{"id":859,"date":"2010-08-04T15:38:46","date_gmt":"2010-08-04T21:38:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/?p=859"},"modified":"2010-08-04T15:57:54","modified_gmt":"2010-08-04T21:57:54","slug":"taking-liberties-catching-up-with-jim-c-hines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/2010\/08\/taking-liberties-catching-up-with-jim-c-hines\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking Liberties: Catching Up with Jim C. Hines"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim C. Hines<\/a> wrote his first story fifteen years ago.\u00a0 (Over at his website, he\u2019s written an interesting reflection on the changes in publishing<\/a> since the mid-1990s.)\u00a0 After three years of trading submissions for rejection letters, Hines broke through the brick wall with a story called “Blade of the Bunny” that appeared in Writers of the Future XV<\/em>.\u00a0 Since then his humorous fantasy fiction has appeared regularly in places like Realms of Fantasy<\/em> and Clarkesworld Magazine<\/em>, as well as in many anthologies.<\/p>\n

In 2006, eleven years after starting out, Hines began publishing novels with DAW.\u00a0 First came the Goblin series and then the Princess series.\u00a0 In his six novels (and, I assume, the seventh which is on the way), Hines takes tried-and-true fantasy tropes and turns them upside down and inside out.\u00a0 He does so with a combination of affection and biting wit.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t mock the genre, no, he just doesn\u2019t let it takes itself too seriously.<\/p>\n

Hines and I spoke last summer for an interview in Clarkesworld Magazine<\/em> called \u201cDoing Crappy Things to Good Characters,\u201d<\/a> the title of which should tell you an awful lot about Hines and his writing.\u00a0
\n
\nBelow, we pick up our conversation in the wake of his most successful novel, Red Hood\u2019s Revenge<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

The last time we spoke you were awaiting the release of Red Hood’s Revenge<\/em>, which is out now and ready to be read by the masses.\u00a0 How is Red Hood<\/em> doing?\u00a0 Anything about its reception, here or abroad, that\u2019s surprised you?<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
Jim C. Hines:<\/strong>\u00a0 Barnes & Noble featured Red Hood\u2019s Revenge<\/em> in a floor display with two other Penguin titles, and the first week\u2019s sales were the highest of any of my books, ever.\u00a0 So I\u2019d say it\u2019s doing okay.\u00a0 So far, I\u2019ve been very happy with the reception.\u00a0 There\u2019s no book that\u2019s perfect for everyone, but with this one, it seems like the people who like it really<\/em> like it.<\/div>\n
The biggest surprise is that, to the best of my knowledge, nobody\u2019s banned these books yet.\u00a0 What\u2019s an author got to do?\u00a0 Harry Potter got banned all over the place, and I\u2019ve got just as much magic plus<\/em> lesbian love plus<\/em> that scene where Talia rides up and kicks Fred Phelps in the nuts.\u00a0 (Okay, one of these things may not be entirely true, but the others are.)<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
In what ways have you re-imagined Red Riding Hood?<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
Jim C. Hines:<\/strong>\u00a0 Roudette, aka the Lady of the Red Hood, started with a single throwaway line in The Stepsister Scheme<\/em> where Talia describes her as growing up to become the most feared assassin in the land.\u00a0 I took some liberties with her story, but kept the core elements: the wolf, the hunter, the little girl who strays from the path . . . but the wolf is a weapon, the hunter is a part of the Wild Hunt, and The Path is the core of the Church of the Fey, the religion Roudette was raised in.<\/div>\n
Roudette has a long history, and is older than the other characters.\u00a0 In many ways, I wrote her as a mirror to<\/div>\n
Talia (Sleeping Beauty).\u00a0 Talia could very easily have followed Roudette\u2019s path, becoming an angry, violent, frighteningly efficient killer.\u00a0 As she interacts with my three heroines, I believe she starts to see an alternate possibility for her life . . . but she\u2019s reached the point where it\u2019s very difficult to change.\u00a0 I\u2019d tell you what she ultimately decides, but I don\u2019t want to ruin things.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
What PR strategies have you used to promote Red Hood’s Revenge<\/em> and your other novels?<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
Jim C. Hines:<\/strong>\u00a0 Full body tattoo.\u00a0 Subliminal messages inserted into reruns of Friends<\/em>.\u00a0 Happy Meal toys.\u00a0 The usual.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
I\u2019ve tried a lot of things over the years, and very little has had any significant impact.\u00a0 In the long term though, I think going to conventions and building an online presence has made a difference.\u00a0 I\u2019m on Facebook, LiveJournal, and Twitter, in addition to my web site.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think of it as promotion much these days; it\u2019s more a community (or several communities) of readers, writers, and generally cool people that I get to chat with.\u00a0 But it also helps spread awareness of the books, which is very nice too.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
Which comes first: story or humor?\u00a0 Character or story?<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
Jim C. Hines:<\/strong>\u00a0 It depends, but usually story. \u00a0One of my favorite characters from The Mermaid\u2019s Madness<\/em>, the dryad captain Hephyra, didn\u2019t even show up until the second draft.\u00a0 I tend to be pretty plot\/story oriented with my first drafts.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure what you mean about humor, though.\u00a0 My writing is deeply serious literary fiction.\u00a0 Take the nose-picking scene from Goblin Hero<\/em>, that was clearly a metaphor for the environmental dangers of over-mining the land. . . .<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
How do you keep a series fresh and vital?\u00a0 How do you keep yourself fresh and vital?<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
Jim C. Hines:<\/strong>\u00a0 With books, the key for me has been to try to let the characters change.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to keep telling the same story over and over.\u00a0 As characters change, so do their goals and desires, which then changes the shape of the next story.\u00a0 The other thing I\u2019ve done with both of my series so far is to let them end once I\u2019m done telling the stories I want to tell.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had a lot of requests for more goblin books, and people are already unhappy that the next princess book will probably be the last . . . but I\u2019d rather end things now then drag it on when I don\u2019t have anything to say.<\/div>\n
As for keeping myself fresh?\u00a0 Daily showers, mostly.\u00a0 Yes, even at cons.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
Sure, sure, this is all well and good, but what\u2019s Talia the Warrior Princess up to these days?<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
Jim C. Hines:<\/strong>\u00a0 I\u2019m working on the third draft of the final book, The Snow Queen\u2019s Shadow<\/em>.\u00a0 Given what I do to Talia and her friends in that one, I\u2019d say she\u2019s spending most of her time cursing my name and plotting my death.<\/div>\n

*<\/p>\n

Jeremy L. C. Jones <\/em><\/a>is a freelance writer, editor, and part-time professor.\u00a0 Jones is a frequent contributor to <\/em>Clarkesworld Magazine<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 He is also the director of <\/em>Shared Worlds<\/em><\/a>, a creative writing and world-building camp for teenagers that he and <\/em>Jeff VanderMeer <\/em><\/a>designed in 2006.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jim C. Hines wrote his first story fifteen years ago.\u00a0 (Over at his website, he\u2019s written an interesting reflection on the changes in publishing since the mid-1990s.)\u00a0 After three years of trading submissions for rejection letters, Hines broke through the brick wall with a story called “Blade of the Bunny” that appeared in Writers of the Future XV.\u00a0 Since then his humorous fantasy fiction has appeared regularly in places like Realms of Fantasy and Clarkesworld Magazine, as well as in many anthologies. In 2006, eleven years after starting out, Hines began publishing novels with DAW.\u00a0 First came the Goblin series and then the Princess series.\u00a0 In his six novels (and, I assume, the seventh which is on the way), Hines takes tried-and-true fantasy tropes and turns them upside down and inside out.\u00a0 He does so with a combination of affection and biting wit.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t mock the genre, no, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":862,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions\/862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}