Genevieve Cogman
Former roleplaying game writer turns fantasy author
How would you sum up The Invisible Library?
It’s a story about an inter- dimensional library, the people who work for it and the exciting times they have acquiring books. It also involves dragons, a Sherlock Holmes, giant robots and other fun stuff !
How did you set about building the world?
It started with a character being sent to get a book and running into various other characters. Then, after I started getting more into the story, I actually started to condense the whole thing into a definite plot rather than just “run around being chased”.
What are the risks and rewards of Library work?
The risk is you quite often get told to purloin a unique book which may have an owner who doesn’t want to hand it over! On the reward side you get to hang out in this inter- dimensional library. Imagine being able to read not only all the books your favourite author wrote in this world, but all the ones they wrote in other worlds as well.
Could the Librarians, theoretically, enter our world to retrieve The Invisible Library?
I suppose it’s one of those things the Librarians would discuss. Is there a world where someone is writing a book that is their own story? But you can’t prove it until someone finds a copy!
Which authors would you like to be compared to?
In my wildest daydreams it would be nice to be mentioned up there with Terry Pratchett, Lois McMaster Bujold, Ursula Le Guin, Charles Stross, Paul Cornell… loads of authors. It would be lovely to have people say I’m that good.