The Writer’s Nook: Benjamin Liar “The Failures”
We’re excited to feature Benjamin Liar on our first edition of The Writer’s Nook. Liar is a writer, musician, filmmaker, game developer, bartender, cartographer, estimator, semi-professional drinker, ditch-digger, file organizer, rockabilly bassist, bad actor, screenwriter, house painter, passionate fort-builder, reformed preacher, drywall hanger, decent friend, and terrible lover. But more importantly, his debut novel The Failures comes out on July 2, 2024.
The Failures is a genre-bending blend of post-apocalyptic sci-fi and epic fantasy that follows a scattered group of unlikely heroes as they traverse their mechanical planet while staving off eternal darkness. This debut novel is the first in a trilogy — read on to learn about Liar’s writing process and the inspiration that kept him going on this project for thirty years.
Tell us about yourself? Who is Benjamin Liar and why can’t we trust him?
Well, you can’t trust me because I’m a writer. I lie for a living — but at least I’m telling you up front. Let the buyer beware! Fiction is all lies! Nothing is real! But as Ursula K. LeGuin once said (or didn’t, I can’t find this quote and it’s possible I just dreamed it) ‘When we lie convincingly enough, when fiction is at its best, it can tell more profound truths about the human condition than any objective reality.’
Hmm. Something about me. How about three things? I deleted the first novel I ever wrote right after I finished it; one time I made plans to drive across the country and meet a girl on top of the Empire State Building but skipped it and played Myst instead; and the first album I ever recorded was all done in first takes and made up on the spot — even the songs.
Only two of those things are true.
You’ve said you were worldbuilding this book for thirty years, what was that process like?
Well, it was a lot like taking every idea I ever had or stole for about twenty years and cramming them together, relentlessly, no matter how ridiculous the combination was, smashing them into various shapes, cutting my fingers on the sharp edges, throwing the whole thing away in disgust, picking the mess up once my fingers healed, deciding to cram this whole other thing I just thought of into it even though it didn’t fit, ripping out giant sections and burning them on sacrificial alters to the uncaring gods of King, Meiville, and Swanwick, giving up, receiving benedictions from those same gods in the form of new books from them with new ideas to steal, trying to shove those ideas into the frightful mess, cutting my fingers up again, letting the blood and tears trickle down through the lattice of mangled ideas and desires, stomping on it, throwing it into the sea, finding it on my doorstep when I’d finally decided that my true calling was carving bespoke chess sets, kicking it around the house for a while, deciding it needed to be more like Star Wars, deciding I could never admit to anyone that I’d ever thought that, sticking a sword into it for some ungodly reason, cutting my fingers up some more, burying it in a pot filled with burned pages of better books, then finally digging the monstrosity up out of the ash, washing it off with a garden hose, and thinking, ‘Hey! Maybe there’s something that’s not entirely terrible here.’
I know that wasn’t very helpful, but it is very true.
How did you go about writing the different groups of characters? Chronologically, or did you write one whole group’s story first then another etc.?
All of the storylines and characters of the book have been through many rewrites, false starts, and revamps, but I tended to stick with one thread or storyline until I was pretty happy with it. Unfortunately, what would happen was that when I was a third of the way through with one of the other storylines, I’d get an idea that — due to the intertwined nature of the book — meant that I had to go back and throw out most of what I’d already written of a different storyline and completely rewrite it. Or I’d discover a way to connect the storylines that meant that — you guessed it — I’d have to throw out most of what I’d previously written and start again. Do that a hundred (or thousand? I genuinely don’t know) times and you’ll get something like The Failures.
Do you have a favorite character to write?
I love it when I get Sophie right… but it’s almost always a struggle. The Deader is probably the most rewarding to write, but writing him is like juggling chainsaws… I guess I would say that if I had to pick some characters that are just plain the most fun to write, it would have to be my beloved monsters, Gun and Jackie.
Though Winter is damn fun, too.
What was your inspiration for some of the technology, such as the “dirt magic” that the Lost Boys use?
While the ‘Silver’ and the ‘Black and White’ are more obviously metaphors, the Dirt Magic is the closest to my heart. My Dad was a carpenter and builder, and I spent most of my teenage years helping him build a house from the ground up. I’ve always loved the making of things — though I don’t have much skill in it — and craftsmanship has always felt important to me. I wanted to have a magic that rewarded hard work, meticulousness and attention to detail, a magic that would respond to the love and care that you put into it, and I think a lot of those ideas and ideals made their way into the Dirt Magic.
It was recently pointed out to me, however, that while I was doing a lot of this worldbuilding I was also extremely, intensely, overwhelmingly addicted to a small indie game you might not have heard about called Minecraft. I don’t know if you know that game, but you build stuff in it. So, you know. I’m sure there was some inspiration from that quarter.
You signed a three book deal — do you know how the story ends? Or are you still making it up as it goes along?
I do know how it ends! Thank god. I know exactly how the second book ends, and I know exactly how the third book ends. However, I frequently have no goddamn clue how I’m going to get there, and my characters often compound this issue by being willful little sum-bitches who decide to do stuff that absolutely screws up my big master plan, and I have to go back and highlight giant sections of the book, heave a sigh, and hit delete.
In a certain and unfortunately very real sense, they are the ones who are making it up as they go along, and I’m a feeble god trying to chivvy them along and get them to the big happy party at the end without too many of them getting killed. Not that it will be happy, of course. Or a party. And all of them might get killed, if they don’t watch out!
I’m not that feeble.
If you were to be a character in this world, where would you want to be? The Dead City, The Keep, or Cannoux-Town and why?
The Dead City sounds boring. No drinks there. Cannoux? Better! Some drinks, though the locals look at you funny and there’s depressingly frequent instances of quasi-immortal and indestructible forces half-destroying it. I’d have to go with The Keep; they have all the drinks and all I really want in this world is to sit on a balcony above the Rue de Paladia, sipping a cup of half-warm café as the afternoon slopes off into evening, watching the mechanical butterflies nose around the curls of smoke from the burning pepper, arguing with my friends about what kind of debauchery we’re going to get into that night.
Which authors would you say you read the most while writing this book?
I always read Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon a few times when I’m writing in the Wanderlands because I like to channel the humor and tone, same with Susannah Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel. Neuromancer is a frequent read when I want a refresh on absolutely impeccable plotting and economy of language, Lonesome Dove when I want the opposite. Stephen King’s The Gunslinger for obvious reasons, Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick for the same… And Meiville’s Bas-Lag novels, especially The Scar. Daniel Cohen’s (Hi Dan!) DragonDao and Little Future, The Ghost are so full of ideas they’re like a delicious buffet of potential theft that I paw through often. But mostly, the seminal children’s illustrated book Dinotopia. The most constant and enduring touchstone for my incredibly dark apocalyptic fantasy novel is about dinosaurs that play dress-up with humans.
That’s true. I swear it is. Would I lie to you?
