home words bio links
Praise for the
Milkweed Triptych
"A major talent... I can't wait to see more."
—George R. R. Martin
"Mad English warlocks battling twisted Nazi psychics? Yes please, thank you. Tregillis's debut has a white-knuckle plot, beautiful descriptions, and complex characters-- an unstoppable Vickers of a novel."
—Cory Doctorow on Bitter Seeds
"Ian Tregillis triumphantly concludes his astonishing, brilliant, pulse-pounding debut trilogy, The Milkweed Triptych."
—Cory Doctorow on Necessary Evil
"Tregillis' conclusion of the Milkweed Triptych is the pièce de résistance of the series. Necessary Evil is a perfect marriage of science fiction, fantasy and alternate history."
—RT Book Reviews (4.5 stars, Top Pick) on Necessary Evil
"Darkly fascinating…A thoroughly fascinating conclusion to an imaginative tour de force."
—Kirkus on Necessary Evil
"A cross between the devious, character-driven spy fiction of early John le Carré and the mad science fantasy of the X-Men... Despite the jaw-dropping backdrop and oblique plotting, the narrative is driven by character and personal circumstance...
Grim indeed, yet eloquent and utterly compelling."
—Kirkus on The Coldest War
"The characters come alive via [Tregillis's] imaginative dialogue and his storyline will keep readers spellbound and on the edge of their seats with an intense sci-fi/alternate history thriller plot."
—RT Book Reviews (4.5 stars, Top Pick) on The Coldest War
"Well-drawn characters and a feel for time and place make this an excellent journey into an alternate Britain."
—Library Journal on Bitter Seeds
"Engrossing... Tregillis ably mixes cold war paranoia with his mythology."
—Publishers Weekly on The Coldest War
news words bio links contact
Close
Look Out in the Black-Out!
Recent Blog Entries:

The End: NECESSARY EVIL Is Out! - 5/1/2013, 10:29 AM Because I Haven't Posted About tDCS In A While - 4/8/2013, 04:07 PM Announcing the NECESSARY EVIL Signing Tour - 4/5/2013, 05:15 PM Nuclear Deterrence in a Blood Magic World - 2/22/2013, 09:41 AM Guest Post #2 at Charlie Stross's Blog - 2/17/2013, 04:41 PM Guest Post at Charlie Stross's Blog - 2/15/2013, 09:17 PM A Conversation with Charlie Stross - 2/8/2013, 11:06 AM NOW OUT in the UK: THE COLDEST WAR - 2/7/2013, 12:22 AM Clarion Is Accepting Applications for the Class of 2013 - 1/27/2013, 06:38 PM Holy Smokes! Cover Art for Something More Than Night - 1/23/2013, 09:44 PM

Show all blog entries
Thursday, February 28 2008, 10:06 PM

For a hopeless perfectionist like me, writing a World War II novel can involve a frankly crushing amount of research. Which is why I couldn't have been more delighted when I received a package from my friend Mark Falzini yesterday.
Mark is an author, bagpiper, world traveler, historian, anglophile, and the archivist of the New Jersey State Police Museum.

I met Mark Falzini when I was living in Princeton, along with another Mark of Italian extraction, the unstoppable Mark Lopez. (Or the Don Lopez, as I respectfully refer to him. You would, too, if you saw some of his acquaintances from his youth on the mean streets of Trenton. Seriously. These are some scary looking guys. Just sayin'.) The New Jersey Marks went well out of their way to make me feel welcome in the short six months I lived out there. And I have to say, New Jersey couldn't have two better ambassadors. I celebrated my 30th birthday with the Marks and their families. A Fourth of July, too. (Falzini and I won the bocce ball championship of the universe that day, as I recall.) I met Mark Lopez while he was volunteering for the OSETI project, and it was through him that I once had dinner with Freeman Dyson and his son George, but that's a story for a different blog post. And then there was the day Mark, Mark, and I took a side trip to Grover's Mill, NJ, to visit the spot where the Martians landed on October 30, 1938. On that particular day we blundered into the midst of a very large and very joyful Mongolian celebration taking place in Van Nest Park.

It's through his job at the NJSPM that Mark Falzini happened to become one of the world's experts on the Lindbergh kidnapping. (Hey, what do you know-- I share my birthday with the Lindbergh baby.) Much (most?) of the evidence pertaining to that famous case are in Mark's care in the archives. He's been interviewed about the case many times, both in the newspaper and on television, and a few years ago he even discovered a new piece of evidence regarding the case that had gone undiscovered for 70 years. We went out to the Lindbergh house one day (the one in New Jersey, not the one in my home state), where Mark laid out the known and speculated sequence of events on the night of the kidnapping for us.

I'm happy to report that I made it through all of these adventures without once seeing Mark in a kilt.

Anyway, that's a long aside. What did I find on my doorstep yesterday?

A bounty of research materials from the Imperial War Museum: full-size, full-color reproductions of World War II era posters, leaflets, evacuation labels, ration books, identity cards, Home Guard certificates of service, RAF combat reports, newspaper pages, and even a map compiled for the German naval high command outlining the first phase of Operation Sealion.

Mark's timing is just plain perfect, now that I'm deep into the second draft of Bitter Seeds. I've labored long and hard to evoke the era, to give the novel that invaluable feeling of verisimilitude. My dining room table is buried under the research materials I've compiled since starting to work on the Milkweed Triptych (some day I'll post a photo), but even so there are days when it feels like I'm just scratching the surface of such a vast topic. In the novel I've made references, some oblique and some direct, to many of these items, or ones like them -- the ration books, the posters, the evacuation tags... In some cases I've obtained small, blurry photos of posters and leaflets, and in other cases I've made do with just the transcribed text. But it's not the same thing as actually holding a ration book in my hand while looking up at a poster declaring "Gas Attack! What To Do!" (I visited the uber-amazing Cabinet War Rooms in London back in '98 or '99, but that was long before I ever entertained the notion of writing a World War II novel.) Thanks to Mark, I find myself transported to another time as I work on this rewrite.

Now, if you'll excuse me, the air-raid sirens have just sounded, so I must get to my Anderson shelter.

Close

Comments (3)
Type a title - Type your name here, Sunday, March 2 2008, 07:02 PM
If you ever find yourself in Germany, do check out the science and technology museum in Munich. I saw an enigma machine there! Among many, many other WWII items.


Admit it, though. The research is fun.

Type a title - SarahP, Sunday, March 2 2008, 07:07 PM
sorry, that was me, forgetting to put my name in the space thingy.

Research - Ian, Sunday, March 2 2008, 07:43 PM
You're right, it is pretty fun. I love finding the little


details that fit perfectly into a scene, or when I'm reading


for research and find I don't have to look up an acronym because


I've already learned it. That's rewarding. Also, I just find


it fascinating.


Now you're making me think I need to take an extended trip


through England and Germany and then write it off as a business


expense :)




Add Your Comment:
Your Name:
Email Address or URL:
Title of Comment:
Comment Body:
 
Close

Interviews
Interview with SFX Magazine
Unwalkers interview [English | French ]
Interview with Speculate! Podcast Interview with Adventures in SciFi Publishing
Ian Tregillis on the Sword and Laser Podcast
Ian Tregillis on John Scalzi's The Big Idea
Interview with Pat's Fantasy Hotlist
Interview with SFRevu
Interview with Mad Hatter Book Review
Interview with Apex Books

Interview at Literary Musings Interview with Pat's Fantasy Hotlist
An interview with the authors of Busted Flush at Pat's Fantasy Hotlist
Interview with Travis Heermann at The Write Line
9-way interview with the contributors to the Wild Cards novel Inside Straight at Pat's Fantasy Hotlist
Interview in the February, 2008 newsletter of the Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
An extended interview with Ian Tregillis by Ty Franck, on www.wildcardsbooks.com.

There is a plethora of online shops, offering you to make the best buy Cialis generic.

All information about Buy Flagyl Online for the treatment of trichomoniasis striking the genitourinary system