A big hello to children’s author G.R. Dix as we welcome him into The Reading Realm today to talk about his books!
Before we settle down in The Reading Realm for a chat, what’s your drink and snack of choice?
Black coffee in the morning, and ice-cold water. For snacks, I’m obsessed with cheese – all kinds, from the cheap orange stuff all the way to the poshest, fanciest cheeses. I always treat myself to a huge chunk of the world’s best Brie at Christmas!
Tell us about your books in three sentences and then three words!
For the next Brian Brackbrick series, Brian and George are thrown through time and have many adventures while trying to get home. I’ll give you a line for each volume!
Volume 1 (part 1): Brian and George are sent back to medieval times, and need the help of the Merry Men (and Woman) to confront the mysterious new Sheriff of Nottingham!
Volume 2 (part 3): After a pirate crew mistakes Brian Brackbrick for Captain Blackbeard, Brian and George must sail to a very dangerous island, find the treasure, and fight the real Blackbeard!
Volume 3 (part 6): Sent to the future, Brian and George meet some new friends with very familiar names, and must finally confront the true villain behind their time-hopping adventures!
Three words: Poo! Pirates! Pyramids!
If one of your characters could come to dinner, who would you invite and what would you cook them? What do you think you’d talk about?
I imagine Brian Brackbrick would be a very fussy eater, and George Bum would happily gobble down whatever food you served up. Morris Hawkwind would be a good dinner guest; I could talk to him about obscure music all night!
What’s the funniest word you know that always makes you laugh?
Bum! It’s a classic. Rude enough to be funny but not so rude that it’s off-limits. I even gave a character Bum as a name – George Bum, Brian’s best friend. Kids love saying his name for some reason 😉
What’s the silliest or strangest thing you’ve ever researched for a story?
Nothing ‘strange’ really, but a few surprises. For example, the Pony Express in the Wild West, which is well-known and hugely romanticised in fiction, was only operating for around 18 months. It’s also easy to get caught out if you don’t do your research – for the scene where Brian wakes up on the hot sands of Ancient Egypt, I wanted him to see chariots speeding towards him in the distance. But, in the time of Pharaoh Djoser, chariots hadn’t been invented yet – they were introduced to Egypt around 1000 years later! So, Brian sees marching soldiers instead.
Do your characters ever surprise you?
Yes they do! If I’m struggling with a plot point or which direction to take, I let the ideas stew for a while and then the characters will give me a nudge. Quite a few of the ideas along the way have seemingly come from nowhere, and I like to think it’s the characters leading me a certain way. For example, Brian adopting a clumsy disguise of a bushy black beard while hiding from the Jackson Gang in the Wild West – he still has the beard when he arrives in pirate times, and that’s why the crew assume he is Blackbeard. Totally Brian’s idea!
If your writing desk could speak, what would it say about you?
Please keep me tidy!!!!
Did you like reading when you were a child? If so, what?
Reading was the thing I most liked to do, I loved it. I could read very early, way before starting school – I don’t actually remember having to learn at all. I would read (and love) books like Roald Dahl, but also comics, that was my main reading material for a while. Some of those comics at the time were very word-heavy, so I learned a huge vocabulary that way.
What’s your favourite book that isn’t yours?
So many! Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is an obvious choice. Pratchett’s Discworld books, especially Carpe Jugulum and Night Watch. Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. Some more recent choices would be Stephen Baxter’s Manifold trilogy, Wildspark by Vashti Hardy, Gloam by Jack Mackay.
What book do you wish you could read for the first time again?
Wizard & Glass, by Stephen King. A masterpiece.
What’s the funniest thing a child has said to you?
Me, during school visit: “Does anyone have any questions about my books, or about writing stories?”
Child: “Which one is the best Ronaldo?”
Also, I had a great conversation with a school child once where he outlined to me at length why a squid was the ideal hero for the stories he wanted to write. I love to see free creativity like that.
If you weren’t an author, what would you be?
I would “only” be a scientist, which is my day job (or “muggle job” as someone once said). I would be missing out on using a huge chunk of my brain in a very enjoyable way. I think the two aspects complement each other in a way, in terms of being concise and disciplined.
What BAD advice would you give to someone who wants to be a writer?
Don’t read anything, you don’t need to 😉
SPEED ROUND:
Cake or biscuits?
Biscuits. With cheese, ideally!
Dinosaurs or unicorns?
100% dinosaurs. Amazing, complex, real creatures that dominated the Earth for an amount of time we find hard to fully grasp. For example – more time passed between the Stegosaurus and T-Rex, than between the T-Rex and humans!
Pirates or astronauts?
In story terms, pirates all day long! As readers will see in Volume 2 of The Trouble with Time – Brian and George meet the terrible pirate Captain Blackbeard, who is NOT pleased that they have stolen his ship!
Museums or theme parks?
That’s not a fair question!! I love both. Especially the theme parks in Orlando, our favourite place to go on holiday.
Cats or dogs?
DOGS DOGS DOGS!!
Summer or winter?
Both, kind of – the part of summer where it’s warm but not sweltering, and the part of winter in December leading up to Christmas.
Aliens or robots?
Aliens! So much story material there, limited only by what you can imagine. In reality, even if aliens did exist there is virtually no way we would be able to communicate with them – but we can still have fun with this in fiction.
THANK YOU to G.R. Dix for joining us in The Reading Realm today!
