Charlie Stross
#WritersCoffeeClub 02 December:
From all your work, who's your favorite character?
Abbot Jaeger. He's a total no-brakes scoundrel and antagonist—a lecher and sociopath—also a serial clerical grifter, in the mold of Ignaz Trebitsch-Lincoln.
(Who you might get to meet in a couple of years if I stick the landing on the third re-write of the space opera.)
Charlie Stross
#WritersCoffeeClub NB: I had to tone my character *down* from the IRL person he's based on. Because, I mean, COME ON, "declared himself Dalai Lama in 1938 and secured Rudolf Hess's promise of SS support for his invasion of Tibet" is some epic-level batshittery, even BEFORE you learn that Trebitsch-Lincoln was born Jewish in Hungary and had been a British member of parliament in 1911 AND—very briefly—a German fascist minister of propaganda in 1918.
Charlie Stross
#WritersCoffeeClub Ignatz Trebitsch-Lincoln was the early 20th century's equivalent of George Santos, only on a multi-governmental scale with priestly grifting on top. If Hitler hadn't asked the Japanese government to poison him in 1943 he'd have turned up in 1948 as the Mufti of Jerusalem.
Charlie Stross
@crcollins Absolutely! Which is why I don't indulge myself in them very often—I prefer human adversaries whose motivations are earnest and sensible and simply incompatible with those of my protagonists. (I leave absolute evil to non-human critters like Elder Gods.)
C. R. Collins
The evil ones do seem to be fun to write, huh? 😆
EH Lupton
@cstross Always...lovely...to hear about someone with such a varied career path? (Wow!)
Charlie Stross
@pretensesoup Those are some of the high points, but there's more (and crazier). I prefer the RationalWiki thumbnail to Wikipedia: it's less understated.
Charlie Stross
@denebeim Laundry Files reading order here: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2020/10/the-laundry-files-an-updated-c.html
Joy Aliza Denebeim
@cstross oh please do.
Speaking of which, where's the canonical order of the laundry stories. I think I just got the ones I didn't have, but ADD girl has forgotten the order.
Since they all have an overarching narrative, I'd kinda like to listen in order.
Thorne Lawler
@cstross The problem with basing characters on real people is plausibility.
Trebitsch-Lincoln and George Santos are clearly the same person: a bored immortal who gets his kicks by telling ridiculous lies at the highest level he can be bothered obtaining.
Immortality comes with built-in identity concealment: every century or so you get your face blown off and it regrows *just* differently enough.
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