Ken Liu Quotes

It's hard out here for a fantasy writer, after all; there's all these 'rules' I'm supposed to follow, or the Fantasy Police might come and make me do hard labor in the Cold Iron Mines.

I'm a sponge when it comes to stories. I'd say everything influences me in some way, but for 'Red Queen' in particular, I was really affected by the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series by George R. R. Martin.

For me, even in my first book, the pleasures of writing anything magical is that it has to be physical. It has to be grounded and very much in this world. Then, I get to play with all the consequences of this new thing.

I think anything goes in fiction as long as it fits within the interior logic of the work itself and is presented in a disciplined manner.

In the 'Dreamblood' books, I'm focusing more on what I like about epic fantasy: the layering and depth of tension; the chance to really delve into the minutia of an alternate society and its politics; a large cast of characters to love and hate.

Guy Gavriel Kay's 'Tigana' is, in my opinion, one of the best, if not the best fantasy novel ever written. It's beautifully written, the characters are unforgettable, the worldbuilding is exquisite.

If you're creating a whole universe, even if it's a universe squeezed into a solar system, you have to use a little bit of sleight of hand.

The idea of science fiction, mythology, and creating a world is my favourite thing. I do love the reality of dramas and playing that, but being able to start from scratch, to completely build the character and this world, I love that.

Genre mechanics are really tricky because if you pay too much attention to the idea of rules of genre, it becomes pretty stale, pretty fast.

This is what I think is fun about fiction - you get to use as much history as you want as scaffolding and then go beyond it and change it and mutate it.

I read 'Sabella or The Blood Stone' by Tanith Lee, which was hugely influential to me. I love Tanith's writing. She's just really lyrical, beautiful use of language.

An author's characters do what he wants them to do.

For the traditional fantasies, a lot more of my research comes from reading rather than doing. I like my worlds to feel real, so I do a lot of world building research.

Once you've invested hundreds of hours in creating a coherent universe, your story's grown to around a half-million words and can't be written as anything less than a trilogy.

I'm going to get hated for saying this, but honestly, fantasy is easy to write because you can do anything. It's like when Raymond Chandler brings in a bloke with a gun when he's stuck - in fantasy, up pops a wizard, and off we go.

I was someone who really loved fantasy novels and science fiction novels.

When you talk about fantasy, the usual problem is that whilst you've got the world of imagination, there are no controlling forces.

It's very hard to adapt something. You end up changing it too much to make a good movie out of it. I prefer to work with things that are custom made for my kind of animation.

I just want to be told a story, and I want to believe I'm living that story, and I don't give a thought to influences or method or any other writerly concerns.

Anybody can write a film script 'cuz it has been reduced to a formula.

Honestly, not being evasive, but the great thing about Bond is that I have fifty years of movies - 23 movies and all the Ian Fleming novels and short stories, all of which are fodder. And when I'm working on the new Bond, I'm constantly going back to Fleming and the other movies - what are the bits and pieces, what are the resonances?

Whenever you're writing a book or creating a movie or a game, your first task is to get the reader/audience/player to suspend disbelief, to buy into the logic and boundaries of your world, even though those boundaries might include things like dragons and magic. To do that, you need long threads - of history and culture.

A big part of the fun of working on Superman has been coming up with new characters and concepts to toss in, helping to design their costumes, things like that. And I spent ages coming up with the name 'Fortress of Solidarity,' so I want to get as much use out of it as I can!

I'd love to see more novels and short stories where the characters have their own folklore that isn't the Plot-Bearing Prophecy of Doom.

If you are a novelist of a certain type of temperament, then what you really want to do is re-invent the world. God wasn't too bad a novelist, except he was a Realist.