Today, Alexander Gordon Smith is swinging by to answer a few questions here on WORD! He's the delightfully wonderful author of the delightfully creepy Escape from Furnace series. I just finished the first two the other day; they're fabulous!
Beneath Heaven is Hell. Beneath Hell is Furnace.
Furnace Penitentiary: An underground hellhole. A place of pure evil with walls soaked in blood. Murderous gangs and vicious guards rule the darkness. Horrific creatures steal people away in the dead of night. And the impossible - escape - is the only hope.
Click read more to take a look at the interview with Gordon; it was loads of fun!
N: Welcome to WORD, Gordon!
AGS: Hi there, thanks for interviewing me on your blog, it’s awesome to be here!
N: Where and when did the idea for the Furnace series come from?
AGS: The idea for the Furnace series really came from me wanting to write a horror book, something genuinely scary. I’d been trying to think of an idea for ages, but all I had, really, was this character in my head called Alex. Alex was a version of me as a teenager – I’d gone through a pretty bad phase when I was about fifteen, sixteen where I stole stuff and got into fights and hung out in biker bars. Luckily it didn’t last long, because my family got me out of it.
But Alex was the version of me who didn’t get rescued, he was stuck inside my head in this kind of purgatory. The more I thought about him, the more I realized that he needed to tell his story, he needed to live out his life and see where it would lead him. So I started writing – for him, really – and the idea of Furnace Penitentiary, this nightmare prison, just developed from the way Alex lived his life.
N: What character do you relate to most?
AGS: Definitely Alex. Like I say, Alex is a version of me. There are parts of him that are totally autobiographical, which is why I think – I hope – that his voice is so strong, and so believable. It’s why he’s a complex character, not a hero but not a villain either, just a regular kid who has made a few bad choices and is trapped inside this nightmare. Of course the more I wrote, the more Alex became a separate, unique individual – he’s a lot cooler than me for one thing! He’s more like a brother now than anything. I still feel so close to him, even though the series has finished. I know Alex better than I know any other soul on Earth!
There’s another reason I relate to him so well. Shortly after I started writing Lockdown we had an awful tragedy. It was a really dark time. I threw myself into the writing as a way of getting through it, and I realized that just like Alex I was trapped in a bad place and I needed to escape. I was down there with him, buried at the bottom of the world, and I knew that if he couldn’t find a way out of Furnace then I was never going to get out of this dark place in my life. So I genuinely feel like we were there together, that we shared that experience.
N: What did you have the most fun writing?
AGS: I absolutely loved writing the dialogue between Alex and Zee and Donovan. Those guys felt like my friends, I knew them so well, and I’d hear them chatting away in my head all day, making jokes and sharing stories – sometimes happy, sometimes sad. When I was writing I’d just reach up and grab some of the things they were gassing about. I’d join in with them too, talking to them all about everything and nothing. They’d feel so alive that sometimes I’d remember they were just characters and be insanely disappointed that they didn’t really exist. Donovan and Zee were my friends, they were great friends, which is why writing them was such good fun.
N: You play World of Warcraft. Tell us a bit about the character you rolled (for all those die hard WoW fans out there!)
AGS: Uh oh… My guilty secret is out! Yes, I do love WoW. It was my fourteen-year-old brother Jamie (co-author of The Inventors books) who got me into it, and I’ve been hooked ever since. My original character was a human paladin called Gordypops (a ferocious warrior name!), but I stopped playing for about a year (because I just wasn’t doing any writing) and started again this Christmas. I’ve created a new human paladin, called Gordzilla, and am currently level 43. I love video games generally, but there’s something about WoW that’s so immersive, the world and the story is just huge. You can really lose yourself in it.
I’m in Chamber of Aspects if anyone wants to look me up!
N: I may send some of my friends you're way - but most of them are Horde, so you should probably just start running. You run Fear Driven Films. Can you tell me a bit about the first movie you did?
AGS: Well we’re actually still working on that first movie, two years after starting it! I set up Fear Driven Films with my sister – who, like me is a massive horror fan – and her husband Simon. We all love movies, and we thought we’d have a go at making one ourselves. It was a case of just giving it a shot, thinking ‘why not?’ – I think everyone is capable of living their dream, of accomplishing any ambition. The thing that usually holds us back is the thought that it won’t work, the fear of failure. But if you think something isn’t going to work, then it’s not going to – you really have to believe it, however crazy it sounds.
So we sat down and wrote a script, called Stagnant. It’s a horror comedy, set on the Norfolk Broads over here in the UK, about a mutant bride who stalks and kills stag parties. Originally we were going to make it ourselves for £50,000, but because we’d never done anything like it before we weren’t sure where to start! Now the film is in the hands of an excellent producer and is scheduled to be made for a much bigger budget later this year. It’s so exciting, and I can’t wait to see it!
I do think that if you want to do something, if it’s a real dream, then you should just go for it.
N: That's impressive! I'll be keeping an eye out for the name - after all, you really can't go wrong with a mutant bride. What books have you read recently - YA or otherwise - that you've loved?
AGS: I’ve been reading a lot of YA horror recently because I’ve just become a member of a group of British YA horror writers called the Chainsaw Gang. It was set up by Sarwat Chadda, author of the brilliant Devil’s Kiss and Dark Goddess, and also includes Sam Enthoven, David Gatward, Steve Feasey, Jon Mayhew, Alex Milway, Alex Bell, William Hussey, Steven Deas and Sarah Pinborough. I’ve been absolutely loving all of their books so far!
I’ve usually got a Stephen King novel on the go as well, most recently It, which was utterly terrifying. And I’m trying to read a bit more non-fiction too. Right now I’m halfway through Rinzler’s awesome The Making of Star Wars, and I’ve started Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces, which inspired George Lucas when he was writing the films – both Christmas gifts from my other half. I’m lucky in that I love pretty much every book I read. I’m easily pleased that way!
N: That's because you have good taste in books! Furnance Peniteniary is "the world's worst prison." What would YOU have done to end up there?
AGS: Ha, great question! Stalking my heroes Stephen King, Hayao Miyazaki or Steven Spielberg, maybe? (Or Scarlett Johansson!) Or perhaps attempting to lead a coup against our truly evil coalition government before they sell off all our forests…
N: Favorite cartoon character?
AGS: SuperTed!
AGS: Thanks again for interviewing me on your blog!
Lockdown is out in America now and Solitary will be released later this year! (You overseas peeps have it good for once; all three books in the series are already out.) Don't forget to check them out!
Gordon will be back in a few days guest posting - I can't wait to see what he writes!