. Where do you get your ideas? And please don't say you get them from a post office box in Schenectady, NY.
A. I didn't originate that gag. But it would be nice to send $5 to a mail drop somewhere and get five brand new, original, fresh, innovative ideas for stories and novels.
Q. Do you have trouble coming up with ideas?
A. Well, 25 books, dozens of short stories - no, looking at my output, I'd have trouble making the case that I lack for ideas. Matter of fact, I get dozens of ideas per day. Sometimes I don't know what to write next. In my head at present are exactly three huge, throbbing ideas for novels, a couple of theme anthology ideas, at least half a dozen short story ideas boiling and bubbling - and - well, there, you see?
Q. Yet your output isn't terrific. I mean, 25 books is nothing to sneeze at, but some writers in your age group have up to fifty and sixty titles. And many have a hundred or so short story credits. So, by some standards, you're not prolific.
A. All right, it depends on what your meaning of "prolific" is. I think it was James Blish who said that a writer shouldn't have too many titles. It's rather hackish to have hundreds of credits. Wait a minute - what writers "in my age group" are you talking about? Jack Chalker, for instance? Sure, but he writes in tetralogies, at the very least. If you count up his ideas - never mind.
Q. Sorry.
A. It's okay. You know, there are a few "H. P. Novelhacks" in the business (this is one of Monteleone's finer coinages). My good friend David Bischoff is one of them, and freely admits it. He writes to order for a living. He's an excellent writer on his own, but didn't have the good luck to find favor with the critics. Therefore, he does a lot of "work for hire." I do a bit myself. I just wrote a Witchblade novel, and I'm about to embark on another TV-show tie-in. But produce enough temp work (I call it) just to turn a buck, and you become an avatar of H. P. Novelhack himself, and never get back to your own work.
Q. Sounds like a pitfall a writer should avoid. Are there others?
A. Oh, sure. Teaching. One can teach oneself into literary oblivion. Another trap is reading-fee and editing work. At risk of besmirching the memory of the blessed H. P. Lovecraft, whose holy name I have profaned here, he edited and rewrote piles and mounds of amateur fiction, wasting his time and talent to the detriment of his own output. He died virtually penniless and almost totally obscure save for a small coterie of admirers. Of course now he is an icon. He was right, you know. It is a malevolent universe.
Q. Are you that kind of writer?
A. In my darker moments - nah. Come on, I'm not comparing myself with an icon, fer crissake. Give me a break. I am not worthy (kowtowing), I am not worthy ...
Q. You are known as a humorous writer. Your fantasy, especially, is very light, tongue-in-cheek, and sometimes even downright funny. Some of your answers here have been - oh, not quite funny, but a little off-kilter. Are you generally a light-hearted, jolly kind of person?
Q. You see what I mean. For some reason, that was funny, for all that it was rather churlish.
A. I never intended one word of my fiction to be funny. It was the critics who decided I was funny.
Q. How can that be?
A. I sat down and wrote my first novel, following an idea in my head which I thought oh so engaging and mind-blowing. It was an attempt to put the "sense of wonder" back into science fiction. I wrote what I thought was a rollicking, heart-stopping adventure yarn. I was flabbergasted when the first reviews talked about how absolutely side-splitting some of it was. I said, "Huh?" I took a look, and sure as shibboleths, I had dropped a few quips here and there. But I never intended them to be anything but comic relief. I mean, we're talking the gravedigger in Hamlet. Throwaway lines, veiled allusions. Not jokes, gags, routines. No hah-hah stuff. No direct attempt to be funny. But the total effect was - well, read my entry in Clute's SF encyclopedia.
Q. "DeChancie can be at times quite funny." I have it right here.
A. Yeah, a left-handed compliment if there ever was one. But that's okay. I like making people laugh. The trouble with that is, humor is risky. Nothing falls flatter than a joke. In later books, I tried straightforward comedy, and sure enough, many readers did not laugh. But sit me down to write a serious idea, and it will come out funny whether I want it or not. Curious thing.
Q. Some of your later books were humorous, rather than funny. For instance, Living With Aliens.
A. My favorite of the novels, really. It found little favor with either critics or the reading public. But there's a certain Hollywood producer who tells me every time I see him (we have dinner now and then) that he wants to produce it as a feature film. He loved it, and raves endlessly about it. However, his last feature didn't do as well as expected at the box office, and he has had trouble getting another project underway.
Q. Can you say who that producer is?
A. No, sorry, it would be better not to mention names. You probably wouldn't recognize it anyway.
Q. Is there anything else brewing in Hollywood vis-a-vis your body of work?
A. I'm talking with another producer about doing Castle Perilous as a TV series.
Q. Oh, that's exciting. Again, can't mention names, networks?
A. No, you really can't do that. It all sounds so secretive, but it's legal reasons, really. Deal memos, proposals, script ideas, even story conferences, are all vulnerable to theft.
Q. Is there a lot of stealing in Hollywood?
A. I am appalled by both what I have experienced and what has happened to people I know. But Hollywood horror stories are a dime a dozen. I don't have any really juicy ones - except that I had an entire book made into a movie without my consent.
Q. What? I didn't think that could happen. Can it?
A. Not only did it happen to me, it happened to a friend of mine. A mystery writer I know was reading the TV listings, and ran across a capsule plot summary that sounded exactly like one of her whodunits. She watched it. Not only was the plot identical, the characters were hers. It was her book. She was never paid. Turned out it was a project that got sold and re-optioned, and the final owners never got around to clearing the rights to the book. She had them by the gonads, if she'd wanted. But they pleaded simple clerical error, an oversight. She was paid, and that was that.
Q. A feature film?
A. No, it was a MOW, Movie of the Week thing. But what a shock!
Q. Unbelievable! And this happened to you?
A. Yes, with a feature film. But again, sorry. Litigation is pending. I can't say anything further. The same story, though. A long paper trail, options, re-options, turnarounds...
Q. "Turnaround"?
A. Yes, when a project is bought and quickly sold to another outfit. The paper trail gets tenuous, and people forget who has the copyright.
Q. I'm appalled, too. Well, what's next for DeChancie? By the way, the name. Is it French?
A. My surname? No, it's Italian.
Q. It doesn't sound Italian.
A. That's because it was changed.
Q. From what, if I may ask?
Q. Would you pronounce that again?
Q. It still doesn't sound Italian.
A. Sorry, best I can do. It's not exactly a common Italian surname. My father changed it because, he said, he got tired of it being mispronounced.
Q. Why did he want to hide its ethnicity?
A. He didn't. He just wanted a name that slid more easily off the American tongue. At that time, immigrant people really wanted to blend in. They wanted to be thought of as Americans. Most people today can't understand this, but that was the prevailing sentiment at the time. The melting-pot theory was operative. Now we have "diversity."
Q. Both your parents were immigrants?
A. Yes, both were born in Italy.
Q. There aren't many SF/fantasy writers of Italian heritage, are there?
A. Just a few of us. That's because if I see a new guy on the block that can give me competition - ba-da-bing, I have him whacked.
Q. Now, that's straight comedy, isn't it?
A. These are the jokes, folks. What is this, an audience or a graveyard?
Q. But seriously ...
A. Good evening, ladies and germs...
Q. Have you ever thought of doing stand-up?
A. No. I want to go into the casino business.
Q. The casino business?
A. Yeah, I'd call it Giovanni's, formerly Vito's, formerly Nunzio's.
Q. That's funny. Will this be in Vegas?
A. Of course. I want you to come. I want you to feel you have friends in the desert. I have friends all over the desert. I forget where half of them are buried.
Q. How will you treat high rollers?
A. Everyone who comes to my casino is a high roller. First we get you high, then we roll you.
Q. The odds are always with the house.
A. Why, you got a problem with that? Listen, listen. I want you to feel completely at home at my casino. I want you to promise me something.
Q. What's that?
A. I want you to promise me, you won't be ashamed, that if you ever run out of money...
Q. Yes?
A. That you'll get the fuck out of my casino immediately.
Q. You're all heart.
A. I am involved in mankind. Any other questions?
Q. That about wraps it up. Thank you, Mr. DeChancie.
A. Don't mench. Hand me that silencer, will you?
THE END
|
