Q. When wasl Tooth and Claw published?
A. It came out first in November 2003, then in paperback in December 2004. Editions in Chinese, Spanish, German and Japanese came out in 2005, and it is due to come out in Czech in 2006.
Q. Why no French edition?
A. I don't know. If anyone wants to do a French edition I'd be really enthusiastic. I live in Montreal. A French edition would be so great for my social life.
Q. How long is it?
A. 256 pages. That's 93,000 words, by Protext's count.
Q. What's it about?
A. It's a Victorian novel in which all the characters are dragons.
Q. So, are you nuts or what? I mean, what gave you that
idea?
A. It's all Emmet's fault, that's my husband, Dr. Emmet O'Brien. I was
reading two books at once, one fantasy novel and Trollope's The
Small House at Allington. I complained that the fantasy novel
didn't really understand dragons, and he misheard and thought that I
meant that Trollope didn't. Naturally, this led me to the revelation
that Trollope did understand dragons extremely well, and that in fact
the rather peculiar nature of the women in Trollope can be explained
by the facts of dragon biology.
Q. Naturally?
A. Well, it seemed natural to me.
Q. Did you have to write a whole book about it?
A. I'm afraid so.
Q. So, you have an entire race of creatures with the sexuality of Lily
Dale?
A. Yes...
Q. And you don't have any problem with that?
A. No. I mean I love Trollope, but you have to admit that women aren't
like that. And I love the way so many terrific people have written new
Victorian novels, with people the way they actually are, but somehow
those aren't Victorian novels. I saw the dragons as a way of writing a
Victorian novel that would say something about the Victorians from a
perspective they didn't have, but which would also be a Victorian
novel.
Q. With... dragons.
A. Yes, with dragons.
Q. With dragons who eat each other? The Victorians didn't eat each
other.
A. Nature red in tooth and claw... well, no, not literally. But they
were always dying. And the way they write about the way they were
always dying, they might as well have been suddenly eaten by dragons.
Also, they were very predatory and life was very hard.
Q. And what about the slavery? The Victorians didn't have slaves!
A. They did in America.
Q. Why is it a fantasy novel?
A. Seen any dragons overhead recently?
Q. Is there any magic?
A. Only insofar as these are fairy tale dragons, and dragons can't
work biologically. Well, Peter Dickinson worked out some terrific ways
they could, but mine aren't like that, they're exactly like a standard
dragon. It would be SF, if not for that.
Q. So it's a Victorian novel, it's SF and it's fantasy?
A. Yes.
Q. Where do the names come from?
A. I made them up.
Q. How do you pronounce them?
A. Exactly as they're written.
Q. They're not Welsh or anything?
A. They're perfectly ordinary dragon names.
Q. What about the colours? When do they change colour?
A. Female dragons start off gold. When they become engaged to a male
dragon they change to pink, it's a hormonal change and represents a
complete fixation on their mate. When they produce a clutch, this
colour deepens to red, and continues to deepen with age. If they
don't mate, when they get too old to reproduce, the gold fades to iron
grey. Male dragons can be bronze or black. Green is always a sign of
illness in any dragon.
Q. Do you like the cover? A. I love it. I especially like how the dragon has that Mona Lisa pose. I love the hands.
Q. Is the cover available as a poster? A. Not that I know of, but if it were, I'd buy one.
Q. Is that what your dragons look like?
A. Close enough. My dragons are very thin and very long, their tails
are long. They normally walk semi-upright, or fly, but they can go
very fast down on all fours, scuttling. The females have hands, but
the males have claws.
Q. Do they wear clothes?
A. Only hats.
Q. Is is possible to buy models of your dragons?
A. Yes, from Kyril's Cavern, P.O. Box 48426 Coon Rapids, MN 55448. You
can select colour and eye colour. I bought a dragon from them at
Minicon and it sits proudly on my tchotchke shelf.
Q. Is there a map?
A. No. I really don't think this one needs a map.
Q. What else would you suggest people read, I mean, if they were to
enjoy Tooth and Claw?
A. Anthony Trollope. Good places to start are the stand-alone books,
like The American Senator, The Vicar of
Bullhampton, Is He Popenjoy?, Orley
Farm. Trollope wrote about forty novels and I haven't found
them all yet. The series are splendid, but they have to be read in
order and it isn't always easy to find them in order. There's a great
Trollope resource page. Other than Trollope, a few really good
modern Victorian novels are John Fowles's The French
Lieutenant's Woman, Margaret Forster's Lady's
Maid, A.S. Byatt's Possession.
Q.Has Tooth and Claw won any awards?
A. Yes, it won the World Fantasy Award in 2004. I went to the World Fantasy Convention in Tempe, Arizona, to collect it. It's a bust of H.P. Lovecraft, and one of the ugliest things you ever saw. I was afraid they were going to confiscate it coming back through Customs. It's on my tchotchke shelf, next to the Kyrin Cavern dragon.
Q.Are you writing a sequel?
Yes. But it'll be really different.