TopShelf Magazine May 2023

Q IT’S BEEN A FEW YEARS SINCE YOU RELEASED METALLIC DREAMS. WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO PUBLISHING WISE SINCE THEN?

I’ve put out some new material even though my main work focus has been the Metallic Dreams sequel (which is now longer than all three books of The Lord of the Rings combined). In 2015 I released Heathen Howff , an assortment of my short stories, philosophy and poetry. Then in 2020 I put out The Cabin Incident , a shortish story that’s a grown-up reimagining of Goldilocks and the Three Bears . I had fun with that. In 2021 I released Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Eejit – a riotous short story in which a few of my favourite folk (ZZ Top, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and the entire Ancient Aliens cast) confront a US President (who bears a striking resemblance to one eejit who actually did that job) and challenge him to tell the truth live on air, resulting in some astonishing revelations. And I’m just about to release a new shortish story called Love in a Wyrd World .

Q. WHAT GENRE DO YOU FEEL YOUR WRITING STYLE FITS INTO AND WHY?

It doesn’t fit into any one genre. I’ve never written formulaic stories. Most writers do (and some make a good living at it). Some authors imagine their “ideal reader” and then write for that person. This makes those writers slaves, though: slaves to an imaginary reader who doesn’t actually exist. I strive to create art that’s a true uncensored expression of myself, not a product contrived for someone else (real or imagined). I write the stories I’d want to read. Consequently, I’m never held back by worries that haunt other writers (such as, ‘Would Flossie my ideal reader approve of Dave the barman saying “f*ck”?’). My approach is more along the lines of, ‘Dave the f*cking barman is a f*cker who f*cking says whatever the f*ck is on his f*cking mind, so the f*cking readers will just have to underf*ckingstand that.’ And for the most part, the f*cking readers do. My philosophies and ideals underpin all I write. Like Aesop’s Fables (which I loved as a child and still love today), there’s always a moral and lessons to be learned. Always a coherent point.

Back to your question of genre, though. There are elements of magical realism in most of my stories. There’s also a heavy folklore influence, aspects of fantasy, some occultism, swathes of philosophy, a huge musical influence, poetic flourishes, and animals as key figures: gatekeepers to deeper knowledge and understanding, just as they are in the physical Universe. Rather than fitting into a specific category, my work is a blend of “write what you know”, “write what you experience”, and “right wrongs”. That’s the crux of it. The stories are designed to entertain, but they’re also meant to wake folk up, to tear away the layers of hypocrisy, delusion, falsehood and cruelty that exist around most adult humans. If Anti-Nonsense were a genre, I’d be the one spearheading that vanguard.

WRITING YOU HAVE DONE, WHICH CHARACTER DO YOU FEEL THE BIGGEST CONNECTION TO, AND WHAT STORY/BOOK IS THAT CHARACTER FROM?

Most of my readers will expect me to say Spark MacDubh from Metallic Dreams . He’s my alter ego but I don’t feel a connection to him as such. It’s more like Spark is me and I am him; there’s no separation. The character I feel the strongest connection to is Sunshower, also from Metallic Dreams . Whilst most of the characters in that book are based on real-life people I know, Sunshower is not. She fell fully formed out of the sky and landed in my mind one cold dark night. I saw her and heard her more vividly than I see and hear people in the “real world”. Still do. A gift from the literary gods. I feel an equally strong connection to the rabbit Fluff in the Metallic Dreams series. There’s a good reason for that. She’s based on a rabbit who was my furry familiar for many years – a best friend and constant companion… and an occasional literary critic. One night I dozed off on the sofa while reading Bernard Cornwell’s book Stonehenge . I woke up to find the rabbit lying on my chest (her favourite place to sprawl) and the entire front cover of Stonehenge gone. She’d eaten the whole thing! Another day on that same sofa, I was just about to bite into a wholemeal roll and cheese. Fluff launched herself onto my lap, grabbed the roll between her teeth, frisbeed it across the room, then pounced on it and devoured the lot. I was left staring at my empty hand and going, “Did that actually just happen?” It wasn’t all vandalism with her, though. She spent much more time dishing out affection. Multiple times each day, she would obsessively lick my nose, forehead, eyelids and cheeks (always in that order) before getting comfortable on my chest and having a nap. I didn’t like to move her from there (that would have been a profane act), so I often typed for hours with only my right hand, whilst my left hand supported Fluff’s weight. I wrote around 30% of the original Metallic Dreams manuscript that way: with a rabbit’s heart beating against mine. Pure love.

Q. IF SOMEONE HAD NO IDEA OF YOUR BOOKS, WHICH ONE WOULD YOU SUGGEST THEY READ AND WHY?

That depends on the person’s attention span. To seasoned readers who love to lose themselves – or find themselves – in a sprawling epic book, I’d recommend Metallic Dreams It’s a story that readers can really get their teeth into. (That reminds me of an incident involving the American writer Flannery O’Connor. When she received a letter from a disgruntled reader who wrote, ‘Your book left a bad taste in my mouth,’ O’Connor replied, ‘You weren’t supposed to eat it.’) For folk who prefer a bite-sized read (you’re not supposed to eat it!), Heathen Howff is a good bet – it contains thirty-six short works, each of which can be enjoyed in a single sitting. Then there are my standalone stories that came later. I recommend The Cabin Incident to everyone who loves bears (and if you don’t, what the hell’s wrong with you?). My newest shortish story –Love in a Wyrd World – is a good starting point for readers who favour faeries over humans.

Q. METALLIC DREAMS HAS SOME VERY EXPLICIT SCENES. DID YOU WORRY YOU MIGHT OFFEND SOME READERS?

No.

Q. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO ACCOMPLISH NEXT IN YOUR PROFESSIONAL CAREER?

Completion of the big sequel. Release of the big sequel. Watching the big sequel hit #1 on Amazon’s bestseller list (as Metallic Dreams did). Receipt of heartfelt praise for the big sequel. Receipt of some infuriated messages along the lines of, “That big sequel rubbed me the wrong way!” (To which I’ll reply, “You weren’t supposed to masturbate with it.”) Production companies fighting over the TV rights to the Metallic Dreams series. My bank balance soaring. Me using that cash to comprehensively unf*ck the world before I release my next collection of shortish stories (which is 95% done – it contains folklore-influenced tales with a difference).

One artist is currently creating a graphic novel of Metallic Dreams . Periodically I receive copies of her sketches. These are a joy to behold; it’s fascinating to see her visual interpretations of the original book. Some of her drawings are eerily close to the images I saw in my mind as I was writing the story. I’ll be interested to see the finished product and to hear the responses of readers.

A Greek translation of Metallic Dreams has been done (by my friend and brother-in-metal Dimitrios) and an initial paperback print run has already happened. The response from Greek readers has been overwhelmingly positive. There’s the occasional critic too, of course. One long-haired and long-bearded Orthodox Greek priest (who looks like he should be fronting a Scandinavian metal band) took offence at the paperback. After one look at the proposed cover art, he flew into a rage, tore the artwork to shreds, then declared (in Greek), “If this book is ever released in Greece, I’ll burn it in my church and will declare the author a heretic.” You can guess what happened next, I’m sure. The priest mysteriously received a copy of the finished Greek translation, which he burned in his church before declaring me a heretic. Which feels good, I admit. I’ve always been a heretic. It’s nice to be getting some recognition for it at long last. The next print run of the Greek novel will be bigger than the first. It’ll be good to reach even more readers there. Dimitrios had a heck of a time with certain aspects of the translation – mainly the Scottish dialogue and terminology. It’s not that he didn’t understand it. He did. He understood it all. He’d lived in Scotland for years and so knew the lingo. Also, his knowledge of English is broader and deeper than that of most folk who grow up speaking it as a first language. His translating difficulties involved particular Scots words that don’t have an exact Greek equivalent. Tadger, for example. Penis, you can translate exactly into Greek. Tadger, not so. This resulted in an hour-long phone conversation between me and Dimitrios, during which we took great pains to decide on the best possible Greek variation of tadger . This may seem like a trivial detail, but it’s not. After all, depending on whom you believe, God (or the Devil) is in the details. And so it was with many of the slang words and phrases from Metallic Dreams : certain Greek terms were close approximations, but the nuances were different. Driven by determination to create a Greek incarnation that was unflinchingly true to the original book, Dimitrios worked for years on the translation, eventually shaping it into a version that’s as “pure” as possible. It’s fair to say that he worked on it religiously, for he approached the text with love, respect and tireless dedication, treating the book as a sacred thing. For that I feel huge gratitude. I’d love to see Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Finnish translations next, as that region is metal music’s main breeding ground. Metallic Dreams would go down a storm there.

So that’s what’s next for me. Sequel first. Then the unf*cking of the world. There are genocidal tyrants getting away with the worst atrocities while hiding behind facades of “corporate respectability”. That won’t do.

ABOUT MARK RICE

Raised in a house that didn’t have television. Grew up surrounded by music, poetry, mythology, literature and animals. That pretty much sums it up.

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS

www.amazon.co.uk/Mark-Rice/e/B004ZNBL38

www.twitter.com/Metallic_Dreams

www.metallicdreams.wordpress.com