Suite101 gets author Jesse Bullington's point of view on three pressing questions.
If you had to write a new spin on a classical text, what would you pick and what creative direction would you take?
For a classical text in the classical sense of the word (ho ho, dear reader!), I would go with Pliny's Naturalis Historia - not being a work of fiction, I'd feel more comfortable twisting it into such. I could see it being a lot of fun, assuming nobody has already done it, to write something based on the idea that his Natural History is accurate in all ways and jump from there into a fusion of biography, reality, mytho-history, and sword-and-sandal camp.
If we're taking a looser definition of classical it would be fun to re-tell The Epic of Gilgamesh as a love story between Enkidu and Gilamesh...more than it already is, I mean.
What can genre fiction do better than its more literary orientated counterpart?
Hmmm...I'm of the mind that fiction is capable of the world and nothing less, and that goes for all styles and genres. By which I mean that anything "literary" fiction can do "genre" can as well, and the reverse, and so perpetuating pissing contests seems to miss the point, which should be good writing and good stories. That said, genre can do monsters with less need for symbolism and metaphor, hence my predilection toward the literary holding pen full of snuffling beasties.
Pick one novel/series you'd like to see made into a film or television series.
To sort-of answer your question, I would love to see a Weird Tales television series based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, R.E. Howard, and C.A. Smith, with occasional episodes devoted to other contemporaneous authors. An episodic series would allow the program to shift styles and content dramatically while still maintaining a sufficiently large audience to keep it on the air. This week's adaptation of "The Colour Out of Space" followed by a teaser for next week's "The Kingdom of the Necromancers" or "The Frost Giant's Daughter," that sort of thing. Randolph Carter could pop in from time to time, so for those who have to have something linear to hold onto the framing device could be Carter in the Dreamlands.
I really think the potential is there, as the 40 or 50-odd minute running time of each episode would keep the adaptations from bloating up in the way a cinematic adaptation might...but now that I've said it the whole thing will probably get syfyed: "Kevin Sorbo *is* Randolph Carter, with special guest John Rhys-Davies as a cat of Ulthar."
Born and raised in rural Pennsylvania, Jesse Bullington received a bachelor's degree in both History and English Literature from Florida State University. Upon graduating he immediately set to work on The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart, to be published by Orbit in November 2009. Read more about Jesse and his work at his blog, The Words and Works Of Jesse Bullington
“The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart is disgusting, violent, and filled to the brim with cursing, blaspheming, great quantities of bodily fluids, and just about every manner of degeneracy, and it takes some getting used to…That said, it doesn’t sound like the kind of thing that’s generally for me, either, but after getting my sea legs, I found it to be wonderfully written, clever, funny, and ultimately, brilliantly itself. It’s a debut novel of a kind we rarely see, and I think it’ll divide a lot of people, and get a lot of much-deserved attention. -- Orrin Grey, Insmouth Free Press
Lynne Jamneck - Lynne Jamneck lives in Auckland, New Zealand. Short listed for the Sir Julius Vogel and Lambda Awards, she has published short fiction in ...
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