An Interview with T. R. Napper
T. R. Napper has carved out a niche in the speculative fiction genre with a distinctive style that blends elements of cyberpunk dystopia with profound social commentary.
His debut novel 36 Streets has been praised for its intricate plot and vivid depiction of a futuristic Hanoi. The novel delves into themes of identity, memory, and the impact of technology on society, showcasing Napper’s ability to weave intricate narratives that challenge and engage readers. His short fiction has also garnered attention and accolades, appearing in prominent science fiction magazines and anthologies.
Napper’s storytelling often explores the complexities of human nature, technology, and the future, providing readers with both thrilling narratives and deep reflections on contemporary issues. His background as a former aid worker adds a unique depth to his character development and world-building, imbuing his stories with authenticity and emotional resonance.
We had the opportunity to pose a few questions to him ahead of the release of his upcoming novella, Ghost of the Neon God.
What got you into writing in the first place?
I’m not precisely sure. I’d never imagined being a writer. Not even as an idle daydream. I was always voracious reader, from a very young age, and worshipped books. But the idea of writing one never entered my consciousness.
My upbringing was working class, and I was encouraged to escape that by doing something university-educated and practical, like engineering. But I was impractical by nature, stumbling my way through a range of jobs, before I eventually went to uni (the first in my family to do so). I later became an aid worker, and found my calling. Or, at least, told myself it was.
Until my 30s, when I started writing fiction. A creative fire was lit, an obsession gained, and I never looked back.
You have a family – how do you find time to write?
Iron discipline is an underrated quality in the author. When my youngest son was a baby, for example (and I was primary carer), I’d write for the two hours he slept at lunch time. When he got older, I’d write at night, after everyone was in bed.
These days, my approach is to allocate myself a limited number of time sinks. So, I have writing, reading, exercise, family, the occasional drink with friends, and a second job. That’s it. I rarely watch movies and stream shows. Not because I don’t want to, but because doing that will cut into one of the others.
Reading, while I’m here, is part of the job of the writer, in my opinion. I read every evening, usually for 2-3 hours, after everyone is in bed and the world is quiet.
How has your career influenced your writing?
Massively. A decade in Southeast Asia, working in aid, has shaped my world view, my interests, the types of settings I’m comfortable writing in. It’s very much influenced my thematic concerns as well, whether geopolitical, technological, or social.
What are you reading, listening to, watching and playing at the moment?
I pick a piece of music that sets the tone or mood I want for a story. No lyrics – usually a film soundtrack, or ambience, or something similar. Currently I’m listening to Adagio in G from the Sunshine soundtrack, which puts me in the right frame of mind for the short novel I’m writing.
I just finished reading Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard (which was made by Tarantino into Jackie Brown), and now will have to dive back into reading for the ACT Book of the Year, of which I’m a judge.
What is your approach to writing short fiction, as opposed to novels? How do you start?
Short fiction is where I made my bones as a writer. Where I learned my craft, and where I built the shared world now inhabited by my longer works: 36 Streets, Ghost of the Neon God, and The Escher Man.
I only write one or two short stories a year now (when I started out it would have been 6-7). Where do I start? Sometimes I’ll read an interesting article about science, or tech, or society, and that will spark something. Sometimes I need to write a story to help me understand a piece of the world I’m building (no, it’s not a pure ‘world-building’ story, which are not inherently interesting. It’s about character. But I’ll also be figuring out a piece of the world at the same time). Sometimes I’ll hear a phrase, or think of a line, which would make an awesome title, and the story will flow from that.
The difference from a novel is hard to describe. But in part, it is how strong the idea, and how long I’m willing to spend with it. A novel is a huge commitment. For me, at least three years. At some point, it becomes a question of judgement. Is there enough here?
My judgment, however, can suck. The last two times I’ve tried to write a short story, the tale has grown in the telling. One became a novella (about 25k words), and the current WIP will end up being 50k (an almost unpublishable length).
Can you give us a few of your favourite pieces of short fiction that you’ve read over the years?
Oh look, that’s too hard a question to answer. I will tell you my best memory of reading short fiction. Once I picked up a random ‘Best of’ anthology from my local second hand bookstore. It was an old one, I think from the year 1999. I started to read it on a three-hour bus trip, beginning with the novellas in the collection. Both blew my mind. Both were brilliant, in different ways.
The first was Ted Chiang’s The Story of Your Life (which was later filmed as ’Arrival’). A beautiful, moving tale. The second, Oceanic, by Greg Egan, won the Hugo Award for Best Novella, somehow beating out Ted Chiang’s story.
Pure luck, picking up this battered, random anthology for a few bucks and finding two classic, compelling stories contained within.
You are a Doctor of Cyberpunk (which may be one of the coolest titles ever) – what drew you to the genre?
It mashes together all the things I’m fascinated by. It fuses East and West. It’s concerned with high-tech and low lives. It’s punk, so it’s anti-authoritarian, anti-corporate, and counter cultural. It plants its flag on the side of the marginalised, and human rebellion (even if that rebellion is often futile). It can be high-octane, and page-turning, yet infused with deep philosophical ideas about what it means to be human.
Ultimately Cyberpunk is a humanist literature, whose anger and defiance comes from a place of concern for the human condition.
You’ve done something a lot of our writers would love to do: publish a short story collection. Can you tell us a bit about the process and how you achieved this?
The short story collection to traditional publishing route is one of the old-school career paths. But I never had that in mind at the outset. At the start I was trying to be a better writer, tell stories I cared about, find a readership.
Somewhere along the line an Australian publisher – Adrian Collins at Grimdark Magazine – approached me and asked me if I wanted to publish a collection (he’d bought a couple of my stories previously for his mag). I said yeah, and so we talked. And talked. Maybe two years later we finally got our acts together, and Neon Leviathan was born.
The slowness of the process was a good thing, insofar as I produced some very good stories over that period, including two that were brand new just for the collection. Both were nominated for an Aurealis Award, with one of the two winning the ‘Best Science Fiction Novella’ category.
So to answer the question on how it is achieved: through writing. Getting published, putting your name out there. Opportunities flow from good work. Which sounds like a platitude, but, despite everything, still holds true in this industry.
Neon Leviathan is not only a cutting look at the interstice between technology, society and human desires, but it’s also an examination of the nature of memory. Was this always your intention, or did it come about through the writing process?
It was haphazard, and came out through the writing process. Memory has always fascinated me, and it is something of a recurring theme in cyberpunk. The treasured memories of the Replicants in Blade Runner (and the false memories of Rachel), for example; or Major Motoko, in Ghost in the Shell, questioning whether her memories are real (and the fact that she doesn’t even own her memories – they belong to the police).
I became obsessed with the science of memory – how it functions, how it can be manipulated, how it can change over time. I also began to see memory as a metaphor for the human spirit, or soul. It’s everything we are. Our loves and hates, our childhood, the prism through which we understand our place in the world. Yet it is so damn fragile, so easily manipulated.
What inspired you to write 36 Streets?
Living in the Old Quarter, in Hanoi, where it was set. That was fundamental. More broadly, the turbulent history of Vietnam helped provide a thematic backdrop to the story. And, of course, character of the protagonist, Lin Thi Vu. She kept reappearing in my works, wanting her story told. So I relented and told it.
How long did it take you to write, from inception to finished manuscripts? How much time was spent planning and plotting?
Forever (but, rarely, not so long at all). For my original works, The Escher Man took a decade, 36 Streets took five years, and Ghost of the Neon God took about six years. But I didn’t write those end-to-end (that is: they didn’t take me 21 years), I wrote them all over about 10 – 11 years. I put aside The Escher Man for half a decade, because I thought I wasn’t good enough to write it (I was right, until about two years ago). 36 Streets I also gave up on, also thinking I couldn’t meet the complexities the narrative demanded. Ghost of the Neon God started as a short story (published), then a second short story (also published), then a third section longer than the previous two combined.
So, in answer to your question, I’m slow. I’ve come around to my process, realising that I need to put aside my novels for at least a year, if not more, before I got back to them.
There is a glaring exception here, which is Aliens: Bishop. I signed a contract saying I had to write it in 5 months. I did, and am proud of the final product, but boy, it nearly broke me. I wrote every day, 7 days a week, taking only Christmas Day off.
I’m glad I took up the challenge, happy that my words are now canon in a cool universe, pleased to be the first Australian author to write a tie-in for that universe – but I doubt I’ll do it again.
I prefer my own stories, in my own time.
"Cyberpunk is a humanist literature, whose anger and defiance comes from a place of concern for the human condition."
As the preeminent voice in Australian cyberpunk, what do you think sets our voice apart from international writers?
Preeminent! Ah, yes, I am the master. I do wonder if Greg Egan would like a word with you on that. Or even Grace Chan, who you’ve interviewed.
What sets our voice apart? It’s a tough one, impossible even, generalising across such a diverse population. I might say landscape matters in our work, more so than in other traditions. How oppressive our land can be (for the non-indigenous population, especially), to the point of inspiring gothic terror in many works. I like to think we still have a laconic sense of humour and retain notions of fairness. I don’t know if it’s true, but I like to think it. I like that we have capable working class characters, and I love the batshit craziness and quirkiness of some of our stories.
Something that shines through all your work is the incredible believable and acutely real worldbuilding – reading 36 Streets, I can feel the humidity and hear the sound of the city. The same goes for your short pieces, where the characters and world feel lived-in. Do you have any tips for weaving this into writing?
Ha. I have whole workshops devoted to this. But I’ll try to be brief. First, I tend to write places where I’ve lived. That gives setting a certain authenticity. Second, I built the world piece by piece, brick by brick, through short stories.
I wrote and published enough of these for a collection in Neon Leviathan, and so by the time I came to my debut, 36 Streets, the world felt lived in. For the reader, it seems fully realised, layered with detail.
It helped that by this stage I’d figured out how to explain the world succinctly (through short story writing, which demands brevity). A line or a throw-away phrase, that yet sparks the reader’s imagination, helps them fill in the blanks.
You have two books coming out this year: Ghost of the Neon God and The Escher Man – the latter of which is also your Twitter/X handle. Can you tell us anything about those?
As I mentioned earlier, Ghost of the Neon God grew from two published short stories, and then a third, longer section. I pitched it as ‘Mad Max meets Johnny Mnemonic’. One of the early reviews said it was: “…unapologetically Australian and brutally awesome…” which I quite liked. The novella is out June 25.
The Escher Man, at ten years, is the longest I’ve ever taken two write something. It’s set in Macau, and takes place five years after the events of 36 Streets, although I consider it a stand-alone novel. The blurb, if you’re interested is linked here.
You’ve said before that “nuance is punk” – care to elaborate on what you mean?
Look at online discourse. Look at how polarised we are. Social media companies (and odious foreign regimes), find profit in division, and our virtual universe is designed to elevate the most extreme takes, the most ideologically blunt positions, the most unsophisticated of world views.
To be punk is many things. Anti-authoritarian, anti-corporate, like I said before. And to be ‘counter-cultural’ today is to have some capacity for nuance, and the courage to say so. Throughout history, some of our best thinkers had the integrity to stand up to their own side.
Look at Eric Blair (George Orwell), he fought the fascists in Spain, and got a bullet in the neck for his trouble (what writer, today, would have that courage? How many of us would volunteer to travel to Ukraine, for example, to fight Russian imperialism?). Orwell was a democratic socialist, who yet provided the most acute and compelling critique of Stalinism, in Animal Farm. He was attacked in his day for being disloyal to the cause, of betraying the left. But history has proven him correct.
Orwell talks of the ‘gramophone mind’ – those he said could easily fall into either of the ideological extremes. Social media breeds and rewards the gramophone mind.
What was the one moment that made you feel like a Real Author™?
I still don’t, sometimes. Still I feel like a fraud, still I wonder if I got lucky with a few pieces, and fear the lucky run will end. However, when you see your novel on the shelf in a bookstore. Well that’s pretty fucking nice. When a reader contacts you, to tell you how much your story or novel meant to them, that’s a pretty damn good feeling. When I won the Aurealis for Best Science Fiction novel, I was blown away.
So there are moments when I feel like a real author, and many more when it feels like an illusion.
I will say to any aspiring writer reading this, that if you do have a success – a short story sale, or you find yourself an agent, or you get fan mail, whatever – enjoy it. The good moments are few and far between in this business.
What’s one piece of advice you’d like to give to new writers who are eager to break into the speculative fiction world?
The only advice that applies to everyone is this: write as much as you can, and read as much as you can. If you don’t love doing both of these, then what are you doing here?
After that, I’d say this: certain unsexy essentials are necessary to be a writer: hard work, discipline, and bloody-mindedness in the face of rejection. The last – dogged persistence – is perhaps the most important.
Inspiration will come, the muse might even visit, but the hard graft comes first.
Ghost of the Neon God is coming out June 25, and can be preordered via the link.
Napper’s next full-length novel, The Escher Man, will follow on September 17.