Larry wrote a letter to Glen Cook, containing a lot of questions. Surprisingly enough, Cook responded, and gave us permission to publish the answers.
Q: How did you start writing?
A: Always wanted to write. I recall starting several projects as early as grammar school, and getting a couple of traditional beginner pieces out of my system during high school. Never very determined or dedicated about it back then, though. Just something to do. In college and in the service there was no time for such stuff. Other distractions, mostly of the female variety.
Then when I went to work for a living, I slipped into a job where I had very little to do other than to be there. I did a lot of reading, two or more books a day, and chanced to read a book so bad I told myself I could do better and started trying. That was late 1967. I found out it was not as easy as I thought. I wrote a huge thing entitled The Sword Called Precious Pearl, rather like a bastard child of Tolkien and E. R. R. Eddison, that was pretty awful, and parts of a couple of other monsters in the same setting, before deciding to abandon that setting altogether. Of all those several thousand pages, the only thing that survived was a place called Fangdred and a character called The Old Man of the Mountain, and the notion of a group of people called the Storm Kings.
Q: What made you decide to write fantasy and science fiction?
A: It was what I had been reading since I was in about the fifth grade, when I gave up Westerns after finding a copy of The Naked Sun that belonged to my father. It is what I knew and liked.
Q: Do you prefer writing short stories or novels? Why?
A: Novels. As anyone familiar with my work at all will realize, I tend to create BIG stories. Even ideas that start out intended to be shorts usually grow up into something much larger because my mind finds ramifications and wants to explore them.
Q: Many of your books feature Army life or at least a military background. What is your own military experience?
A: Eight years Navy and Navy Reserve with four years high school ROTC beforehand. For a while I thought it was what I wanted to do with my life. Served aboard destroyers and with a Marine Force Recon outfit as Forward Fire Control Observer.
Q: Why do you like writing "military" sf and fantasy?
A: I am not entirely certain, except that [that] is where the ideas come. I envy writers who are able to build strong stories in worlds where none of that exists. Maybe it is because I am fascinated with the historical process, and histories always seem to revolve around the wars that shape cultures and civilizations.
Q: I think your strongest points as a writer is the wealth of good characters you've created. Which of them is your favorite?
A: I don't know. There are quite a number that I like. Several of them are pretty much me: Bragi Ragnarson, Croaker, Moyshe benRabi, even Norman Cash in a way. I enjoy the clowns, Mocker, and One-Eye and Goblin, though they are very hard to do. I liked Marron Shed, in Shadows Linger because he is un-stereotypical. I liked the wizard Bomanz, in The White Rose, for some of the same reasons.
Q: What characters created by others have you liked?
A: My first reaction was ??? because nothing hit me. Then a host crawled through my head, but almost all of them outside the F & SF fields. Sauron of Mordor?? Paul Attreides? (But it took me ten minutes to recall his name.) Retief, on the light side.
Q: What do you think is your strongest point as a writer?
A: Plotting. My stories do have plots - sometimes too complex for most people. You have to pay attention. Curiously, while people often say nice things about my characters, I think characterization is my weakest point. And I can point to the reviews that support that.
Q: How do you start to write a book? Do you start with a plot, a character you want to write about, a theme, or a need to pay some bills?
A: That last notion can be discarded. I do not need the money I get from writing, though it comes in handy at times. I am not sure, otherwise, how the question can be answered. Fliply, I could say I start at the beginning, which has an element of truth in it. Situations often leap into my conscious mind and if I elect to go ahead and write them everything becomes very deterministic afterward. I always know where I'm at to begin, and usually know where I want to get to, and that pretty much shapes everything in between.
Q: What advice do you have for the starting writer?
A: Again, something that sounds flip. Write. Whatever it is, write. Don't talk about it, do it. The most common complaint I hear from would-be writers is, "I don't have the time." This is a non-factual excuse. I don't have the time. A very large proportion of my work gets created at work, on my breaks and at lunchtime. Then catch-as-catch-can at other times. The majority of my time available here at home gets devoted to typing final MS, copy, answering the mail, and keeping track of the drudgy business end of being a writer. Hell, Peirs Anthony carries notepads and writes while he's standing in line at the supermarket or whatnot. If there [are] enough odds and ends [of] time in one day to scribble down one handwritten page you can write a novel a year.
Q: Who do you read for enjoyment in SF? Outside the field?
A: I am pretty eclectic reader these days, reading more outside the field than in. There are a few authors with whom I keep up, among them Heinlein and Vance, but mostly just spot around in the field, sampling. Outside the field, this year, I have read a lot of Rex Stout. History and detective fiction and so-called suspense/thrillers. I usually read in four or five books concurrently. At present I am reading The Fourth Protocol by Frederick Forsyth, Double for Death by Rex Stout, a non-fiction book about Stout and [Stout's detective character] Nero Wolfe [called] Nero Wolfe of West 35th Street by W. S. Baring-Gould, Gold Coast by Elmore Leonard, and The Fall of the Roman Empire. The to-read stack includes Heinlein's Job, three Robert B. Parker novels, a book about Joan of Arc, Delaney's Stars in My Pocket, Martin's Armageddon Rag, and a novel about convoy duty in a North Atlantic during WWII. Some of this stuff I will enjoy and some not. All will become grist for the writer's mill.
Q: Are you involved in fandom?
A: I guess I am. I attend about 10 conventions a year, some as a guest writer, some as a book dealer, all to have a good time with fans, whose company for the most part I enjoy.
Q: Do you have in mind...
a) a sequel to The Swordbearer?
A: No and Yes. I did not intend to do one when I wrote the book, though the ending obviously leaves room for one. I got a lot of urgings from people to do one, so checked with my then editor, who said he would definitely be interested. So I went ahead and wrote two-thirds of one called The Swordbreaker. Then the editor got fired and the whole Timescape line folded and I quit working on it. Looking at it later, I didn't think what I had done was very good, so I ditched the whole project.
b) further Black Company books?
A: Yes. Tor says they are very much interested in doing more. I have two-thirds of a fourth, currently entitled Glittering Stone, but probably to be changed to Shadows Dancing (actually the original working title for The White Rose, with GS going for a fifth. I have scrapped the material for this book once and am strongly considering doing so again.
c) more Dread Empire books?
A: Yes. In fact, Tor has already purchased Reap the East Wind and An Ill Fate Marshalling both of which are sequels to All Darkness Met, set in different parts of that world. I would like to do several more beyond these, but the fate of the series depends on the sales of the two forthcoming. The five so far published have not done very well commercially.
d) more Starfishers books?
A: No, though my editors at Warner have made the suggestion several times, and the "no" could change if I suddenly found myself through the dozen or so new projects I would like to do.
e) more Black Ship stories?
A: I am not sure what is meant by this, unless [it is] the two stories that appeared in F & SF, "Ghost Stalk" and "Call for the Dead." I did write a third in that setting, "Hell's Forge," but Ed Ferman returned it, saying he did not understand it; [I] had a fourth partially planned, but quit because I had to concentrate on other projects.
Q: What else do you have forthcoming?
A: The final volume of the Darkwar trilogy, Ceremony, Feb 1986. Darkwar is actually one novel that has been broken into three volumes and is not a true trilogy at all. And the above mentioned Reap the East Wind and An Ill Fate Marshalling, but I do not know when they are scheduled.
Items completed and looking for a home are Sung in Blood, a fun thing I did which is a son of Doc Savage goes against Fu Manchu fantasy pastiche, and Sweet Silver Blues, a Sword & Sorcery/Private Eye novel which, while having a deadly serious PI plot, is set in a zany world filled with weird characters.
There are a host of in-progress works also no sold yet, including a second PI novel, Bitter Gold Heart (almost finished), the aforementioned Black Company novel as well as another entitled The Silver Spike, a far-future space epic of the magnitude of Darkwar entitled The Dragon Never Sleeps, Dread Empire novels entitled A Path to Coldness of Heart and The Wrath of Kings, an independent fantasy entitled Nor Even Death Destroy, and a historical horror novel without a title. There are also a dozen partially-completed works around here for which I could develop a sudden passion, and still more ideas slithering around in my head.
