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An interview with Andy Remic
01/11/2005 . Source: Orbit Books Team 
Why SFF author Remic wanted to write James Bond on acid, how a covert organisation working for the good of mankind might actually work, and the joys to be found in penning fast-paced hardcore military sci-fi thrillers. For those new to your work, can you tell us a little bit about the background to the Spiral books?
SPIRAL are a high-tech covert organisation working beyond the reach of global governments and the military. SPIRAL's fight is a fight against terrorism and genocide; a fight against evil in all its forms.
The main body of SPIRAL consists of Demolition Squads, usually ex-military, secret service and computing personnel who carry out high-tech missions - with lots of guns, bombs, motorbikes and gadgets at their disposal. SPIRAL's toughest operative is a man named Carter - think James Bond on acid, a man haunted by an inner demon called Kade whom sometimes takes possession of his body during moments of intense battle. Carter is addicted to whisky, his loving woman and his little boy. And yet time after time he is dragged away from a peaceful life - back into the savage war between SPIRAL and their enemies.
SPIRAL's major adversaries are a race of creatures called The Nex, a blend of insect and human. Genetically spliced, The Nex have much increased strength, agility and speed, an enhanced immune system and a resistance to chemical, biological and radioactive toxins. The Nex lack emotions and are lethal killing machines without remorse.
The main bad guy is a genetic deviation named Durell, who plans to wipe out mankind, bring about a new world order of evolution, and elevate The Nex to the platform of God.
Against this army of desecration Carter and a rag-tag band of SPIRAL operatives must wage their shadow war; they include MONGREL, a tufty toothless squaddie with a love of kebabs and decadent women, THE PRIEST, a religious maniac obsessed with Volvos and smiting the enemy tooth and claw, and ROXI, cool and calculating, athletic and graceful - probably the most dangerous woman ever to walk the planet.
Did the idea for these books come to you fully realised or did you have one particular starting point from which it grew?
I started off with two core strands I wished to implement. The first was that of a massive global covert organization working for the good of mankind, against the most extremes of evil such as terrorist threat and paedophile rings. The second strand was that of Carter, tortured by his inner demon, hardcore and willing to go to extremes in the name of good. The rest of the characters and plotlines developed from these two main elements. I always hoped the concept would pan into a trilogy (which it did), and yet tried very hard to make each book an independent read. I suppose the whole thing has deviated and mutated as I've written and progressed; Warhead is the current culmination of the ethos of Carter and SPIRAL and - technically - the third and final novel, although I have had a recent plethora of ideas for another three SPIRAL books to be written at some unspecified future time.
Your books straddle what seems to be an ever-shrinking divide between SF and thriller; do you think it's a good thing that these boundaries are blurring? Do you consider yourself an SF writer or a thriller writer?
I think writers will always straddle boundaries of genre because writers write what they want to write, and do not conform to a tick-list designed for easy bookshop categorisation. I personally like sci-fi and thrillers, I have a very low boredom threshold and for me a fast-paced novel is great. And I love the wonder of sci-fi, so it makes sense to mix the two.
As reader and author - for me personally - it's great these boundaries of skiffy and thriller are blurring - but for the bigger picture, I'm not so sure. These things are often dictated by buying trends and sales figures, in turn dictating commissioned work; so if the lines are blurring then it's because that's what people are buying: future-echoes of a society model accelerating and reaching meltdown perhaps? Maybe more meditation and an absence of petrol would be a good start, would slow everybody down and we could regress to long-drawn out social and psychological commentaries on the nature of id. J
In terms of my own categorization, I think I just class myself simply as: writer. I have scripted heroic fantasy and scrawled horror novels in the past. And I wrote sci-fi for years when the market was in a slump ... I just love writing the stuff I write now though: fast-paced hardcore military sci-fi thrillers. My books are a blend of my favourite genres; hell, in Warhead there's even a little bit of romance and comedy! So then, if I need to be categorized it's as a sci-fi/ thriller/ horror/ comedy/ romance writer.
It's said more and more - particularly now that we're in the 21st century - that we're actually living in the future. Do you think this makes it harder or easier to write SF?
I think the main thing for me about sci-fi is evoking a sense of wonder; and the world one lives in doesn't really tend to evoke wonder because when you feed the cat, drive to work, fill in your tax returns - these things are just things you need to do and they are dull. Sci-fi is about what it could be like, or what it should be like ... and writers will always project, imagine, explore, entertain. There are some technological advancements, be them AI, biological, chemical, military, computing - that influence works, and to some extent can make writing in the sci-fi genre easier - and that's great. But there will always be those far-future imaginations that are so far removed from today's existence that the next thousand generations of genetically modified humans could never see them come to light. I don't believe we're living in the future - we live in the present. The future is bright and sparkly and looks like it could be a fun place to be. Unless the human race exterminate themselves first . . .
If the Spiral books were ever filmed, who would you like to see directing and acting in them?
I love Ridley Scott, James Cameron and Quentin Tarantino as directors, and I think the new string of Brit-talent could do some great work with my books - Danny Boyle, Guy Ritchie and Neil Marshall ... and of course, if Spielberg were to make me a generous offer, well ...
Actors: Hmm. Tough one. Jason Statham would make a perfect Carter; Nats would have to be Connie Nielsen or Claire Danes, Keira Knightley in PVC would make a great Roxi, Arnold Schwarzenegger - a brilliant aged version of The Priest. R. Lee Ermy would blast out a superb Sgt Simmo, and Mongrel ... ahh, Mongrel would just HAVE to be played by Brian Blessed. No one else in the world could do it! Get that lot together on a set and watch the sparks fly!!
Changing tack a little, do you have any particular favourites? Authors who have influenced your work?
I think the biggest influence when I was younger, if the truth be known, was David Gemmell. I just absolutely loved the heroic fantasy setting, the realistic fight scenes and sweeping battles, and the ethos of good always triumphing over evil. I suppose every writer is influenced a little bit when he reads something superlative; Hemmingway, Orwell, Moorcock, Banks, Phil Dick, all have their little input slot in my brain. I try very hard not to write like anybody else, I try very hard not to be influenced. After all, I want to write like me - which - hopefully, I do.
How extensively do you plot your novels before you start writing them? Or do you prefer to let the story roam where it will?
No no no! No roaming for me! I always plot meticulously; sometimes there are deviations along the way, but I always have to know what the ending is going to be and what little intricacies must slot together making the puzzle a well-fitting whole. I tried the "make it up as you go along" method - twice - and both works just fell apart halfway through when I became so entangled I could not extricate myself. 150,000 words down the toilet. Thus: I plan.
Some authors talk of their characters 'surprising' them by their actions; is this something that has happened to you?
Yes, a few times. When writing Warhead I became so involved in writing I was living it. I remember making a cup of coffee looking out on my back garden, and I could see Mongrel and Carter fighting the Nex ... I could hear their conversations in my head all the time, and despite what I said earlier about planning, the end of Warhead surprised the bejesus out of me. I had it planned - and it all went out of the window because my characters wanted to do it a different way. The single ending became three endings - and the last 20,000 words went straight down - needed practically no editing. Those guys in my book dictated to me! The buggers.
And finally, what's next for Andy Remic?
I've been working on a couple of different novels recently, but my new prime direction seems to be more the far-future sci-fi military thriller realms, as opposed to the near future of the SPIRAL novels. I have started serious work on COMBAT K, which will have the most incredible action and fight sequences I have ever written across a myriad of colourful violent alien planets - but we'll just have to wait and see what materializes from my deviant mind. Let's just say there will probably be more sci-fi in my sci-fi in the near future.
Thank you very much, Andy Remic!
And thanks to Orbit Books for permission to post this interview. For more details of their SFF authors and books, visit Orbit at www.orbitbooks.co.uk 
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