We gave Ian our own set of questions, from the fun to the serious... Read on to find out a little more about the personal side of a talented writer! (Use the arrow immediately to the right to scroll down.) Aio Publishing - books to stir the soul

What do you drink while you write?

"I drink too much when I write, but what I drink is tea. I've never been able to work with anything stronger in my system. Drinking plenty of tea does mean you also get to take lots of short breaks."

What music did you listen to when you wrote The Summer Isles?

"I had a compilation of '40s hits which I often played in the background. Not that they would have been hits in my version of England, but it helped set the tone. Otherwise, it was pieces such as Elgar's Introduction and Allegro, which is intensely English."

What's your favorite bookstore in the region where you live?

"I like the smaller shops, those which survive, where things are crammed closer together, and your eye doesn't have to wander so far from the sections you normally look at to find something surprising. I also like charity shops - the more disorganised the better; you never know what you're going to find. The big bookshops, such as the ones you now get in the centre of Birmingham, aren't as characterful as they used to be. The shop I remember most fondly was the old Hudsons bookshop on New Street, which went underground in a series of tunnel-like sections. It was there, as a teenager, that I spent many hours, and made some memorable purchases. Andromeda, the famous specialist SF bookshop, also deserves a mention. Especially when it used to be between a wine bar and a porn shop. Those, indeed, were the days!"

What writers do you read for pleasure?

"Modern fiction writers I look out for would include John Updike and Ian McEwan, but to be honest it's rare for me to read a great deal of one author. I'm always looking for new angles and ideas. When I do want to remind myself what the point of reading, and, indeed, writing, is, I tend to go back to Thomas Hardy. As a novelist, reading fiction tends to be a very interactive process— necessary and challenging, but often quite hard work—so non-fiction can be more relaxing. I'm always on the look out for good, interesting new books, especially if they're about science, travel or history. A recent discovery which I got a lot out of and enjoyed enormously was Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. Brilliantly researched: it's a Middlemarch for the Bronx."

What are your favorite books?

"Outside the genre, I'd say Jude the Obscure. Sons and Lovers. Remembrances of Things Past. The Great Gatsby. The Rabbit books. Something Happened. Inside, I'd mention The Lord of the Rings, Dune, The Left Hand of Darkness, Pavane, a fair amount of Ballard's work, and the mid-period Silverberg short story collections, such as Born with the Dead."

Do you have a favorite character, or a few favorite characters, of all your books?

"Marnie from the short story of the same name comes to mind. So does Father John from The Great Wheel. I had to live with Annalise from The Light Ages for quite a few years. I never really understood her, but I never tired of her either. Then Christlow from The Summer Isles keeps himself with me in a strange sort of way, rather as he does with Brook in the story. As does Reeve-Ellis. Not that ' favourite' would be the word I'd use for either of them. But they're convincing monsters. I rarely base my characters on actual people, but, as someone who used to work in the English Civil Service, both of these creations drew a lot more than is usually the case from reality."

Do you have a favorite setting, of all your books?

"I've done far-off future very rarely, but the planet and the cosmos described in Breathmoss came alive and lived for me very vividly and easily, for all its strangeness. I'd still like to return there as a writer. Otherwise, I'm always interested in playing with Englishness. So what I see outside my window or notice from the car window is generally fair game."

Is there a scene in the novel version of The Summer Isles you thought turned out particularly well or was particularly easy/difficult to write?

"Without giving too much away, the trip to Penrhos Park was great fun to do. Fresh air and fascism do rather go together. Also, towards the end of the book, as things start to get hazy, I was very pleased by how I was able to re-blend the style to reflect Brooke's changing mood. Overall, it was a relatively easy book to write. Oxford came alive, and London didn't need too much hard work; re-drawing the maps was fun."

What inspired you to write The Summer Isles?

"Amazement at what otherwise seemingly decent and nice people are capable of saying and believing in, and thus presumably doing. That, and a continuing desire to show a world which is slightly slantways to this one. Also, having had parents who met in World War Two, the idea of a what if that, if it had occurred, would have resulted in my not existing was interesting. If it wasn't for Adolf Hitler, I wouldn't be here."

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