New York Times Bestselling Author Ransom Riggs is best known for his book Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, which inspired the 2016 fantasy movie of the same name. His latest novel, SUNDERWORLD, VOL. I: The Extraordinary Disappointments of Leopold Berry is out now. We caught up with him to find out more.
STARBURST: How would you pitch SUNDERWORLD, VOL. I: The Extraordinary Disappointments of Leopold Berry to a ghost that has just crawled out of your television?
I would tell him it’s Deadpool meets Stranger Things with magic… and kindly don’t eat my soul.
And how would you describe it to a fan of Buffy The Vampire Slayer?
I would tell said fan that it’s about a kid named Leopold who discovers, and becomes obsessed with, an obscure, super-cheesy ’90s fantasy show called Sunderworld that he discovers on unmarked VHS tapes among his dead mother’s things. He starts seeing bits of Sunder – a magical realm hidden under the skin of Los Angeles – intrude into his own world, his everyday Los Angeles, but comes to believe these visions are just a result of his emotional trauma. Years later, at seventeen, the hallucinatory visions return at the worst possible time on the worst possible day – and now he becomes certain they’re real. Sunder is in dire trouble, and he assumes it needs him because the show he loved was a classic ‘chosen one’ story about a kid just like him. When he gets there, though, he goes through the portal, discovers the world in full, and signs up for the chosen one test – it turns out that he’s painfully, embarrassingly wrong. But Leopold’s story, and his association with Sunder, doesn’t end there; it’s only just beginning. It’s just going to be very different than he dreamed it would.
How different has writing Sunderworld from Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children?
Both series started from the point of analogue inspiration: Miss Peregrine from a collection of found vintage photos, and Underworld from an imagined collection of found VHS tapes. They are portal fantasies that use bits of media as mystery fuel, the spark that propels the protagonist toward both self-discovery and the discovery of another world. But the Peculiar books used real found photos – 50 or more in each – which I had to find, which was a whole job in itself, and then write them as seamlessly as possible into each novel. Loads of fun but also a very time-consuming challenge. Not having that creative constraint with Sunderworld freed me to write anything I could imagine, not just anything I could imagine and find a reasonably good vintage photo of (though sometimes the photos I found inspired bits of the story I never would’ve written, so it could be a creatively productive two-way street). So, it was easier in some ways. Set in Los Angeles, the beautiful and gross city I’ve grown to love over the last two decades, Sunderworld uses my favourite bits of old, obscure, nooks-and-crannies LA in much the same way that I used photos of old weirdos from the 19th century in Peculiar Children the strange all-night diners, bubbling tar pits, and fetid canals that lead nowhere all became characters.
Every project is unique; what were the new challenges with this book?
When I wrote Miss Peregrine, I didn’t know I was starting a series or if I’d be able to continue building out the world after that first book ended – so the world of the first novel is contained, really, to the little time-loop island where Miss P and the peculiar children live. I built out the world and its rules progressively over the course of four or five novels in the series. With Sunderworld I knew I was writing a series from the get-go, and I wanted to create the world in all its detailed glory – in my head, anyway – all at once. I spent a long time creating a world bible, complex rules, creatures and character indexes. But every time I sat down to write the book itself, I’d come up with something I liked better, find a reason to change the rules, etc. Finally, I just threw out the world bible and started following my instincts from page to page. I learned that I need to solidify the world as I write it, and to be just one or two steps ahead of Leopold as he discovers it.
It was also, strangely, a challenge to write about a city I know so well. The temptation to include a million details about LA that I find personally fascinating but wouldn’t have been particularly relevant to the story was huge! I had to cut so many in revisions. Still, Leopold’s best friend, Emmett, a teenager, happens to be a self-styled expert on weird LA history. Ahem. I hope that’s not stretching credibility too much.
Why has VHS made such a comeback?
I think everyone is exhausted by the noise and always-onness of the digital world, even young people. Perhaps especially young people. This happened with vinyl ten years ago. Now, I see teenagers wearing cassette walkmans. We all need a break, and media like VHS represent a slower, kinder-to-your-brain way of consuming media.
If you could take a single magical thing from the world of fiction and use it once in the modern day, what would it be and when?
Marty McFly’s DeLorean. I’d use it right before the world tips into unrecoverable chaos, which should be … oh, any day now!
Do genre labels matter?
I think they can be helpful for readers who are looking for a particular type of read and are happy to try out an author they’ve never heard of. But so many great books transcend or blend genre, so I’m not a fan of super strict genre labels. Miss Peregrine was called a horror novel for years, but it had only the slightest veneer of gothic horror. Like a tootsie pop, the inside was a candy gumball.
What one thing makes writing easier for you?
Espresso.
Should a good movie or TV adaptation resemble the source material in any way?
It should resemble it in some way, yes, or what was the point of adapting it? That said, I think adaptions can deviate from the source material in all sorts of ways that can end up making a better film. Film is such a different medium, and not all novels are particularly cinematic in their construction.
What books are you recommending to friends at the moment?
Right now, I’m reading and really enjoying Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay. I also like to be reading one Big Serious Thing, which I’ll pick up and put down over the course of months until I’m done, which at the moment is Les Miserables. It’s incredible, but you need about three months to get through it.
If you could rescue one work of art or media and have it survive until Earth’s sun dies, what would it be?
Birdemic.
What’s next for you?
Sunderworld, Vol II!
Witches or Warlocks?
I’m still dealing with this ghost that crawled out of my TV, guys.
Mechanical Pandas or Cybernetic Racoons?
Pandas are enormous. I’m imagining some malevolent iteration of Beymax from Big Hero 6. Definitely the raccoon: smaller, potentially trappable.
Doctor Who or Doctor No?
Doctor No!
Truth or Beauty?
Oh man, we’re getting serious here. Truth, which I believe always beautiful if you open yourself fully to it. I don’t want to live surrounded by beautiful lies.
SUNDERWORLD, VOL. I: The Extraordinary Disappointments of Leopold Berry is out now from all good bookshops.
