Interviewer-
Hargest Creative (HC)
Interviewee’s-
Aaron J. Hargest (AJH)
Kevin Hargest (KH)
HC - Welcome, Dreams of Malahman is your second book of the World Storm Series, are you pleased to see it in print?
AJH - Very much, I’m excited for people to get further into the World Storm universe and travel the streams of data.
HC - So, Dreams of Malahman continues where your first novel - Tears of Malahman - left off?
AJH - Not exactly, it’s set slightly before Tears of Malahman, following handler Banks Regus, who is referred to in Tears of Malahman as they experience the heralded arrival of the World Storm and the impact that has on their exploration of Stream 8176.
HC - Is it different in Style then?
AJH - Not particularly, I’ve taken to describing it as tapestry of sci-fi, poetry, thriller, fantasy, and mystery…though there are no dragons in space this time. Tears is certainly more chaotic, desperate and disjointed, in part because as a book it was the amalgamation of different pieces of work that I’d written over a ten-year period. Dreams on the other hand at least starts out in a somewhat linear fashion.
HC - Does it follow similar themes?
AJH - There is a weaving of threads between books, as well as the omni-present Data Retrieval Agency, and the on-coming World Storm, the series is based loosely on the traditional narratives of Jacob and Joseph. They appear as Duncan/Diego/Hector and Yazid in Tears of Malahman, they return in this, but the focus is more on a character who is highly influential but oft overlooked.
HC - So, you’ve mentioned that Tears of Malahman is an amalgamation of ten years work, when did you start writing? And why?
AJH - My first unpublished – dying on a floppy disk - text was written somewhere around the turn of the millennium. I would say there were a number of reasons why; in part, because I had a lot of time on my hands. I had been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, which limited my ability to interact with the limited social network I already had. Also, writing stories was one of the few things that I was doing well in the last days of my schooling and so I took that little bit of confidence forward.
Older now, I would say it was a way of keeping myself from focusing on the darker and more difficult parts of my experience. There was a place to focus and in retrospect, it kept me connected to my creativity and you could say that I was a way of me telling myself things indirectly.
HC - So, you started writing as a kind of therapy?
AJH - Perhaps. Past me wouldn’t have been aware of that concept, but it’s always been a moral boost to say that I’ve written novels, even if they’ve gone unpublished. Though its also invited me into a love of language and storytelling.
HC - So, if Dreams of Malahman isn’t therapy, what are you trying to achieve with the book?
AJH - Hopefully, not a cliché. To tell a story that other people will enjoy. Idealistically to capture people’s imagination and leave them wanting to read more. To make sure the committee are happy.
HC - Was It a difficult book to write?
AJH - Well, in many ways it’s the product of the lockdowns; not for the first time, my limited social engagements allowed me the space to focus on the writing. I also once again, delved into earlier work to inspire, confuse and direct the narrative to the end.
HC - Are there characters in your books that have similarities with you or people you know?
AJH - Not directly, but Manrun is like a lot of men, haunted by his relationship with his father and the men he looks to replace him with. I think it better to think of the characters as abstraction, amalgamations and aspects of a thousand different stories. I look to give the central characters layers and contradictions, hoping that the reader will recognise them and root for them or even just get really frustrated by them.
HC - At this point, Hargest Creative would like to ask our resident artist Kevin Hargest a question posted by mutual associate, Tom Markowski. Tom asks:
What do you think about when you paint your book covers?
KH- Thanks Tom, appreciate the question. Looking forward to hearing your music. So in reality the original artwork was painted separately to the books, but Aaron and I felt that they spoke to the nature of the literary works themselves. Nevertheless, to answer your question as best as I can.
Dreams of Malahman’s cover is an interpretation of an original piece called After Tea, it was created directly after finishing another piece of work called Gorilla’s for Tea. That piece, as seen on www.hargest.co.uk, was inspired by the comment –‘Anxiety is like inviting Gorilla’s for Tea’, I connected with the idea of a Silver-Back Gorilla holding a bone China tea cup and sought to paint my version of that. I have an ethic of not wasting paint and so, what remained on the palette was moved on to a blank canvas. Gorilla’s for Tea was a more detailed piece of work than I tend to do and so in some senses After Tea is about the release of the more abstract aspects of my expression.
As you may know Hargest Creative has been moving into Digital art, as well as more traditional platforms and as I was working with After Tea, Aaron and the team thought that it would make a excellent cover for the book. I can see what they mean, it speaks to the shifting perspectives of experience or at least that the connection I make.
Tears of Malahman is slightly different. It's an oil on canvas and at the time I was experimenting with the medium, so there’s definitely something adventurous about the energy, something mysterious and also a number of massive errors that only I as an artist can see, but I made adjustments for those things that didn’t work in the process. This tends to sum up a lot of my art in that season of my being. Once again Aaron felt it shared a resonance with the work, the chaotic, disjointed and expressive, merging into a snapshot of an image.
I hope that answers your question Tom.
HC - Where can people get hold of Tears of Malahman or Dreams of Malahman?
AJH - You can get hold of an E-book, Paperback or Hardcover on Amazon - Dreams of Malahman: Amazon.co.uk: Hargest, Aaron J.: 9798368332802: Books, you can also get exclusive access to electronic signed copies with unique artwork and excerpts from book 3 via NFT here Dreams of Malahman - Collection | OpenSea .
Also I’d be remiss to not add that you can see more of Kevin Hargest’s work at Hargest Store
On behalf of Hargest Creative, thank you both for your time, we look forward to speaking to you again.