Fantasy authors Amber Benson and Christopher Golden talk about their new novel, Ghosts Of Albion
01/12/2005 . Source: Del Rey Team 
In Ghosts of Albion: Accursed, it is 1838. William and Tamara Swift inherit a startling legacy from their dying grandfather, transforming them into the Protectors of Albion, mystical defenders of the soul of England. But the shocked, neophyte sorcerers also inherit unique allies in their battle against the dark forces. Fighting alongside them are the famous - even infamous - Ghosts of Albion: Lord Byron, Queen Bodicea, and Lord Admiral Nelson. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. Amber Benson and Christopher Golden talk about Ghost Of Albion
CHRIS: Amber, this is your first novel. You're a voracious reader, and you've written plays and scripts before, but was writing a novel always one of your ambitions?
AMBER: Damn straight, I'm a book carnivore. I go through pulp like it was carbonated water. But seriously, I've always wanted to write a book. I figured that ambition was just going to stay a pipe dream, but after we finished our run with the BBC and you started talking to Del Rey, I realized that we might actually have a shot at novelising the GoA universe. Which meant that I was going to get to write my first book! Thanks Chris, as this whole thing is all your fault...hehehe.
AMBER: What is your favourite medium to write in and why?
CHRIS: Novels are definitely the most satisfying. There are too many people involved in the creation of a comic book or animated serial or video game. Sometimes the finished product is wonderful and sometimes not so much, but with those other mediums, it isn't just my work, or just mine and my collaborator's. Writing a novel is intimate and personal in a way that those other things simply aren't. You're painting the world with words, creating the texture of everything. There's a purity of experience there that I haven't gotten from any other writing. Also, I've always been a novelist and have rarely written short stories. Just lately, I've been doing them more, and I'm finding that experience can be even more intimate than writing novels.
CHRIS: You're a prodigious reader, and you read a broad spectrum of things. Now that your first novel is hitting stores, what are you thinking about, long term? GHOSTS OF ALBION is dark fantasy, but what other kinds of things would you like to write?
AMBER: I wanna write a Harlequin Romance. I just loved'em as a preteen. I've even got a line in LOVERS, LIARS, AND LUNATICS in homage to that lovely genre of storytelling. I'd also like to write something weird. Not really sure what that entails, but something just plain nutty that everyone could read and shake their heads at afterwards or, on the other foot, they'd just call it genius a la the emperor's new clothes.
AMBER: What do you have more fun writing, sex or violence?
CHRIS: It depends on the day, I think. Both require choreography, and that can be trying at times. Either way, though, when what I'm writing puts a grin on my face, I know it's working. Sex and violence are wonderful tools and they can be exciting to write, but what troubles me are writers who believe that that's what you build a story around. To me, characters are much more important. I'm happy to put them through their paces, like the cast of characters we have in GHOSTS OF ALBION. I want to see them fighting, bleeding, getting their asses kicked and somehow managing to survive. I want to get them all hot and bothered, show the passion and hunger that they have, give them that vital element of life. But all of that is so much more interesting if the characters are interesting to me FIRST.
CHRIS: What are your own thoughts about writing sex and violence?
AMBER: Writing a good sex scene can be both titillating and embarrassing. Looking up Victorian undergarments so that I can figure out the best way to breach them, now, that's a wee bit giggle inducing. I like writing scary, creepy scenes, but actually getting into the violence isn't really interesting to me. I am much more curious about how the character is feeling as the promise of violence lingers before them. I also am a much bigger fan of supernatural violence than real-life violence. I would much rather write about violence being perpetrated against someone by a demon then by another human being.
AMBER: If we were making a film of GHOSTS OF ALBION, who would you cast?
CHRIS: Oddly enough, some of the characters I'd have a hard time casting because the voice actors made such indelible impressions on me. Paterson Joseph IS Nigel Townsend. The lovely Jasmine Hyde IS Tamara. Rory Kinnear IS William, in my mind. How could we not cast Anthony Daniels as Nelson? On the other hand, since I'm fairly certain that the amazing Emma Samms would not agree to spend the entire movie stark naked with a spear, we might have to get Angelina Jolie for that part.
CHRIS: If we ever did make the film, would you like to play Tamara? Or maybe YOU'D want to play Bodicea? How's your British accent?
AMBER: I'm looking forward to putting on a little blue war paint. J/K. My accent is getting there, but I'll leave the Tamara and Bodicea to Jasmine and Emma respectively. And Angelina Jolie, Chris? Naughty, naughty, naughty.
AMBER: Do you ever mould your characters after real people?
CHRIS: To a certain extent, yes. I often use the names of real people, like Tamara Swift in GHOSTS, who was named after a British school teacher I met at a couple of Buffy conventions. I take great pleasure from names, and I thought hers was perfect, particularly as there was this mental connection for me with Jonathan Swift, who wrote Gulliver's Travels. But names and characters are two different things. I rarely mold a character after someone from my real life, but when I do, I go for it. My novel STRAIGHT ON 'TIL MORNING is the best example. The first half of the novel is largely autobiographical, and so the characters in the book are really myself and my brother and the people who were our friends back when we were kids. I also think that in GHOSTS OF ALBION the character of Nigel Townsend became even sexier than we originally wrote him once we saw him "voiced" in the studio by Paterson Joseph, who brought so much raw sensuality to Nigel.
CHRIS: I'd like to ask you the same question, but particularly with an eye toward the films you've written and directed and to ALBERT HALL, your play that was produced in Los Angeles last year.
AMBER: I don't know where the hell they come from. I find myself relying heavily on my muse for all creative endeavours, and names are a particular forte of hers. Sometimes a name I hear will settle in my brain and smack around my brain until I use it. Usually, though, I wait for inspiration, which can take a few minutes or days, dependent on my frame of mind.
AMBER: Why were you nicknamed the Big Hairy Lesbian by our producer, Jelena, while we were working on the first GHOSTS OF ALBION animated serial?
CHRIS: You're something, Benson. I don't actually recollect if it was Jelena or YOU that coined the phrase. I guess it came up because she and her girlfriend had just moved in together and were having a house warming party, and she was thinking about inviting me but wasn't sure I'd be comfortable. Apparently you assured her I'd be fine, given my older sister, with whom I'm very close, has been with the same woman for more than a quarter century and that they were one of the first gay couples married in Massachusetts. You're always fond of talking about how girly I am. "Squishy," I think you said at one point. Bitch. Look at you perpetuating stereotypes about guys who are . . . um . . . squishy. Can't a guy like football AND musical theater? Heh. Anyway, Jelena called me a Big Hairy Lesbian, but it didn't really become a public thing until a certain woman with the initials A.B. called me that at a convention in front of six hundred Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans.
CHRIS: All right, since we're on the subject . . . the impact of your role on Buffy the Vampire Slayer is well documented. Even if it hadn't been, I've seen it with my own eyes, all the women and girls who've come up to you to thank you for your performance on the series. I can't count the number of times I've heard one of those women tell you that you saved her life, just by letting her know she wasn't alone. Did you ever imagine that your work as an actor could touch anyone's life that profoundly?
AMBER: Something that has always struck me as curious is how we use the medium of television to sell cleaning detergent. If the big conglomerates can sell you a bottle of detergent by putting a bald, be-ear-ringed cartoon character on your boob tube then why can't we sell a social agenda through the same means? You can make a way of life normal and acceptable by creating characters on a television show that live a normal, homosexual lifestyle and are not ostracized or castigated for doing so. The more we see homosexual characters treated like normal human beings on television, the less hate we will see directed toward our family, friends and neighbours who just happen, by the luck of the draw, to be gay. So, in answer to your question: yes, I knew that we were making a social statement by creating the Willow/Tara relationship. Was I prepared for how overwhelming it would be? No.
CHRIS: At San Diego Comic Con a few years ago, a stunningly beautiful Asian woman presented you with a ring and proposed marriage in front of hundreds of people. Obviously, there were a couple of complications there. First, she was a complete stranger, and second, you don't swing that way. Even so, was it kinda cool, or just freaky?
AMBER: Definitely kinda cool. She was a real cutie. I told her if ever decided to switch teams I'd give her a call-which wasn't really being truthful as I didn't get a number to call her with.
AMBER: If you had to be stranded on a desert island with one of the characters from GHOSTS OF ALBION, who would it be?
CHRIS: Hmm. Well, ideally, I'd like to be stranded on a desert island with Evangeline Lilly from LOST. But from GHOSTS OF ALBION? Tamara, of course. She'd fall for me for sure.
CHRIS: Same question back to you, chica.
AMBER: Give me liberty or give me...John Haversham, baby. And you can add Johnny Depp, if you're feeling doubly friendly.
AMBER: Which GHOSTS OF ALBION character are you most like?
CHRIS: Ah, perfect. This brings us full circle back to your question about the big Hairy Lesbian. I think I'm probably most like Tamara. She's stubborn and impatient and just trying to do the right thing. Then add in a dash of Nigel, because he's an incorrigible flirt.
CHRIS: I'm going to throw that one back to you as well. Which GoA character are YOU most like?
AMBER: There's a bit of Tamara in me and a bit of William, though I have to say that William is one of my favorite characters to write for. He's so bloody uptight-which makes for some damn fine situational comedy.
CHRIS: Some people might be surprised to learn that you're kind of a goofball. (Yes, folks, she's a goofball. Heh heh.) Your independent films, CHANCE and LOVERS, LIARS, AND LUNATICS reveal a wonderful sense of humour that runs the gamut from sexy to silly to ironic, and your sense of humour has certainly affected the way we write together in GHOSTS OF ALBION. So, what's funny to you? To what do you attribute the humour that you bring to all of these things?
AMBER: I think funny is something that you either are inherently born with or not. And I definitely don't think you can tutor someone in what's funny. They have to feel it for themselves. That said, I believe that there are different kinds of humour-funny runs the gamut from the British dry humour to the slipping on a banana peel absurdity of slapstick. I find that my sensibility is more toward the absurd. I've always been a huge fan of Preston Sturges and that whole screwball comedy genre. I like to mix that with a little bit of twisted, black humour and stir it all together. Voila! You have comedy a la Amber.
CHRIS: I always refer to you as a Renaissance woman. You're an actor, a screenwriter, a playwright, a film director, a comic book writer, a novelist, a producer, and a singer. This is a multi-part question. First, you seem kind of shy about your singing, but you have a beautiful voice. Wouldn't you love to get up on stage sometime and do a whole damned show, just get somebody with a guitar and go to town? Second, if you could only ever do one of those jobs for the rest of your life, which one would you choose, and why?
AMBER: I would love to be Joni Mitchell. Sadly, I am neither proficient in the piano or the guitar and I have no one who is proficient in either instrument to help me out. Boohoohoo... If I had to choose one of the above and only do it for the rest of my life? Sheesh. That's a hard one. I'd probably be a filmmaker because, cheatingly, that can involve so many of the other things I like to do.
AMBER: In twenty words or less, tell the world why they have to go out and get GHOSTS OF ALBION: ACCURSED.
CHRIS: Ghosts. Demons. Sex. Magic. British Imperialism. Victorian Politics. Flirtation. Lovecraftian monsters. Strange idols. Weird underground lairs. Deceit. Mysticism. Dark gods. That's twenty. Trust me. It's a hell of a ride.
In Ghosts of Albion: Accursed, it is 1838. William and Tamara Swift inherit a startling legacy from their dying grandfather, transforming them into the Protectors of Albion, mystical defenders of the soul of England. But the shocked, neophyte sorcerers also inherit unique allies in their battle against the dark forces. Fighting alongside them are the famous-even infamous-Ghosts of Albion: Lord Byron, Queen Bodicea, and Lord Admiral Nelson.
When strange and hideous creatures appear in the slums of London, an unholy plague threatens to launch an epic battle that may rage all the way to Buckingham Palace . . . and beyond. Time is running out as William and Tamara must learn whether their friends will stand beside them, or seduce and betray them.
From Amber Benson, known for her dramatic portrayal of Tara in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Christopher Golden, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Shadow Saga and Wildwood Road, comes a vengeful tale of demons, vampires, and ghosts set in nineteenth-century London. Based on the smash BBC Web series that took England by storm, Ghosts of Albion is a horror adventure laced with dark humor and darker lusts.
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