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Q. How does Hunter fit in with the rest of the books in the series?
A. Hunter is part of the prequel series that began with Super Human and carried on through The Ascension and Stronger. But it's mostly a stand-alone tale: it's not necessary to have read the other books before you read Hunter. If you're new to the series, almost everything you'll need to know is explained quite early in Hunter.
Q. What's the preferred reading order of the books? And where does the short-story collection fit into the series?
A. To preserve all the mysteries and twists in the series, the best reading order is probably the order of publication:
However, you could instead read the books in chronological order:
The short stories are all over the place...! If you want to avoid all spoilers then it's probably best to read the collection after you've read The Reckoning / Absolute Power.
Q. Which character do you enjoy writing most?
A. That depends on what time of day, week, month and year it
is! I have a huge fondness for Renata, Brawn, Abby and Solomon Cord, but overall,
I'd say that my favourite is Lance. That's probably because he's the one who most
closely resembles the person I thought I was at that age. Smart, quick-witted, and
sort of noble in a flawed way. Of course, in reality I wasn't like that at all,
but I believed that I was!
I also thoroughly enjoy writing Max Dalton, because he's such a complete swine and yet he believes he's a hero. The scenes in which he and Lance go head-to-head in Hunter were so much fun to write that I had to keep putting the brakes on. Otherwise, I ran the risk of filling the entire book with Lance and Max sniping at each other!
Q. Are there any characters you hate writing?
A. Not any more... At first, when I was writing the very first book, I wasn't very keen on Danny Cooper. He was just too much of a goody-two-shoes. Characters with blemishes are much more interesting to write! But Danny had to be there because he was a huge part of the overall story... And then I came to a particular scene about two-thirds of the way into the first book. If you've read the book, you'll know what scene I mean: it involves Danny and his father! After that scene, and Danny's reactions to what happens, that changed everything about the character and suddenly he was much more fun to write!
Of the other characters, the same truth remains. Titan and Energy are less interesting to write about, which is one of the main reasons they don't appear very much. I guess you could say that they're the Superman and Wonder Woman of the series: they're far too powerful! But Paragon is the Batman of the series in that respect: he's not a superhuman. He's vulnerable, and to overcome his vulnerabilities he has to work that much harder, be that much smarter. Flawed heroes are always more fun!
Q. In what year are these stories set? The books don't make that very clear!
A. That's true, they don't! But there's a good reason for that... If an author includes a specific year in a book, that year then anchors that book to that period in time. The first book was published in early 2006. Every reader, no matter their age, has a mental image of 2006, and so if that date appeared in the book, the reader would automatically apply that mental image of the year to the book.
Because I avoided mentioning the year, new readers will (I hope) assume that the story they're reading takes place right now. Or, at least, in the recent past.
I did the same thing to the first two prequels. Readers who were already familiar with the existing book quickly figured out that the prequels were set about twenty-three years before the original trilogy (Stronger, of course, clarified that), but new readers who discovered the prequels first assumed that those books were set "now."
So, to answer the question... The best way to think of it is that the events of the third book in the original trilogy (Absolute Power / The Reckoning) happened a couple of months ago. This means that the first two books are set last year. Crossfire is set sometime after the third book, so when that's published, it'll become the new "now"... Hope that makes sense!
To make things a little clearer, I've put together an image that shows the timeline of the books published to date. I'll be updating the timeline image in a few months to incorporate Hunter... I could do it now, but I don't want to give away too much!
Questions from Matt Smith:
Matt Smith is the editor of 2000 AD and its monthly counterpart Judge Dredd Megazine. During his tenure as editor the comics have see a marked increase in sales and recognition, a testament to his skills. On top of that, Matt has magically has somehow found the time to also be a successful writer of both comics and books! For more on 2000 AD and Judge Dredd, visit www.2000adonline.com.
Q. Are you more conscious of self-censoring when writing YA novels, which you don't when writing Judge Dredd?
A. Definitely! I take great care with the YA books to make sure that they're "age-appropriate."
This means no bad language, keeping a lid on the violence, and no direct references to any, um,
"physical expressions of romance." It's not that I don't think that the intended readers are able
to cope with such things - I believe they usually can - it's more that the books also have to appeal
to the readers' parents, teachers and librarians. They're the ones who buy the books, after
all, and if they don't feel comfortable with a book's tone or subject matter they'll pass on it...
And rightly so!
So that does, in some ways, limit what I can do with the stories... But I prefer to see it as an opportunity. Put things in my way and I'm forced to use my imagination to get around them! We can only rise to greater heights by scaling the obstacles in our paths.
Though it began as a comic for youngsters, Judge Dredd has "grown up" and these days is aimed at an older audience than the Quantum Prophecy / New Heroes novels, so it has fewer such restrictions. That said, of course, Dredd does have its own set of rules-that-must-not-be-broken, and over the years some very inventive stories have been written by creators eager to circumvent - but not break - those rules. The classic tale "In the Bath" is one such example!
(Younger readers interested in finding out more about Judge Dredd are encouraged to check out the Judge Dredd Casefiles: these hefty volumes reprint the earliest Dredd stories and are among the best comics ever created!)
Q. Would you agree that any story can be improved by inserting the phrase 'Bike Cannon!'?
A. That's an interesting philosophical question... Certainly, Lawrence of Arabia could have used one on his motorbike, and something similar mounted on Ron Weasley's dad's flying car would have made short work of the Whomping Willow. Most right-thinking scientists agree that some form of hood-mounted rapid-fire weapon would have been very useful for Penelope Pitstop during the Wacky Races: she could have mown down the Anthill Mob and given Dick Dastardly a real reason to yell "Curses!" However, I'm not sure that a bike cannon would have been much use during that true-life aquatic documentary Finding Nemo, unless it had been modified to work underwater.
Nevertheless, let's examine a popular form of fiction and see how it might look with the addition of heavy weapony...
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