Max Barry may write stories set in cities that never close down, but he still calls Australia home. Max's oeurve is corporate satire; from the mundanities of office life to the cause and effect of global power. His first novel Syrup took aim at Coca-Cola, telling a tale of a cooler-than-cool black can of Coke and a corporation branching into movie production in the name of advertising. Eight years later, the idea sounds even less far-fetched. But despite predating the 'let's talk about corporate power' epiphany popularised by Naomi Klein's No Logo, and despite predicting a riff on the too-cool-for-school 'fcuk' campaign, Syrup never really went anywhere. It's still not carried by UK offline bookshops.

His second effort Jennifer Government cemented Max's position as corporation commentator, and has gone to much wider critical acclaim. Its central idea of individuals taking the name of their corporate families evokes golden-age science fiction, and indeed the book has been embraced by the speculative fiction crowd. There's even talk of a movie, produced by George Clooney. Early next year, we'll get book 3, Company. Details so far are sketchy (Max ain't telling), but expect something like a cross between Office Space and Logan's Run. Expect it to be pretty funny too. And expect it eventually at a cinema near you, since Paramount are already gunning for an option. Is this guy jammy, or what?

Though he remains proud of his own sunburnt country, Max concedes that American interest has been the making of his career. Just as well too, since Australian advances to new authors are even more paltry than their UK equivalents. Through his website, he's in touch with a growing number of fans worldwide, and with movie deals in the works, his star is on the rise. Will success spoil Max Barry? We hope not, and look forward to his promotion from the ranks of middle-management to chairman of the board. (Ack! - Ed)

Great Writing: Your writing is rather US-centric. Would you have rather been born American?  Are there any aspects of Australian culture that influence your work?

Max Barry: Rather have been--! Come on, now. Look, I understand that for a lot of people, the US is superior to their country of residence in myriad ways, but I'm Australian. We have it all: the weather, the beautiful cities, the brand of football that involves neither padding yourself up like Santa Claus nor standing in a line in front of goal and covering your testicles... I'm very happy about having been born in Australia. It was a close thing, too; my parents are both New Zealanders. That wakes me up in a cold sweat sometimes.

I do mostly use American English; or rather, a kind of mutant hybrid of British and American. I've grown to quite like U-less words -- it felt odd at first, but you have to respect the efficiency. Treating collective groups as singular still trips me up occasionally, but it is appropriate to say "Halliburton abused its government connections to make obscene profits from war" instead of "Halliburton abused THEIR government connections," because I'm always saying we shouldn't treat corporations as people.

I draw the line at the em dash, though. The American standard is no space and two dashes--like this. The British standard is a single dash and two spaces - like so. Each of those have their merits, so I take a bit from each camp -- I do this. I'm also very fond of the double letters for words like "novellist," so I tend to keep them.

Generally, though, I think it's polite to speak the language of the person you're talking to. Now, okay, we're not exactly talking a huge gulf between American and British English, but why say "bonnet" if you want the other person to hear "hood"?

When it's done with being graceful and poetic, language is meant to communicate, after all.

Now, there was a question here. Oh, right, the influence of Aussie culture. Well, Aussies are into satire and humor. There you go.

GW: Having written satires on corporate life and power, are you thought of as a  spokesman for issues of globalisation? If so, Do you feel comfortably qualified to talk about those things?

MB: I feel comfortably qualified to talk about anything, but that's a personal problem and I'm dealing with it. I have done a few little talks here and there, but nobody's invited me to spearhead their WTO riot yet.

GW: Is staying within this subject area a deliberate niche-carving effort? Does the Max Barry brand stand for comedy corporate satire?

MB: That, and your proven guarantee of quality construction. Publishing within that subject area is a decision made with one eye on maintaining a career as a novelist, yes. But I've written novels that don't fit that oeuvre, such as a comedy set in France during the Hundred Years War, and tucked them away. It is scarily easy to trash your career as an author; at my stage it basically takes one book that sells a lot less than your previous one. So I have been resisting the urge to push novels about space ships and paranoid computers onto my publisher for now.

Fortunately I find corporations so intriguing that I have no trouble writing about them. I mean, come on. Corporations! It's like there are these gigantic monsters living among us, and we don't mind that they're monsters because when we look at them they smile and hand us cheeseburgers. That's nuts.

GW: As a full-time writer, you've been out of the 9 to 5 company life for some years. Does that make it harder to write about that kind of lifestyle?

MB: I don't think so; some distance is helpful. I also have plenty of friends who still live that life; I grill them for stories.

GW: In the UK, even three reasonably-successful novels won't pay the bills alone. How do you manage to make a living as a full-time novelist?

MB: First, let me thank you for your praise. It's not often I get called "reasonably successful." To be honest, though; I only have one reasonably successful novel: JENNIFER GOVERNMENT. Nobody seems to have noticed my first one, SYRUP; certainly not in the UK, where, inexplicably, you can only order it online. Hopefully COMPANY will push that number up to two, but since it's not due out for another six months I'll have to wait and see.

The short answer to your question is "America." It's not possible to make a living as a middling novellist in Australia, either, but in the US, that great, golden land that I allegedly wish I'd been born in, King's ransoms are paid to novellists for poorly-written shopping lists, so long as the author is young and hip. This is how I was able to leverage my meagre talent, which has been described on popular web sites as "reasonable," into a book deal.

GW: What process do you go through when writing? Is there a lot of technical work first, or does the story flow freely?

MB: If I plot out a novel too carefully, I end up with the most boring and predictable crap imaginable. I spend so much time trying to force characters along my beautifully constructed plot lines that there's no room left for them to do anything interesting.

So now I just have an idea and run with it. I like to know roughly where my story is going, but nothing is nailed down. If my characters want to go off in a different direction, I let them.

Of course, this means that occasionally I end up needing to rewrite great hunks of it to make the plot threads tie up, but that's the price you pay. JENNIFER GOVERNMENT is 80,000 words long and I cut a grand total of 100,000 from it at various stages. Then I beat that record with COMPANY.

GW: How do you know when a novel is done?

MB: For me the tell-tale sign is when I think about opening up the word processor and want to barf. That's my signal that it could be time to think about putting this baby to bed.

Actually, I lied. That's when I put it aside for a week or two. Then I come back and edit it some more. I have some kind of pathological addiction to editing. When I'm writing a draft, I am able to convince myself that every word is brilliant and sparkling, but afterwards, I see great gaping plot holes and sagging characters, and I want to change everything. Which is a depressing thought at first, but then it's very rewarding, because I'm improving my book.

My book is done when the tiny, wailing part of my brain that is still sane after fourteen drafts manages to grab control and scream, "Let it go! LET IT GO!"

GW: Through your website you have pretty close contact with your readers. Do their comments and feedback influence your writing?

MB: I wouldn't say they influence my writing -- that could expose me to legal liability. But they do make me feel better about being a writer. When you're working, it's easy to forget that there are such things as readers out there -- at that stage it's just you and and a keyboard. I imagine that before e-mail it was even worse: you'd finish a book, mail it off to your publisher, and possibly never hear from anybody who read it, ever. That would be like having one of your kids leave home and you never even get a phone call. It's very nice to know there are people out there who I managed to touch with my fiction. In a non-creepy way.

GW: How should a new writer go about putting their first novel together?

MB: He or she -- I'm going to say he, because I've been doing too many "she" examples lately -- should wait until he has an idea that thrills and terrifies him, then start writing. He shouldn't try to plot it out too much, or worry about what the market is for that kind of book, or whether it's possible to get an agent before he's finished writing it -- those things are distractions. He should just write it.

If he gets four chapters in and stalls, he should think about whether this idea was really that terrific to start with. Maybe it's not, and there's a better idea waiting. Better to abandon a dud now than spend the next 12 months of your life trying to force it. Writing a novel should be joyous. If it's not, make it so.

GW: How did you react when Pepsi brought out a black can product?

MB: They what!!?? Where can I get one?

Max Barry's novels Syrup and Jennifer Government are available from Amazon, the former more or less exclusively so. To Max out on Barry, visit the website and read about the upcoming novel Company and what Max gets up to in the shower. Really.