Entrevista: Steve Perry
Y he aquí, queridos lectores, nuestra cuarta entrevista: en esta ocasión, tenemos aquí presente a Steve Perry, un escritor americano de ciencia ficción conocido por sus series de novelas como las de Matador y Conan. No obstante, nos hablará algunos detalles sobre su novela Indiana Jones y el Ejército de Muertos, una novela que escribió para Lucasfilm en 2009 y que cumple su décimo aniversario este 29 de setiembre. He aquí la entrevista, cuál por supuesto, se encuentra en inglés:

1.       Tell us about yourself, Steve. When you was born and which were your inspirations to become a writer?

STEVE REPLIES >>> I was born in Louisiana, 1947. I was always a reader, and a lot of Southerners can tell good stories, so I gravitated that way. My English teacher in the 11th grade was an inspiration — She was gorgeous and I wanted to impress her, but I didn’t have much going for me, so when I wrote a story for a class assignment and she liked it, that’s when I started on the road writing. Didn’t do much with it for twenty years, but eventually did.

2.       From all the books you have written, which you consider to be your best?

STEVE REPLIES >>> I couldn’t say. Books are like children, they each have their own good points. Some books I enjoyed working on more than others, but best? I dunno. Mostly, I think the ones that were originals and not tie-ins were more fun to write, and gave me more satisfaction, since there were no constraints.

3.       How you were hired by Lucasfilm to write Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead? Did you met George Lucas? (I would love to meet him!)

STEVE REPLIES >>> My then-collaborator and I had pitched a Star Wars novel to Bantam Books a few months earlier. They wanted some big changes, and I didn’t feel disposed to make those, so the project was shelved. They liked the basic idea, however, and came back to us on it — Would we reconsider? Since they still wanted the changes I didn’t want to make, I told my collaborator I was out, but that if he wanted to do it, he had my blessing. 

The day after I did that, I got a call from my editor at Bantam. Since I didn’t want to do the Star Wars novel, would I be interested in doing an Indiana Jones novel? I was interested. 

Never met GL, though I did go to the Ranch where they were still running things there. Got to meet a bunch of folks there when we hammered out the story for SOTE.

4.       The most important thing in an Indiana Jones story is the MacGuffin. How came up the decision to create the Heart of Darkness as your novel’s MacGuffin? 

STEVE REPLIES >>> I wanted something magical, and a mysterious African pearl which could have ended up in Haiti, seemed like a keen idea at the time.

5.       Alongside the MacGuffin, what makes Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead different than previous Indy novels is its setting. Whereas previous novels were set in the 1920s or ‘30s, your story is set in the early ‘40s. Did Lucasfilm asked you to set the novel during that year to flesh out what Indy did between the third and fourth films?

STEVE REPLIES >>> My memory is that Bantam had a general time-frame in mind, during WWII, and they wanted to do some backstory featuring Mac; other than that, I pretty much came up with the story, wrote a springboard and an outline. They — Bantam and Lucasfilm — offered notes, I addressed those, and off I went.

6.       When you started working on the project, did Lucasfilm give you any directives about what the novel needed to be about? Any conditions or vetos?

STEVE REPLIES >>> Pretty much the general plot and characters, they left to me. There were some notes about names — some of them I wanted to use were close to real historical figures, so I changed those. Some continuity stuff they knew about and I didn’t, I fixed. The rest of it, I take all the blame. 

In the outline, I had Indy bitching more about being old, and they wanted that dialed back. There was more of a love story, but they wanted less of that, and I had to keep it PG-13, so some of the situations and language were adjusted. Nothing major. 

7.       While writing Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead, are there any ideas, plot points or MacGuffins that you wanted to use but didn’t work out or were vetoed by Lucasfilm? How different turned out the finished novel from your first draft?

STEVE REPLIES >>> Mostly they didn’t object to what was in the the manuscript I turned in, and the final draft was pretty close to the submitted draft.

8.       Something that differs Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead from most Indiana Jones novels is that some opine that the villains steal the show in some occasions. Did you always intended this?

STEVE REPLIES >>> I always find that interesting villains are more fun to do and read about than those who are just bad for the sake of being bad. Since we know about Indy and his motivations, and we learn more about Mac, the villains motivations needed to be worked to make them more intriguing. Villains who don’t think they are villains are more fun than those who know they are.

9.       Did any real people or events inspired characters and plot points from Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead?

STEVE REPLIES >>> Not so much. I did some research on Voodoo, saw some interesting characters, and maybe bits of stuff they had done, I used. (The reason I set it on a made-up island was so I could have a jungle. By the 1940’s, much of Haiti had been logged, and there weren’t that many old-growth trees left.)

10.   This might sound strange, but how you came up with the idea to introduce zombies to the Indiana Jones universe? I mean, dealing with all those supernatural stuff and the voodoo?

STEVE REPLIES >>> I wanted to do both kinds of zombies, magical and chemical, to contrast them, and since Indy had never dealt with the undead, it seemed like a natural.

11.   A thing I pretty liked in your story were the references to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which is, personally, my favorite Indiana Jones movie. Like the one about Fedora and the Grail Knight. How you decided to include them?

STEVE REPLIES >>> Fan service. I saw the movies, the TV series, read some of the books, and I like to put stuff in that fans will notice and appreciate. Not all fans liked the book, they thought it was too slow, too much character material, not enough action, but I wanted it to reflect on Dr. Jones getting older and having to deal with sleeping on the hard ground and all. In 1943, the life-expectancy was less than it is now, and Indy would have been past middle age at 44.

12.   How felt fleshing out George McHale, a character just introduced in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Did he was the only character from the films you were allowed to use?

STEVE REPLIES >>> He was the only one that came up. Since we see what he does in Skull, how he got there from being Indy’s friend was something I wanted to explore, and it makes what happens in Skull more intense, I think, to see the change in Mac.

13.   An interesting detail regarding Penelope is that she was mentioned in The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones reference book, where it’s stated that the KGB wasn’t able to locate her nor learn her last name. Did you ever had any ideas about Penelope’s surname or why she broke up with Mac?

STEVE REPLIES >>> I confess I didn’t go down that road. More backstory than I needed.

14.   How long did it take you to write Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead?

STEVE REPLIES >>> We went back and forth on the outline and notes and stuff, and that took a few weeks, but the actual writing of the manuscript was about four months.

15.   Did you ever have any plot or story ideas for an Indiana Jones story that was never written or published? Did your novel was intended to have follow-ups?

STEVE REPLIES >>> No. I figured it was a one-shot, and given how things worked out, that was fine with me.

16.   Given that Indiana Jones 5 is everyday getting closer and closer, did you would approach Lucasfilm again to write a new Indiana Jones novel? Did you have no problems that the Star Wars Expanded Universe was discarded by Disney from canon?

STEVE REPLIES >>> I’ll love to see how they handle his advanced age, assuming the movie takes place in the Sixties, and that’s how old Dr. Jones will be then, but I don’t have any plans to go back into Indy’s world.  

Didn’t bother me that Disney tossed a bunch of stuff into Legends. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them look at some of that material down the line and decide they can use use it in some spin-off. I’m a still getting small royalties from SOTE after all these years, I have no complaints about that.

17.   Did you have any new projects in mind you would like to talk about with us?

STEVE REPLIES >>> I am working on a collaboration with Daniel Keys Moran, a time-travel story we are calling Kozmic Blues. And slowing working on the last novel in my Matador series, called Churl. Plus odd bits of this and that I can’t talk about, for potential TV or movie work.

Oh, and a map I did for my use, and to show my editor (Shelly Shapiro) where the island was. I don’t think I have ever showed it to anybody:

Mapa que Steve Perry dibujó para mostrarle a Shelly Shapiro donde estaba Zile Muri-yo, la isla que creó para Indiana Jones y el Ejército de Muertos.

Steve, we're very grateful that you allowed us to interview you. You're such a good author and novelist. We can't wait to see what your next projects will be! Good luck!

Y bueno, he aquí la cuarta entrevista que tenemos en El Recoveco del Geek. Entrevistar al Señor Perry fue, como todas las demás entrevistas, una experiencia agradable y marca la cuarta vez que entrevistamos a un artista que trabajo en Indiana Jones. ¡Saca ese látigo y salte con la tuya!