Drag(ged)on TV

Alors, mes amis.

Yesterday your favourite smartass was finally interviewed on TV, said interview having been abandoned at the last moment a couple of weeks ago due to a still unexplained “technical error.” Well, the mills of some deities grind slow but exceeding fine, as they say, and finally I found myself in the TV studio in tete-a-tete with the same lady who had interviewed me back in 2008, whom I shall call (because it is her name) Alison.

It was, frankly, one of those WTF moments – one that stretched to a full half-hour.

You understand that these interviews aren’t quite extempore; the questions and answers are informally rehearsed well in advance. So I knew we were going to talk about my series of fantasy novellas collectively called The Day of the Dragon, comprising, respectively, Dragonsdawn, Dragonsnoon, Dragonseven, and Dragonsdusk. Some of you may have read versions of these novellas on Multiply, so you’ll know all about the adventures of Batali, her friend Yamond, and their nemesis the demon/magician Keedro. So did Alison, as I’d given her a potted version of it so she knew what to ask.

Now, having been interviewed by Alison before, I knew she wasn’t, you know, exactly interested in her subject matter. So I was expecting perfunctory and somewhat shallow questioning. What I wasn’t expecting was what I got.

Some sample questions:

She: “So you’ve written a fantasy series called The Day of the Dragon. So it’s all set in one day?”

I: “Not at all. The story is set over a period of several decades, and the “day” merely refers to the names of the various parts.”

She: “You say your dragons don’t eat or drink?”

I: “No, they just absorb negative energy – negative energy of all kinds.” (I went on to give her a description, which will be familiar to anyone who’s read Dragonsdawn.)

She: “So if you put your dragons down by a river, they’ll die?”

I (strongly repressing an urge to go “Whaaat?”): “No, why should they?”

She: “If they don’t get energy.”

I (wondering): “They’ll just stop absorbing energy if you put them somewhere there’s no negative energy...” (went on to repeat facts familiar to Dragonsdawn readers.)

She went on to ask about the main characters and I happened to mention that Batali, after leaving for the dragon world, became part human and part dragon.

She: “How can that be? How can she become a dragon?”

Well, I’d invented the damned book, and it’s supposed to be fantasy, so (as long as the internal logic holds together) what rules I make up are all that matter, and I told her so.

She: “Ah, and do you believe then that dragons really exist?”

I (trying not to goggle incredulously or burst out laughing or both): “If you mean by dragons the dinosaurs, sure; but if you mean the dragons I write about, they’re just metaphors.” (How I wish I could have breathed fire at that moment, sprouted wings, swung a barbed tail and hissed, “Now they do!!!”)

She went on to ask about a horror story I wrote for Christmas, Jingle Bells, which revolves around a child who’s terrified of Santa Claus. “So,” she asked, “why is he frightened of Santa Claus? What happens in the end?”

I (with I’ll bet ill-concealed satisfaction): “Well, you’ll have to read the story to find out, won’t you?”

The rest of the interview went along similar lines, though I was able to get in plugs for Multiply and Subversify, along with mentions of my other writing on darkriddle1@wetpaint.com and on the Home Page Of The Dead. I must admit I got some malicious pleasure out of seeing her wince when I told her one of my characters (in a particular horror story) resorted to feeding her children pieces of herself to keep them alive.

All in all, I’m looking forward to seeing this interview, whenever it is telecast, as entertainment and not as serious TV.

Not with WTF all over it, like that.