Interview with Jennifer Fallon (Snapshot 2016)

This interview is one I conducted as part of the 2016 Australian Speculative Fiction Snapshot. You can read and introduction to the project here and follow the rest of the reviews that will be posted over the first two weeks of August at the Aus SF Snapshot blog.

Jennifer Fallon is the author of 17 full-length bestselling novels and a number of published short stories in genres ranging from horror to science fiction, and a bestselling series on writing.
In addition to 4 complete fantasy series - The Demon Child trilogy, The Hythrun Chronicles, the Second Sons Trilogy, The Tide Lords Quadrilogy and the Rift Runners series - Fallon has written both a tie-novel and short fiction for the TV series, Stargate SG1, an official Zorro story, a novella for the Legends of Australian Fantasy Anthology and has a superhero - The Violet Valet (Chicks In Capes).
Fallon has a Masters Degree from the Creative Arts faculty of QUT. A business consultant, corporate trainer and application specialist, Fallon currently works in the IT industry and spends at least a month each year working at Scott Base in Antarctica.

With the release of The Lyre Thief earlier this year you took readers to the world of the Hythrun Chronicles for the third time, after a bit of a break. Is there a particular appeal to writing books set in a world you’re already familiar with, compared with books set in a completely new world?

I swore I would never go back there at all for many years, but now I have, I am having a ball. In fact, it's kind of addictive to go back into a world so clearly defined, working with characters I know so well, besides discovering new people and their stories that inhabit this world.  If anything, I am now in danger of never wanting to leave. As I get further and further into this series, introducing new characters and new parts of this world, I keep wanting to tell their stories, too. This series, I suspect, may not be the last, although I do have some "issues" to sort out with the US publisher going forward before I decide that for certain. Stay tuned!


You had plans to release a “director’s cut” version of the Second Sons Trilogy, which I see from your website has been delayed. Is this still forthcoming? What can readers expect from this new version?

We had an inquiry from a UK production company about a TV series for the Second Sons. Everything was held up while we worked through this, and by the time it was resolved (as in, did not proceed) the deadlines for the War of the Gods series were looming. It will still happen, but not for a while yet. It has been bumped for the priority of the other series.


What are you working on next? Other than the second and third books in the War of the Gods trilogy, what can we expect to see from you in the nearish future?

Second book, Retribution, is done. About to start Covenant. Nothing else in the pipeline. I work full time as an IT consultant and have a thriving Social Media Management business in addition to my writing. There are only so many hours in a day!


What Australian work have you loved recently?

See above! I literally cannot remember the last time I read anything for fun, from Australia or anywhere else. Everything I do is research, research, research, for my writing or my business life. I haven't even gotten around to watching the latest GOT series. I am hoping someone will make a scientific breakthrough that enables me to have either another couple of days a week, or an extra couple of hours a day. Either would do. I'm pretty much down to 4 hours of sleep a night, so not really any wriggle room there.


Which author (living or dead) would you most like to sit next to on a long plane trip and why?

Great question. Been pondering this for days. In the end, I think it might be Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone With the Wind. I would dearly love to talk to her about her research, her feeling for the characters, wondering if she realised just how toxic a relationship her grand romance was. The characters in that book are very self serving and often not very pleasant, and yet she makes them heroes in an indefensible world. I find that skill fascinating and would love to know it she did it on purpose.