Rachel Hyde: When did you first want to become a novelist?

Naomi Novik: I first tried my hand at writing a fantasy novel when I was ten years old. I got 100 handwritten pages into it (I remember very little, other than that it featured an improbably gifted heroine) before losing steam.

 

Rachel: Have you written any other books and are they available?

Naomi: Temeraire is my very first! However, the second and third books in the series are written and will be coming out soon -- titled Throne of Jade and Black Powder War, respectively.

 

Rachel: Which authors have influenced you the most and why?

Naomi: The late, great Patrick O'Brian has to head the list, for the brilliant way he brings the Napoleonic era alive for the modern reader without ever losing that fundamental quality of another place in time, and makes that incredibly difficult balancing act look easy. And though it may be cliché, yes, Tolkien was a formative influence on me -- the Hobbit was read to me when I was first learning to read, and that was the start of a long and continuing love affair with fantasy and speculative fiction.

 

Rachel: Why did you select to write a novel combining dragons with the Napoleonic Wars? What made you want to marry the two ideas?

Naomi: I love the contrast, in the Napoleonic era, of enormous, world-shaping events taking place against the backdrop of an everyday life that is at the same time recognizable to us now in many ways, and yet still very alien.

Before starting Temeraire, I was experimenting with historical fiction set in the time, and I found it natural to wonder, what would have happened if the world had been different? What if this key event hadn't happened, or happened at a different time; what if the technology were more advanced, or less?

What if there were dragons?

I've loved the idea of dragons since I was a child, so this particular Reeses peanut-butter-cup notion caught me at once. I felt strongly that combining the two would allow me to put an original, speculative twist on both the Napoleonic era itself and the treatment of dragons.

 

Rachel: What advice do you have for beginning writers?

Naomi: For someone who is looking to become a professional writer, I think the best advice I can give is to seek out critique. Never be afraid of hearing negative things said about your work, even when harshly worded, and try and learn from everything said.

Also, write a lot, and in places where you can get feedback. Though Temeraire is my first novel, and my first professional publication, I've been writing regularly since 1994, just for pleasure. I only started trying to seriously write an original novel in October 2003, and then in fact the idea for Temeraire didn't hit and take off until January 2004. Those ten years of work were, for me, a necessary foundation.

 

Rachel: Do you consider yourself a genre writer? If so, which genre do you swing towads – fantasy or historical?

Naomi: If you're asking where I think Temeraire should be filed, I'd say at the front of the bookstore! ;)

But I would say yes -- worldbuilding has a special fascination for me, and I find both speculative fiction and historical fiction require it, because to be successful you have to make the setting, the place, the different ways of thinking, real to the reader. That holds true whether you're working in a fantasy world like Middle-Earth, a vision of the future like Dune, or a world-that-once-was like 19 th -century Europe.

What really sparks for me in writing is the excitement of character relationships, and I do take special pleasure in having those relationships unfold in a speculative universe -- one where I can throw in some complications I've imagined that might not exist in reality.

 

Rachel: What future books do we have to look forward to? Can you tell us anything about your next novel? Do you have any plans for different books?

Naomi: Without giving too much away, I can say that Temeraire and Laurence will continue to have more adventures all around the world. I have plots mostly laid out currently through a fifth book, with scattered ideas for ones after that.

Naomi: I do have about a half-dozen completely different ideas percolating as well, still in the gestational stage. I'm finding that writing intensively feeds itself -- I have more ideas than I have time to explore, at the moment, and am trying to set aside some time to start working through them.

 

Rachel: When readers enjoy a book of an unusual type and enjoy it they often want to read others. Can you recommend any other alternative history/historical fantasy novels?

Naomi: To fantasy readers, I would like to recommend Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series. To historical fiction readers, I would like to recommend Guy Gavriel Kay, particularly A Song for Arbonne; he writes historical fiction with a light touch of the speculative, like a thin shiny glaze on top that brightens the colors. I'm also a big fan of Sharon Shinn's Samaria books, which to me are another crossover, on the edge between romance and science fiction, which have captured the satisfactions of both.

And it will probably come as no surprise that Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is one of my favorite books of the last ten years.

 

Rachel: Do you have any final words for your readers, and how can fans contact you? Do you have a website?

Naomi: I have a website at www.temeraire.org , which offers a low-volume mailing list for updates about the books and occasional fun things like giveaways. The website also links to my livejournal, which I regularly (at least, when I am not in the midst of a frantic deadline push!) update with news about the books, occasional excerpts, photographs from my research trips. Comments there reach me by e-mail, and are always welcome!