{BLOG TOUR} THE RISE OF RANSOM CITY - INTERVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

Welcome to The Bookish Babe's stop on The Rise of Ransom City Blog Tour. Today's stop includes an interview with author Felix Gilman and a giveaway. I would like to the lovely folks at Tor Publishing for asking me to join the tour!

Series: Companion to The Half-Made World
Genre: Sci Fi/Fantasy
Publisher: Tor Publishing
Publication Date: 11/27/12

This is the story Harry Ransom. If you know his name it’s most likely as the inventor of the Ransom Process, a stroke of genius that changed the world.

Or you may have read about how he lost the battle of Jasper City, or won it, depending on where you stand in matters of politics.

Friends called him Hal or Harry, or by one of a half-dozen aliases, of which he had more than any honest man should. He often went by Professor Harry Ransom, and though he never had anything you might call a formal education, he definitely earned it.

If you’re reading this in the future, Ransom City must be a great and glittering metropolis by now, with a big bronze statue of Harry Ransom in a park somewhere. You might be standing on its sidewalk and not wonder in the least of how it grew to its current glory. Well, here is its story, full of adventure and intrigue. And it all starts with the day that old Harry Ransom crossed paths with Liv Alverhyusen and John Creedmoor, two fugitives running from the Line, amidst a war with no end.

 

INTERVIEW

 

Describe The Rise of Ransom City, Twitter-style.

Felix:  #steampunk #notreallysteampunkexactly #western #inventor #frontier #wolves #mammoth #memoir #tragicomic #theBomb RT if you like #justinbieber

 

What was your inspiration for the series?

Felix:  In terms of other books – which is the easiest way to answer this question - Westerns. Horatio Alger stories. Old-timey “Edisonades,” genius boy inventors, like Electric Bob. Against the Day and Seven Dreams. Otherwise, I don’t know, hard to say. It took a couple of years to write all told and no doubt a lot of stuff got poured into it. I’ve known some people who were a little like Harry.

 

Do you have a routine that you use to get into the right frame of mind to write?

Felix:  Not really. Maybe I should. It usually takes me a good hour of time-wasting on the internet to actually get down to business. Making cup after cup of coffee. Pacing. It’s awful. I just have to wait for my guilt over not getting anything done slowly mounts to the point where it overwhelms my anxiety at looking at what I did yesterday. I find it helps if I leave a day’s writing with a scene nearly but not quite done, so that I have threads already largely planned that I can just pick up and work on the next day, before fully engaging my brain.

 

What do you like to do when you aren't writing?

Felix:  I have a 16 month old child and a day job, so once writing/parental duties/day job duties are done, what I mostly like is sleep.

 

What books have most influenced your life?

Felix:  My answer to this changes every time I think about it, so who knows. It has to be childhood books, if you’re talking about really deep-rooted influence. So let’s say: Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea books; Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising books; those are books that I particularly remember loving as a child, and which had a very very strong influence on my tastes. Gormenghast, likewise, a bit older. I was thinking about The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists the other day, and wondering how much of my political views stem from reading it as a child (not views, that’s the wrong word; emotions, affinity)

 

Who would you consider your favorite author and why?

Felix:  Let’s say Mervyn Peake, author of the Gormenghast books. He was the best fantasist, the best inventor of imaginary worlds, with the most subtle control of mood and tone and irony and language and imagery.

 

**Special thanks to Felix Gilman for taking the time to answer my questions**

About the author:
FELIX GILMAN has been nominated for the John W. Campbell award and the Locus Award for best new writer. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Thunderer, Gears of the City, and The Half-Made World, which was listed by Amazon as one of the ten best SFF novels of 2010. He lives in New York City. Visit his Website at http://www.felixgilman.com/. 

Praise for The Rise of Ransom City:

 

“This sequel to The Half-Made World stands well alone; written like an old-fashioned memoir,

it seamlessly blends whimsy with deadly seriousness.”

—Publishers Weekly on RISE OF RANSOM CITY

 

“On my being handed the book now in your hands, I promised myself - tacitly, of course –

I'd only take a peek. But will you look at what's happened? Mr. Gilman's appeal promptly poured itself all over me, and I, by golly, in superb reciprocity, pored all over his

pages from first to last. Is this not the joy in reading, no less in being? - enforced attention, the delightsome entrapment, a thorough-going filling

and the rare repose of one's having been emptied -- utterly, gratefully - out? “

—Gordon Lish on RISE OF RANSOM CITY

 

 

GIVEAWAY

 

Want to win a copy of The Rise of Ransom City? Just leave a comment with a way to contact you.

Open to US Residents only.