Copyright © Alex Stewart & Steve Holland, 2000.
First appeared in Science Fiction World #4, September 2000.
Used here by permission of the authors.

The SF and Fantasy Worlds of Simon R Green
An annotated bibliography

THE HAWK AND FISHER SERIES

"You do get differences between the Americans and the British, a good example being the titles of the Hawk and Fisher books. The first one was called No Haven For the Guilty, but they wanted it retitled Hawk and Fisher to establish the series. I could live with that, but the British title of the second one was Devil Take the Hindmost, and Ace said "we can't use that, because research shows that most Americans don't know what 'hindmost' means." So they changed that to Winner Takes All. Then the fourth book was called Vengence for a Lonely Man, because the whole book was essentially a gothic romance, and they said "sorry, it's too long a title for the spine," and changed it to Wolf in the Fold, which is pretty bland and generic. And of course the last one over here was Two Kings in Haven, which they said sounded too much like a card game, so they changed it to The Bones of Haven. You do have to wonder sometimes. Which is why I've been using one and two word titles recently; it's harder for them to mess about with. But they do try..."

Hawk & Fisher. New York, Ace, Sep 1990; as No Haven for the Guilty, London, Headline, Aug 1990.
Hawk and Fisher investigate a locked room murder mystery.

Hawk & Fisher: Winner Takes All. New York, Ace, Jan 1991; as Devil Take the Hindmost, London, Headline, Feb 1991.
Corruption and political intrigue threaten the city council elections in Haven.

Hawk & Fisher: The God Killer. New York, Ace, Jun 1991; London, Headline, Sep 1991.
Hawk and Fisher track down a murderer on the Street of Gods.

Hawk & Fisher: Wolf in the Fold. New York, Ace, Sep 1991; as Vengeance for a Lonely Man, London, Headline, Mar 1992.
A killer stalks the members of a noble family gathered for the reading of a will.

Hawk & Fisher: Guard Against Dishonor. New York, Ace, Dec 1991; as Guard Against Dishonour, London, Headline, Jun 1992.
Hawk tries to prevent a lethal new drug from reaching the streets, while Fisher is suspended after being accused of corruption.

Hawk & Fisher: The Bones of Haven. New York, Ace, Mar 1992; as Two Kings in Haven, London, Headline, Oct 1992.
Terrorists threaten to disrupt a treaty signing ceremony.

Swords of Haven: The Adventures of Hawk & Fisher (omnibus; Hawk & Fisher, Winner Takes All, The God Killer). New York, Penguin/Roc, Jul 1999; as Haven of Lost Souls (omnibus; contains No Haven for the Guilty, Devil Take the Hindmost, The God Killer), London, Orion/Millennium, Nov 1999.

Guards of Haven (omnibus; contains Wolf in the Fold, Guard Against Dishonor, The Bones of Haven). New York, Penguin/Roc, Nov 1999; as Fear and Loathing in Haven (omnibus; contains Vengeance for a Lonely Man, Guard Against Dishonour, Two Kings in Haven), London, Millennium, Apr 2000.

THE FOREST KINGDOM SERIES

Blue Moon Rising. New York, Penguin/Roc, May 1991; London, Gollancz, Sep 1991.
"It was a 700 page fantasy novel and I couldn't sell it anywhere; it went to literally every British publisher and they all rejected it. Then it went to nearly every American publisher, finally ending up with Roc, and it was my first bestseller.
"Part of the point of doing these books is to take standard ideas and turn them on their heads. When I talk about Blue Moon Rising I always say it's about a hero who saves a dragon from a rogue princess. Practically every fantasy cliché you can think of is in that book, but turned upside down, shaken, and its arse given a good kicking, and I've always liked to do that. Even in the Deathstalker books, which in some ways are standard space opera, but in other ways I was trying as hard as I could to look at it from a competely different direction, take familiar ideas and characters but put them together in an entirely new way."

Blood and Honour. London, Gollancz, Jun 1992; as Blood and Honor, New York, Penguin/Roc, May 1993.
An out-of-work actor is hired to impersonate a missing prince, and finds himself growing into the role of his new kingdom's protector.

Down Among the Dead Men. London, Gollancz, Sep 1993; New York, Penguin/Roc, Dec 1993.
A group of soldiers in an isolated castle finds itself being picked off one by one by a mysterious killer.

THE TWILIGHT OF EMPIRE SERIES

Mistworld. New York, Ace, Sep 1992; London, Gollancz, Nov 1992.
The rebel stronghold of Mistworld finds itself under attack from an insidious new weapon of the Empire.

Ghostworld. New York, Ace, Mar 1993; London, Gollancz, Sep 1993.
A group of soldiers investigates after a base on a planet where their leader committed genocide a decade ago loses contact with the Empire.

Hellworld. New York, Ace, Sep 1993; revised, London, Gollancz, Dec 1995.
A group of expendable foul-ups attempts to survey and survive on a hostile planet.

Twilight of the Empire (omnibus; contains Mistworld, Ghostworld, Hellworld). New York, Penguin/Roc, Aug 1997; as Deathstalker Prelude (with revised version of Hellworld), London, Gollancz/Vista, Nov 1998.

THE DEATHSTALKER SERIES

Deathstalker. London, Gollancz, and New York, Penguin/Roc, Feb 1995.
"I've always liked the idea of the reluctant hero, the guy who doesn't really want to be there, but keeps getting pushed into it by his own sense of right, or duty, or honour. Someone who can't walk away once he's seen what needs to be done."

Deathstalker Rebellion. London, Vista, Apr 1996; New York, Penguin/Roc, Jul 1996.
The rebellion against the Empire gathers momentum.

Deathstalker War. London, Gollancz/Vista, Mar 1997; New York, Penguin/Roc, Jul 1997.
The rebellion escalates into all-out war.

Deathstalker Honour. London, Gollancz/Vista, Jun 1998; as Deathstalker Honor, New York, Penguin/Roc, Nov 1998.
"The American version of the fourth Deathstalker book is ten per cent shorter than the British edition, because the manuscript was eight hundred pages long, and to get it all in they'd need an extra signature, which is an extra block of pages. Which would mean they'd have to stick the cover price up another fifty cents, and they didn't think it would sell enough to justify an extra fifty cents on the price. So they made me go through and cut out ten per cent of the book; not because it needed cutting, but just to reduce the length, which annoyed the hell out of me. But at least it was better than letting them do it. The British edition is complete, though."

Deathstalker Destiny. London, Orion/Millennium, Jul 1999; New York, Penguin/Roc, Sep 1999.
"You wouldn't believe the problems I had over the last one. When the book came out and the readers discovered I'd killed off the main character I was getting everything short of death threats over the internet. They're not used to that sort of thing in America, and a lot of them were quite upset. The thing is, I always knew Owen was going to die in the end, which is why I put the prophecy in the very first book. And then I repeated it in the third one, just to remind people, so it wouldn't come as that much of a shock..."

OTHER NOVELS

Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves (novelisation of screenplay). New York, Berkley, 1991; London, Penguin/Fantail, 1991.
"At the time it was no big deal, so my publisher at Ace got the rights for a song, and said 'Who are we going to get to do this?' glanced down the list and went 'Oh, Simon Green, he's English,' and got on to my agent. 'Is he good?' 'Oh, he's very good.' 'Is he fast?' 'Oh, he's very fast.' 'Is he cheap?' 'Oh yes, he's incredibly cheap.' 'Sounds like the man for us,' they said.
"They sent me the script, and said they wanted a two hundred page novel out of it in two months. I thought it looked fun, and said I'd have a bash at it, but getting it done in two months might be a bit tricky. So they went back to my agent and said we're not paying much up front, but as a sweetner we'll throw in a four per cent royalty. And they were pretty much sniggering up their sleeves because they didn't think it would make any royalties at all.
"I got it in just under the wire, so there was no time to mess about with it like they usually do, it went straight to the printers. By which time Dances With Wolves has been an enormous success, and everyone wants to see the new Kevin Costner project. So the novelisation sold a third of a million copies, and made number fourteen on the New York Times bestseller list. And of course I'm sitting there with a four per cent royalty, feeling very, very happy.
"They only filmed about half the screenplay, because if they'd shot it all it would have lasted about four hours. So what you've got in the book is the entire story, and a plot whch actually makes sense. And there was very little humour in the script, so I thought I'd better spice it up a bit and added a lot of my own material, so there are more jokes in the book as well. I still think it's a good book in its own right, so we're trying to get the rights back and republish it simply as a Simon R Green novel.
"If you've seen the film there are a lot of historical howlers, which I corrected in the book; my favourite being when Robin turns up at the white cliffs of Dover with his Arab chum, and says 'Tonight we dine with my father in Nottingham.' Another good one is when they're walking through the forest in Sherwood, look up, and see Hadrian's Wall. I thought 'What are they smoking in this wood?' But the real classic is that one of the writers of the screenplay, Pen Densham, is English, so in order to make the Merry Men a little bit more authentically English he had them say "bollocks" all the time. I looked at this in the script, and thought 'Americans don't know what this means,' so I left all the bollocks in, and when I got the first copy of the American edition of the book all the bollocks had mysteriously become bullocks, because they'd run it through the spell checker. It's still bollocks in the British edition, though."

Shadows Fall. London, Gollancz, Mar 1994; New York, Penguin/Roc, Jun 1994.
"The only other contemporary fantasy I've done is Shadows Fall, which is coming back into print some time next year. I think it's the best thing I ever did, but it was just too weird for most people, unfortunately. The idea was that Shadows Fall is a little town in the back of beyond where legends go to die when people stop believing in them. And of course the world has believed in some pretty strange things down the years. I had a lot of fun with that. But the new one is more of a comedy, and a bit of a romance." #