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| photo: Peter Paredes | |
Geoff Ryman is a Canadian living in the U.K. whose stories and books have won some 18 awards, including the Arthur C. Clarke Award twice--for The Child Garden and Air--a Nebula Award, the BSFA Award for novel, story and other work, a World Fantasy Award and the Philip K. Dick Award. His ninth novel is HIM (Angry Robot, December 5, 2023), a retelling of the story of Jesus.
Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:
A reverent but revolutionary novel called HIM about the life of Jesus. Jesus is a woman who wants to be thought of as a man.
On your nightstand now:
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M.R. James--simply the best ghost stories and a family favourite.
Paradise Lost by John Milton, illustrations by William Blake. Illustrations are important to me, from comics to tomes that are beautiful objects. Milton and William Blake are among my favourites.
Superman's Pal: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? a graphic novel by Matt Fraction and Steve Lieber. What a Superman story should be--funny, sizzlingly paced, wildly original with contemporary settings and characters.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Alice in Wonderland, Treasure Island. It was hard to get books in rural Canada--we started getting books regularly through a book club, Junior Deluxe Editions. These were the first two that arrived. Brothers Grimm, Mowgli, they all followed. Less happily so did Heidi and Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates. At six, I wrote a song about Treasure Island, I was so inspired.
Your top five authors:
Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice is still the angriest book I've ever read--at least when I read it as a young man.
Philip K. Dick: a latecomer to Dick, I love the emotion, can tolerate the plotlessness, did a fan stage version of The Transmigration of Timothy Archer.
Mark Twain: he did write SF.
Henry James: especially the short stories, which are so suspenseful.
T.S. Eliot: not that much to read, but I read what is there over and over, as it strikes me as truthful.
Book you've faked reading:
While deeply admiring it, I've never quite finished Ulysses by James Joyce.
Book you're an evangelist for:
The Raft by Fred Strydom: memory, guilt, broken identity, so South African without dealing directly with the elephant in the room.
Rhapsody of Blood by Roz Kaveney: five volumes, one work, a feast of fantasy, history, and warped humour.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Watership Down by Richard Adams--it had just been published and I didn't know what it was, but something told me that I had to read it.
Or any issue of McSweeney's that I have. One issue is a box that looks like a severed head. Another is held together by magnets not binding.
Book you hid from your parents:
Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone by James Baldwin--it had gay characters!
Book that changed your life:
Another Country by James Baldwin. Another novel with bisexual characters, another work by the irresistible Baldwin.
Favorite line from a book:
"Earth, the mother of roses, has many children" --the last line from a story ["The Dolphin and the Deep"] by Thomas Burnett Swann.
Five books you'll never part with:
My first hardback edition of The Lord of the Rings, sheer sentimental value associated with my puberty.
My two Storisende editions of work by James Branch Cabell, associated with friendship with fans and fannish organisations.
My illustrated 1865 three-volume translation by Edward William Lane of The Thousand and One Nights, a gorgeous present from my husband.
My 1948 illustrated edition of a translation of The Adventures of Marco Polo, associated with my parents and my first home in a small Canadian village.
Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, edited by James B. Pritchard, where I first met Gilgamesh and much else besides, over 1,000 pages of translated tales, myths, laws, history, rituals and incantations, letters and songs. Associated with growing up all at once and making a new home of my own.
Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot--the one with all my notes.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison. Associated with a culture more rooted in books--I found it in a drugstore circular book rack.
A favorite lesser-known author:
Thomas Burnett Swann, especially the novelette that appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction, "The Manor of Roses."