Rupert Copping's Blog - Posts Tagged "science-fiction"

For me what is important in literature are stories that transcend their setting and by this means can appeal to readers everywhere, regardless of their nationality or culture. I tried to do this with my novel Before the Dawn by giving the characters I created ways of thinking and behaving that people can identify with. It seems like a simple task but actually it's very difficult to make characters from a different culture than your own fully human and therefore believable. This is a problem with a lot of fantasy and science fiction and novels like Lord of the Rings; the characters don't live in the real world and therefore lack real human depth. Stories that not only entertain but also tell us something about our condition as human beings, those are the stories I like best and am most drawn to.

An author shouldn't have to blow his own trumpet. It's demeaning. A book should speak for itself. It should be all about the writing, not the author. However,it seems that in this modern age a book by an unknown author has no chance of being discovered if left to itself,without publicity,whether this publicity comes from the publisher or the author or both. So unknown, struggling writers find themselves having to do all sorts of things they'd, perhaps, rather not be doing in order to publicize themselves as authors in the hope that it will get them more sales. And the authors who are best a this game of self promotion will succeed over those others who are not so good even if their actual work - ie their book - is the less accomplished. So a book's commercial success is not necessarily an indication of it's merit. Lucky the author who manages to write a book that is worthy, that has merit and is also a commercial success!