My next author interview is with Mark Rice, author of The Cabin Incident and Heathen Howff, a collection of Scottish stories inspired by Aesop’s Fables, but for adults.
What book or books have most influenced you as a writer?
Mark Rice: The big one was The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I first read it when I was ten. It was the book that made me think, ‘I want to do that.’ The book that made me want to infuse my writing with humour was another I read as a kid – Wee MacGreegor by JJ Bell, one of the funniest books ever written, and very Scottish. The dialogue in that is pure gold. As a teen I mostly read sprawling fantasy novels by the likes of Robert E. Vardeman, Victor Milan, JRR Tolkien, Piers Anthony, Raymond E. Feist…that sort of epic stuff. The books that have most influenced me as a grown-up are The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, the entire literary output of Kurt Vonnegut, and – just recently – Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell.
Alexis: Wow, it’s cool that you read so widely, from humor to epic fantasy to some very intense and thoughtful modern works. I remember finding The Satanic Verses such an incredible and powerful book, and I still love The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Who is your favorite character in your book? What do you like about them?
Mark Rice: My favourite characters are usually the non-human ones (the same is true in life). In Metallic Dreams my favourite characters are a rabbit named Fluff and a little girl called Sunshower, partly because those characters have innocence that the others, to some degree or other, have lost (or never had in the first place). Sunshower was a gift from the literary gods. Most characters in fiction are either based on real people or they’re cobbled together Frankenstein’s monsters featuring a trait here and an idiosyncrasy there. Sunshower wasn’t like that. She fell out of the sky, fully formed, and landed in my mind ready to live her story. I could see her more vividly than I see people in real life. As I said, a gift from the literary gods. The same thing happened with the character Tam the Bammus in my short(ish) story Revelation Was Wrong. Tam stomped into my mind, fully formed, grumpy and ready to tell his tale. I didn’t even have to put effort into that story – it told itself. I just acted as a conduit. Other characters I really enjoyed writing (and still enjoy writing in the sequel) are DT, Pete, Paul, Oz, Iain, Archibald, Brian, Ted and Manie in Metallic Dreams. They’re based on friends I’ve known and loved since childhood, which makes them extremely easy to write: I know exactly how each one would act in any given situation. And the Devil was/is fun to write. Worryingly easy too.
What do you like to do other than read or write? Do you have any interesting hobbies?
Mark Rice: I’m obsessed with 3D digital modelling. I first got into it nine years ago when I created the cover for my story Revelation Was Wrong. This year I created the cover for my bear-heavy story The Cabin Incident using the same 3D modelling software. In addition to those book covers, I’ve done hundreds of high-resolution 3D renders, some as possible future book covers, but most of them just for fun and creative satisfaction. It’s a whole other Universe which I find immersive and fascinating, and I learn more about it every day. Most book covers are formulaic. I approach cover art in a different way. I grew up buying vinyl records and marveling at their cover artwork. This has led me to view book-cover design in that way – why use a generic cover when you can create original art that stops people in their tracks? In that sense, my book covers are more like album covers.
Music’s a big pastime – listening to it and making it (if cranking out loud riffage on electric guitars counts as making music). I grew up in a house that had no television, but it had an abundance of music, musical instruments, books and animals. That sums up how I became what I am.
Exercise is important to me. I swam competitively from ages 7-22, so the habit of hard daily exercise was set then. When I donned my wetsuit recently and plunged into the sea, my wolfdog sidekick pulled me out by my flipper…twice. On the second instance he ripped off my right flipper with his teeth, ran half a mile up the beach with it and buried it in the sand. He obviously figured I was an idiot who didn’t realize that the sea is dangerous. After hinting at it once (and me not getting the message), he felt that more drastic action was necessary to prevent said idiot from making a third venture into the ocean. I ride my mountain bike through a nearby forest each day while the wolfchild runs at my side. I enjoy lifting heavy things. I’ve been weight training since back in my competitive swimming days. I lift heavier these days…because there’s more of me.
Alexis: I love that your wolf dog tried to “rescue” you while you were swimming! I had a golden retriever who use to do the same thing when my sister and I went swimming. She’d grab our hair in her mouth and try to pull us back to shore! Otherwise she loved the water, though she clearly didn’t trust us in it.
Cover of The Cabin Incident by Mark Rice
Tell us about a mystery/urban legend from your hometown (or another place you’ve lived).
Mark Rice: I live on the mainland of Scotland but have spent a lot of time on the Scottish islands of Skye and Lewis in the Outer Hebrides (my dad was from Lewis, as was his mother, and so on back ad infinitum). One of my cousins in Lewis showed me a piece of footage filmed on Skye. In it, an English interviewer spoke to a local crofter about a supposed ghost sighting.
The interviewer said, “I understand you saw the ghost of a woman walking down the road. Can you tell me about it?”
The crofter replied, “Yes. I saw the ghost of a woman walking down the road.”
That was it. Not another word. The interviewer waited and waited, expecting more, but none came. My cousin and I were in tears laughing. I think that’s the best ghost story ever told. That crofter understood the beauty of brevity.
What TV shows/Movies do you like to watch or stream?
Mark Rice: Justified, Deadwood, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, South Park, Game of Thrones, Shetland, Twin (Norwegian drama), Borgen (Scandi drama), The Bridge (original Scandinavian series), just about any other Finnish or Scandinavian drama noir – I love their dark ambience, and the production values/writing quality are phenomenal. I also can’t get enough of Captain Caveman or Scooby-Doo (that’s not a recent development, I should stress). The greatest TV show ever made, I reckon (I believe that George RR Martin nicked loads of his story ideas from it) is Chorlton and the Wheelies, ostensibly a children’s show about a kingdom under a black spell due to a Welsh witch (who lives in a kettle), until a dragon called Chorlton (a happiness dragon) blunders into the realm one day and breaks the spell, after which he inadvertently foils all the witch’s evil schemes just by being his happy, authentic self. What a powerful message that is. Even though it was intended as a children’s show, there’s a lot of adult subtext. For example, the queen’s always grumpy because she doesn’t get enough attention from the king, who is perpetually distracted by his love for Chorlton. So there’s a sexually frustrated queen and a gay would-be bestiality practitioner king who’s in love with a dragon. In addition, one of the Wheelie people – a male called Zoomer – clearly has drug issues: he can’t concentrate on anything for more than a couple of seconds as he zooms around day and night, which leads me to conclude that he’s on speed and/or cocaine. It’s all there in Wheelieworld. And I’ll watch anything with Fran Drescher in it. In a parallel Universe she and I met and married in the ‘90s.
What’s your favorite animal?
Mark Rice: I love all animals, from the biggest ones right down to the tiniest insects. That’s why I don’t eat them, wear them or buy any products that cause them suffering. To pick a favourite species is an impossible task. The four particular animals I’ve most resonated with are a white rabbit who lived with me for her whole life, starting when she was a baby small enough to fit on my palm (the rabbit in Metallic Dreams was based on her), the aforementioned wolfdog who is my training partner/sidekick, a female camel I met in the desert while living with Bedouins (she and I fell in love at first sight), and an octopus I made friends with while scuba diving off the coast of Cyprus (he rested his head on my left hand and wrapped his tentacles around my left arm while I stroked his head with my free hand and we looked into each other’s eyes, really saw each other; when the oxygen in my tank ran out and I had to reluctantly surface, the octopus didn’t willingly let me go – I had to (again reluctantly) prise his suckers off my arm; they left circular marks that remained there for hours; I hoped they’d never fade, as they were reminders of a transcendent experience; the sentience I saw in that creature was unique and unlike anything I’ve experienced on dry land). I have an affinity for horses, bears and elephants too. And pigs. Mustn’t forget the pigs. And sheep. And goats. I could go on all day…
Alexis: That’s an amazing story about the octopus—they’re fascinating creatures, and supposed to be incredibly intelligent.
Do you like playing video games? What’s your favorite game right now? Has a video game ever influenced you as a writer?
Mark Rice: I love first-person shooters but haven’t played them much recently (only because they take up a lot of time that should be spent writing). Back when Quake I, II and III came out, along with Half Life, Unreal and Unreal Tournament, I spent ludicrous amounts of time playing them – days and nights on end, sometimes. Great fun, but they don’t pay the bills. No video game has influenced my writing – its influences come more from mythology, lore, music, legend and real life.
Do you have pet(s)? If so, share a picture of your pet!
Mark Rice: I’m right-hand man to a wolfdog, but he’s no pet – very much a wild animal. A force of nature. Our current daily training session is 34 miles through a forest – I ride my mountain bike, he runs. We also play-fight a lot. The mutual trust is absolute. He bites me hard enough to get a reaction but not hard enough to cause major injury. My arms have a lot of bite marks but those are love bites, really. If he wanted to cause real damage he could do so with ease. He bites through large frozen branches as though they were overcooked spaghetti, so a human ankle, wrist or neck would be nothing by comparison.
What advice do you have for other writers or people just getting started in writing?
Mark Rice: Write every day, even when you don’t feel like it. Sometimes that’s when the best stuff comes out. Other times it acts as exactly the therapy you need. If you feel inspired, write. If you don’t feel inspired, write. If you feel good, write. If you feel terrible, write. Just write. No excuses. This means learning to say “no” to people, to put your solitary time and your writing before the dramas and nonsense of others. But that’s what you have to do.
How do you choose what books you want to read?
Mark Rice: I prefer books that are innovative, clever, funny, groundbreaking or all of the above. If they feature mythology or folklore, whether established or new, even better. I also read a lot of autobiographies by musical artists/bands I like.
Do you like Greek/Roman/Norse/Asian/African mythology or folklore? What’s your favorite myth?
Mark Rice: I love folklore and mythology. When I was a kid my father had a HUGE book of mythology – the sort of book that would collapse most coffee tables. It was split into chapters by world region. That book’s now on my (reinforced) bookshelf. I’ve bought a lot of Scandinavian, Finno-Ugric and Celtic lore/mythology. They resonate more with me than most other mythologies do. Perhaps that’s because my ancestry is Norse and Celtic. Maybe on some deep genetic level those tales are already known in me, so reading them feels like going home. One favourite story, Celtic in origin, tells of Oisín’s journey to Tír na nÓg, the Land of the Young. I won’t tell any more about that – wouldn’t want to give away spoilers! Also, the story of Cúchulainn is captivating. My favourite character from folklore/mythology is, by a country mile, Cernunnos the Horned God. A bronze Cernunnos adorns the wall of my music room. A poem I wrote called Cernunnos tickled the fancy of my favourite metal band, so much so that it led to a collaboration. The band created sublime music to go with my lyric/vocal. It’s not released yet, but I have a copy of the original recordings and they sound amazing. Best guitar tone ever. It’s an honour to be part of that project.
Mark and a friendly camel!
More about Mark Rice!
Books: Metallic Dreams, The Cabin Incident, and Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Eejit