Interview: Naomi Kritzer on “Scrap Dragon”
-Tell us a bit about “Scrap Dragon.”
Back in the spring of 2010, there was an online fundraising auction to raise money to defray the expenses of a liver transplant for a woman I know through fandom. My contribution to the auction was the offer of a short story, written about the winning bidder or the person of their choice. I would make them the hero (or the villain) of the story, I’d work in their interests and do my best to fulfill requests about storyline and genre. (So, for instance, if someone had a child who was obsessed with both unicorns and rocket ships, and they wanted a story in which their child was the captain of a rocket ship that discovered the Unicorn Planet, I’d do my best to write them a satisfying story with that premise.)
The auction was won by a college friend of mine, Fillard, who wanted me to write about his fiancee, Heather. (They’ve since gotten married.) He requested a number of themes, including dragons and scrapbooking, while leaving the actual plot and setting basically up to me.
I should note that I felt reasonably confident I could pull this off because I did something like this once before — as an 80th birthday present to my grandmother, I wrote a story in which she was the heroine. That story, “Honest Man,” was published in Realms of Fantasy and turned into a podcast by PodCastle. (The podcast is still available, if people are interested.)
- One of the most interesting aspects of this story is the interplay between the narrator and the child listening to the story. How did you conceive of this narrative choice, and how difficult or easy was it for you to write?
The interplay came out of the dialogue I had with Fillard as I was trying to come up with a framework that satisfied him and that I thought I’d be able to write. I tossed out the idea of making Heather a princess in a fairy tale and he immediately shot down the idea of a princess. I imagined telling a bedtime story to someone really detail-oriented and exacting (like Fillard), and came up with the first two lines. And those two lines hooked ME — I made myself laugh, and I knew instantly that THIS was a story I could write. It’s partly a story about Heather and a dragon, and it’s partly a story about telling a story to someone with very strong opinions.
(The second voice in the story is not Fillard’s voice; it’s much more childlike and less analytical than Fillard is in real life, while also being a little more adult than a typical ten-year-old.)
- As it was an auction prize for someone to be written into a story of yours as either the protagonist or the villain, how did you find writing “Scrap Dragon” under these unusual circumstances? Interesting or a challenge?
I found it interesting AND a challenge. This auction prize was sort of a literary blank check; I wanted the winner to be satisfied with what they got, but there are subgenres I’ve never even read much of, and others I don’t know if I could re-create, so I was relieved that the auction was not won by someone who wanted, say, a comedy of manners starring themselves and Cthulhu.
It took me some time to come up with a framework, but once I came up with the two voices, the whole story basically clicked into place, and “Scrap Dragon” became really easy and fun to write.
- Most authors say their stories are personal. If that’s true for you, in what way was this story personal?
Part the challenge of writing this story was that I was trying to write something intensely personal — for someone else. The personal element for ME was the two voices: I have two daughters, who are currently 11 and 8 years old. Both my girls are intensely curious and opinionated, so the experience of trying to tell a story while someone repeatedly interrupts to demand more detail about a tangential topic is DEFINITELY something I drew on while working on this.
- What are you working on now?
I’m working on a series of short stories (that may turn into a novel) about a teenage girl living on a seastead. Seasteading is a real thing, or at least real-ish — there are people trying to build sort of a do-it-yourself island out in the ocean somewhere so they can found their own country. Many of these people are libertarians of the “all taxation is theft and should be illegal!” variety. The stories are set about 50 years after the establishment of the seastead, and the protagonist, Rebecca, lives there with her father. In the first story, “Liberty’s Daughter,” Rebecca gets asked to find a missing bond-worker (sort of an indentured servant) and it’s sort of a mystery with a dystopic setting. This story will also be appearing in a future issue of F&SF, possibly this spring or summer, which I’m really excited about.
- Anything else you’d like to add?
I did some experimentation with self-publishing last year: I put together two short story collections and made them available for both Kindle and Nook. They’re cheap! If people liked my story, they might check them out. (Most of the stories in them were previously published but there are also a couple of never-before-published stories in both.) “Honest Man,” which is the story I wrote about my grandmother, is in the one called “Comrade Grandmother and Other Stories.”
“Scrap Dragon” appears in the Jan./Feb. 2012 issue of F&SF.
Interview: Douglas A. Anderson on Evangeline Walton
- Tell us a little about Evangeline Walton.
Evangeline Walton was born Evangeline Ensley—the “Walton” came from a family name which she used to form her penname. She was an only child, with a very large and close family on her mother’s side. She was born in 1907 in Indianapolis, and raised there. Her parents divorced when she was in her teens, and after WWII she and her mother moved permanently to Tucson, Arizona, where Evangeline lived until her death in 1996.
- In what ways would you say that Ms. Walton has left her mark on fantasy fiction?
She is perhaps best remembered for her four-volume reworking of the Mabinogion, the Welsh mythological cycle. The first volume was originally published as The Virgin and the Swine (1936), but was retitled Island of the Mighty when it was republished in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in 1970. The subsequent volumes are The Children of Llyr (1971), The Song of Rhiannon (1972) and Prince of Annwn (1974).
Walton also published a fine novel of witchcraft, Witch House, the first original novel published by August Derleth’s Arkham House in 1945. A new expanded edition, including a long prologue originally published only in the 1950 British edition, together with some previously unpublished chapters from another witchcraft novel, will be coming out in 2012 from Centipede Press.
Another of Walton’s books, The Cross and the Sword (1956), is a very fine novel about the about the clash of the Vikings and Christians a thousand years ago. It has had an unfortunate publishing history. The manuscript was considerably chopped and altered by the publisher without her consent. Even the title was changed (her original title was Dark Runs the Road). We hope to see the complete novel published.
- How did “They That Have Wings” come to light, and why was it only now discovered, fifteen years after her passing?
Walton’s papers were left in disorder at her death in 1996, and after being roughly sorted they were stored in California by her family. More recently the large number of boxes have been sent to Walton’s literary heir in Chicago, Debra Hammond, and I’ve worked with Debra in further sorting and reading, based on the pioneering categorization done by Debra’s mother. With some manuscripts the whole process was easy, but with others the difficulties have been great. For instance, in the mid-1940s Evangeline wrote a trilogy of novels about Theseus. In the mid-1950s she wrote entirely new versions of all three books, but then put them on hold after Mary Renault starting publishing her Theseus books. In the 1970s, after the success of the Ballantine editions of her four volumes of the Mabinogion, Walton visited Greece and started reworking the trilogy. So imagine taking three different versions of three related novels, plus various carbon copies, and mixing all of the pages in a metaphorical blender. I think there is something like eighteen or twenty linear feet of papers related to Theseus, so the sorting of these papers has been the most difficult. Walton published a revision of the first volume, The Sword Is Forged, in 1983, and that serves as a basic point of reference. But there remains a lot of work to be done with all the Theseus papers.
- Does this story have any connection with Walton’s own experiences? Did she, for example, know someone who fought in the Greek Theater of WWII?
No connections or personal experiences that I know of, but Evangeline was widely read and had a close circle of friends with whom she discussed the events of the day as well as her own writings, so there possibly could have been some related thread or inspiration. More likely, though, was her wide reading in mythological studies, and thus the idea of putting modern clothes on an old mythological legend.
- Would you say that “They That Have Wings” is typical of Ms. Walton’s writing in subject matter, style, etc., or is it an unusual example of her work?
What makes it very typical is that it takes a mythological (or fantastical) concept and puts living flesh to the idea, making it especially real. In the most general sense that is what many of her stories do, and do so well. With regard to details of this particular story, it may seem uncharacteristic because Walton is best-known for using Celtic materials, but the Greek stories were very important to her too, and she did work on her Theseus books for something like five decades.
- As Ms. Walton’s literary agent and in going through her papers, is there anything else you would like to add?
It’s been a fascinating endeavor, because going into it you have no idea what might be there. Walton did not write for a living, and did not have a pressure to publish what she wrote. So among the surprises have been a complete Gothic novel that she wrote in the 1960s, and a fine children’s fantasy novel that she wrote in the early 1940s called The Forest That Would Not Be Cut Down. There are two related mystery novels (and two more novels that I haven’t read yet). A verse-play titled Swan-Wife (about the Norse King Harald’s passion for a witch), some of Walton’s own translations of Wagner (Parsifal and Siegfried), and various shorter works. I’ve put together a collection of her ten completed fantasy stories. This includes her brilliant Breton tales that first saw publication in some anthologies in the early 1980s (though they were written many years earlier), as well as her sole story in the legendary Weird Tales magazine from 1950, and the newly-published “They That Have Wings”, along with a few other unpublished tales. We’re also working doing the full version of The Cross and the Sword, and considering what is the best way to share the Theseus novels. We’ve just begun a website (evangelinewalton.com) where we’ll post news as things become settled. It’s all very exciting.
Ms. Walton’s posthumous short story, “They That Have Wings,” appears in the November/December 2011 issue of F&SF.
Interview: Carolyn Ives Gilman on “The Ice Owl”
Tell us a bit about the story.
“The Ice Owl” is about a smart, slightly alienated teenager named Thorn who has grown up traveling from planet to planet along with her charming but irresponsible mother, Maya. They are members of a class of people called Wasters, who have given up the sequential, rooted existence on planets for a roaming lifestyle that takes them all over human-inhabited space. In this story, they are living in the iron city of Glory to God, where a fundamentalist revolt is brewing. When extremists burn Thorn’s school, she is forced to find a tutor. But the tutor she chooses, Magister Pregaldin, turns out to be hiding a secret that Thorn has to become a detective to find out. The answer is more than she bargained for.
What was the inspiration for “The Ice Owl,” or what prompted you to write it?
Truly, this was an accidental story. I set out to write the story of what happens to Thorn and Maya on the next planet they land on, but I felt I needed a flashback to explain the situation they just escaped from. Then the flashback took over and became the story.
As Gordon noted in his introduction, “The Ice Owl” is set in the same universe as my novella “Arkfall,” but it’s also the same universe as a number of other stories I’ve written. My novel Halfway Human is set in this universe, and the ice owl comes from the planet where “The Honeycrafters” takes place. I’ve started calling this universe the Twenty Planets; I sure hope I don’t use them all up. I never planned to write linked stories; I just keep coming back to this universe because the rules are congenial. They have light-speed transport and (by the time this story takes place) primitive instantaneous communication. This creates some interesting situations I like to play with. For example, in this story I wanted to explore what it would be like to grow up as an interplanetary vagabond—a childhood similar to what military kids have today, but with the time delays of space travel built in.
Another ingredient of the story came from my work in a museum. The professional literature is just now full of stories about the repatriation of art looted by the Nazis, which a lot of museums have inadvertently ended up owning. The situation has created legal problems that will long outlive the survivors of World War II. It has always seemed to me there was a story there.
What kind of research, if any, did you do for this novella?
I am virtually always doing research, though I don’t think of it that way—I think of it as keeping up with the world. I’m an avid reader of science magazines and scientific news. I never know what sort of tidbit is going to come in handy, so I just shovel it all in, and something is sure to come out. In this case, I admit I had to spend a day doing some directed research on chemistry to get one part of the story right enough to be convincing.
The setting of “The Ice Owl” is very vividly imagined and described, to the point that it’s almost a character itself. Could you speak further about Glory to God: its genesis, etc.?
As in “Arkfall,” I started with a type of planet found in our own solar system, in this case a tidally locked planet like Mercury, where one face is permanently turned toward the sun, making half the planet too hot to inhabit and the other half too cold. Life would only be feasible in the narrow strip between permanent day and permanent night. Such a planet is unlikely to have an atmosphere, so my city had to be domed. The inhabitants would have plenty of solar and geothermal energy, so they could get their oxygen from the iron oxides that are plentiful on this planet, and use the iron for building. Living in an iron city on an airless planet seemed a rather grim and desperate existence to me, so I gave them a grim and desperate culture. Fundamentalist religion, authoritarian power structures, and extremism are all reactions to the sheer difficulty of surviving in a place like this.
In editing the story, Gordon suggested I put in more nonhuman life forms, which was an interesting challenge. I wanted to put in cicadas because they would have given the story a rather maddening sound track; but they couldn’t survive without foliage to eat, so I have to give them up. But there are two life forms that are going to go everywhere human beings go—rats and cockroaches. We’re vectors for their spread. So they are the dominant nonhuman residents of Glory to God.
Most authors say their stories are personal. If that’s true for you, in what way is “The Ice Owl” personal?
The main personal element in this story is one just about anyone has experienced—the moment when you realize that your parents are not really adult. Or rather, that being adult doesn’t make a person any wiser, more powerful, or more competent at life. I remember how disillusioned I felt when I found that my parents were just muddling along, and didn’t really know any more about coping with the world than I did—in some ways, less. It takes a long time to forgive them for that.
This is also a story about the moment when you first realize that life is a series of deliberate choices for which you are going to be responsible. When we’re children, all the important choices are made for us by adults; we might not like them, but the onus of deciding is out of our hands. But that phase of life ends. I am frustrated by how many stories indulge in the wish-fulfillment fantasy of a life that is guided by outside forces. Think of all the stories where the protagonist is fated to become king, or to save the world, or is thrust into a situation where there is only one right course of action. It’s all about the author’s longing for a return to an infantile existence. But life is not like that. We aren’t just acted upon by events; we have to create our own futures through our own decisions, for better or worse. What’s more, we create other people’s futures. This is the main lesson Thorn learns from Magister Pregaldin.
What are you working on now?
I have just finished final revisions on my next fantasy novel, Ison of the Isles, the sequel to Isles of the Forsaken, which came out in August. It’s a very intense book. And for all the people who were frustrated when the first book ended with “to be continued,” the second book does wrap up the story! It comes out in spring of 2012.
“The Ice Owl” appears in the November/December 2011 issue.
Interview: Daniel Marcus on “Bright Moment”
- Tell us a bit about the story.
Arun is a scientist working on project to terraform a Jovian moon in a distant solar system. While on R and R, surfing the moon’s ammonia ocean, he catches a brief glimpse of a large, squid-like life form. After he determines that the ocean-dwellers are sentient, he must choose between continuing the terraforming project, which will wipe them out, or tying to stop it.
- What was the inspiration for “Bright Moment,” or what prompted you to write it?
I had an image of someone surfing kilometer-high waves on the ammonia ocean of a Jovian moon, the giant ringed primary filling half the sky. That’s all I had — this very striking visual. So I wrote the scene and started asking questions. Who is this guy? What is he doing there? What happens next? Once I started pulling on the terraforming and first contact threads, the rest of the story pretty much wrote itself.
- What kind of research, if any, did you do for this story?
Not much. I validated my recollection that some Jovian moons are believed to have subsurface ammonia oceans; putting them on the surface didn’t seem too much of a stretch. The terraforming scheme seems viable, requiring only a few centuries of advancement in plasma physics and nanotechnology!
- Most authors say their stories are personal. If that’s true for you, in what way was this story personal?
I worked for many years as an applied mathematician at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, designing algorithms for very large scale scientific computing applications. Some of this work was ethically challenging and I have since been very interested in the interplay between the practice of science and the moral compass of its practitioners. How does one reconcile work that is supported and sanctioned at a societal level with one’s own beliefs when these do not align? I’m not interested in preaching a particular position, but in exploring the spiritual condition of individuals at such crossroads and how they bend under duress.
- What are you working on now?
My second novel, a contemporary fantasy called “A Crack in Everything,” was just released and I am working on promotional stuff in support of the launch. I am nearly finished with a horror-sf mashup called “Eater,” about an entity so old it spans Big Bang iterations stumbling on Earth and finding it delicious. It takes place in a small town in Northern California and shamelessly riffs on elements from Finney’s “The Body Snatchers,” King’s “Salem’s Lot,” and a variety of other sources that a lifetime of genre consumption has burned into my DNA. When “Eater” is finished, I will begin work on a far future space opera that has been accumulating notes and fragments for awhile. I am also continuing to work on my short fiction.
- Anything else you’d like to add?
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about my work. I hope your readers like “Bright Moment” and I encourage them to check out the other great stories in this issue.
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www.cherrylogroad.com - Daniel’s blog.
“Bright Moment” appears in the September/October 2011 issue.
Interview: Chris DeVito on “Anise”
Tell us a bit about the story.
If I had to categorize “Anise,” I’d label it “inner-space opera” — the internal blood and thunder of the mind (with some thud and blunder for comic relief). But the story could also, in a certain conceptual sense, be considered a zombie story. Or at another extreme, it’s basically a mainstream story set in the future. From another angle it’s a kind of domestic cyberpunk. Basically, though, it’s primarily about the final dissolution of a marriage.
The story’s history has some intrinsic interest of its own. I wrote “Anise” almost 20 years ago, around 1992. No one would touch it. It got rejected all over the place until Scott Edelman bought it for Science Fiction Age, but then his publisher refused to print it (see Scott’s blog for an account of this at http://www.scottedelman.com/2011/09/16/read-the-story-that-almost-made-me-quit-science-fiction-age/). The manuscript, along with my other unpublished fiction, eventually went into a box for 15 years or so while I moved on to other things. Earlier this year — for reasons I still don’t fully understand — I excavated the story, dusted it off, and sent it to Gordon Van Gelder. To my absolute, disbelieving astonishment, he accepted “Anise” for F&SF. Life is sometimes strange beyond telling.
What was the inspiration for “Anise,” or what prompted you to write it?
To be honest, I don’t remember — it was a long time ago! But I’ll say this, F&SF has some perceptive readers. On the F&SF forum, Miles McNerney recently pointed out that “Anise” is a kind of reworking of Robert Silverberg’s “Born with the Dead,” originally published in F&SF (April 1974). That made me go “Huh — I’d forgotten that!” I went into the basement and dug out the issue — which I had bought, at age 13, back when it was published, and still own after all these years — and reread “Born with the Dead.” McNerney was right; I even took my main character’s name (and the story’s title) from a description of one of the characters in “Born with the Dead.” But I’ll add that there’s also a few notes of Cordwainer Smith in there (as you might guess from the opening quote); and maybe even, I’d like to flatter myself, a smidgen of Roger Zelazny (specifically, “24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai”). I don’t mean to drop names in an attempt to puff up my stature — I know that my writing doesn’t approach what those writers have created — but these three writers are among my primary inspirations, and those three stories specifically influenced “Anise.”
In the end, though, I’d like to think that “Anise” is unique and stands on its own.
What kind of research did you do for this story?
None, best as I can recall, which is very unusual for me — I’m a research junky. This is one of the few stories I’ve written without so much as a single trip to the library.
Most authors say their stories are personal. If that’s true for you, in what way was “Anise” personal?
Writing an account of the end of a relationship is too personal on too many levels to know where to begin, especially as a man who struggled to tell the story from the woman’s viewpoint. I do recall that a lot of the details in “Anise” were things that I either observed or were told to me by women I knew.
Over the last two decades, though, “Anise” has become something else, as well, something intensely personal to me; it was, I felt, the best thing I’d ever written, and it was pretty much dismissed as unpublishable. You can imagine how that might weigh on a writer’s mind. I’m grateful that Gordon Van Gelder didn’t agree with that assessment.
I’m still not sure exactly how I got back in the game. After abandoning fiction I spent nearly a decade on an extremely difficult writing project, The John Coltrane Reference, which involved thousands of hours of research. A follow-up book, Coltrane on Coltrane, took another year or so and was published in 2010. After that I sort of felt an itch. I began reading fiction again — I’d read virtually no fiction of any kind for more than a decade — and at some point, for reasons I don’t recall, dug out my old collection of Roger Zelazny books. Around the same time I discovered a comprehensive Zelazny blog (http://where-there-had-been-darkness.blogspot.com/p/joshs-roger-zelazny-commentaries.html) and the beautiful and essential six-volume Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny. After a few months of Zelazny immersion I descended into the basement and dug out my old manuscripts. “Anise” was still there, and still, I felt, sufficient.
What would you want a reader to take away from this story?
Intense emotion (preferably positive!).
What are you working on now?
A few things that might or might not go anywhere. I’m still working on Metal Machine Music, my attempt at the great American anti-novel — or, as I like to call it, an avant-garde pornographic pulp-gumshoe space-opera/time-travel sf-comedy anti-novel. (I think I’ll be lucky if I only have to wait another 20 years to get that one published.) A slightly less fractured novel called Strategies Against Frank Coffer’s Often Promulgated Wine Coolers & Fish Tins Inc. Plus a variety of shorter pieces, if they come off.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Kate Wilhelm taught me how to write. They say you can’t teach someone how to write, but I know that’s bull because Kate Wilhelm taught me how to write. I went to Clarion a million years ago and mostly it was what you’d expect, except for this one afternoon when Kate Wilhelm took one of my stories — and it was a dreadful story, complete drivel, something she shouldn’t have wasted a second of her life on — she took that pathetic story and went through it line by line, word by word, and showed me every writing sin I’d committed, every wasted word and silly image, all the clunky and meandering and meaningless detours around what I’d wanted to say, every wrong word and cringe-worthy pretension and embarrassing amateurish offense to the language. It was like a vast array of bright lights being switched on in my mind, one after another; it was dazzling. Kate Wilhelm taught me how to write.
“Anise” appears in the September/October 2011 issue.
Interview: Karl Bunker on “Overtaken”
- Tell us a bit about the story.
A “sleeper ship” carrying a human crew in suspended animation on a centuries-long journey between stars, is overtaken by a much faster and newer ship from Earth. The newer ship’s occupant is a post-human — a non-biological intelligence descended from human beings. The “old school” artificial intelligence that controls the sleeper ship and the post-human intelligence on the newer ship proceed to have a little discussion, with interesting consequences.
- What was the inspiration for this story, or what prompted you to write it?
The basic idea for this story came to me years ago, and I don’t remember the circumstances under which that original germ popped into my head. I know I made a note of it in my “ideas notebook” (actually a notepad app on my phone) that read something like “A post-human NAFAL ship overtakes a sleeper ship carrying old-style humans, and communicates with the sleeper ship’s AI. A lot has changed on Earth since the sleeper ship left…” I carried that note around with me for a long time; it was when I had the idea of the old AI telling a story about a heroic act by one of its human crew that the piece finally came together in my mind. But the hook of the story for me was the idea of these two not-quite-human entities discussing the nature of humanity.
Usually I find writing a story a slow and painful process, with me “giving up” on an idea or putting it on a back burner several times over before I finally drag it kicking and screaming out of my printer. This story was remarkably easy; a few days of writing and some minimal revision and it was done.
- Most authors say their stories are personal. If that’s true for you, in what way was “Overtaken” personal?
I suppose the question of what it means to be human is a recurring theme with me. Of course, depending on how you use your terms, most serious fiction can be said to be about “what it means to be human.” But SF writers have the good fortune to be able to approach that question from some unique angles. The theme of the singularity — a coming time when advances in technology will give us the option to fundamentally change what human beings are — is one such angle.
- What kind of research, if any, did you do for this story?
It’s not a science-heavy story, so not much research was required for any specifics. More generally, like any SF writer working today, I had to be familiar with current speculations about what sorts of changes the singularity might bring about. The singularity is the ten-ton elephant in the living room of current science fiction. If you’re writing a story that takes place more than a few decades in the future, you have to address the singularity in one way or another; if you don’t, you may as well have your starship captain writing his log entries on a manual typewriter. But at the same time, it’s wickedly difficult to write a post-singularity story; it’s inherent to the definition of the term that the post-singularity world will be different in ways we may not even be able to imagine.
- The introduction to “Overtaken” states that this story and “Bodyguard,” also published in F&SF, are written in the literary tradition of the Golden Age of SF. What is it about that era that inspires you to write in a similar fashion?
Some old science fiction paperbacks from the 1950s were among the first “grown up” reading material I was exposed to as a kid; I pretty much went from Dr. Seuss to Clifford Simak. Ever since then, that sub-genre of SF has resonated with me. I read a lot of contemporary SF and a lot of contemporary non-SF, but when I really want reading to relax with, I still go back to SF of the 50s and 40s. So I suppose it’s inevitable that some of that style would rub off on me.
It’s interesting to note that a couple of years ago a story of mine won the Robert A. Heinlein Centennial Short Story Contest, “for stories reflecting the spirit, ideas, and philosophies of Robert Heinlein.” So taken with Gordon’s F&SF introduction, there seems to be a consensus that my writing harkens back to that old stuff.
- What would you want a reader to take away from this story?
Ideally of course, I’d like readers to come away from the piece with a few questions, rather than a feeling that everything is settled and pat. The Aotea (the old ship) was making a point about human nature with the story it told; exactly what was that point, and how valid is it? What reaction was the Aotea looking for from the post-human? Was the Aotea correct and justified in the judgment it made or the action it took?
- What are you working on now?
More short stories. I haven’t written any novels or even started any, and I’m not sure when or if I will. For the time being at least, my writing mind seems to be fixed on the short story form.
“Overtaken” appears in the September/October 2011 issue.
Interview: KJ Kabza on “The Ramshead Algorithm”
Tell us a bit about the story.
There’s a portal to the place between worlds, and Ramshead Jones has found it. In fact, he found it over 9 years ago in the hedge maze in his own backyard, and ever since then has been crossing over and constructing a secret, parallel life for himself that he’s terrified of revealing to his wealthy but dysfunctional family. But worlds are about to collide (in more senses than one) when his father decides to rip out the hedge maze and thereby destroy the portal. Ramshead must construct an elaborate spell to save it, and gathering the exotic ingredients is the least of his troubles. He must also navigate the emotional landmines of his family to enlist them in his quest, and tread carefully between telling them a truth they might never fully understand and revealing a truth about himself that he cannot live without.
Or if you want the high-concept, elevator-pitch version: “It’s about the risks of being who you really are with those you really love.”
What is the inspiration for this story, or what prompted you to write it?
For a while in college I worked in Lanlivery, Cornwall. (Exactly why is a different story.) When I wasn’t working, I’d take long walks on the suicidally narrow, twisting roads that ran between the grazing pastures, which comprise nearly all of the available land in that area. The pastures in that country are so old, and have been there for so very long, that the vine-covered walls marking the boundaries have risen to over 6 feet high in most places. And I swear that the sky there is abnormally close to the earth. The rambling environment felt so self-contained and mysterious and alive, when I went out walking, I liked to pretend that I was walking a giant labyrinth that existed between the worlds. I almost never harvest my (many…) imaginary adventures for writing material, and in fact, The Maze was the first fragment from my personal paracosm that I’ve ever used in a story.
“The Ramshead Algorithm” marks your F&SF debut. How long have you been a writer and what motivates you to write?
I wrote my first (albeit crappy) novel at age 14, and for me, that was Game Over. I’ve never wanted to be anything else since. As for what motivates me, I’d say it’s a completely non-rational, faith-based, grandiose, demented conviction that it’s my Cosmic Destiny, or something. This sounds pretty crazy, so maybe I should say instead, “Creating things that are meaningful and moving makes me feel best.”
What kind of research, if any, did you do for this story?
Are you kidding? I did a ton of research. I researched endangered animals indigenous to California, countless online foreign dictionaries cross-checked with each other, the California State Highway system, luxury cars, the history of home furnishing design movements, and high-end clothing designers. The hardest part was researching Chinook Wawa, a language that Ramshead decides to use in his spell. I originally wanted to use Samala, a Native language spoken by a people near the area, and even went so far as to politely contact an Elders’ Council for their permission, who politely told me that I was not allowed. I wound up asking a Native friend of mine for advice, who explained to me that a lot of Native peoples regard language as something more sacred than just a communication tool to use and abuse, and that perhaps I should compromise and use Chinook Wawa, a pidgin language, which would avoid the problem of culturally stepping on anyone’s toes. (I owe a big THANK YOU to Eagledancer for this.) So remember, kids: talking with people who aren’t like you is not only good for your growth as a person, but good for your growth as an artist.
“The Ramshead Algorithm” is somewhat of a roller-coaster of a story, pace-wise. Would you say that’s typical of your fiction, or is this story a departure from your norm?
My writing is tight, but admittedly, I may’ve gone a little overboard here. The first draft of “The Ramshead Algorithm” was about 18,500 words, but with my writer friend Monica Friedman’s help, I overzealously hacked it down to its current length (about 13,500) to (1) make it short enough to enter in the Writers of the Future Contest, and (2) make it less intimidating to buy. Longer short fiction can be a tough sell.
What are you working on now?
A rewrite that Gordon Van Gelder asked me to do on a story I sent him after “The Ramshead Algorithm”, so hopefully, you’ll be hearing from me again real soon. I’ve also got a small stockpile of short fiction to sell, and I’m also drafting a post-post-apocalyptic science fiction novel with giant fighting robots. Plus I have a completed, gritty YA werewolf horror novel just sitting on my hard drive and twiddling its thumbs. So if you happen to know anyone looking for that sort of thing right now…
Anything else you’d like to add?
(1) It’s pronounced “RAM’S head”.
(2) The Voynich Manuscript? Totally real. Google that shit; it’s amazing.
(3) If “The Ramshead Algorithm” wasn’t your thing, you can read some of my short fiction online for free, linked at my website (http://www.kjkabza.com). I hope you find something you like!
“The Ramshead Algorithm” appears in the July/August 2011 issue.
Interview: Peter David on “Bronsky’s Dates with Death”
- Tell us a bit about the story.
The protagonist is an elderly gentleman named Bronsky (probably Jewish, although he didn’t say for sure) who is not only utterly prepared for death, but he keeps talking about how prepared he is for it. He so cavalier about it, in fact, that it tends to drive his loved ones nuts. As it turns out, his candor is also driving Death nuts, and Death has to convince Bronsky to knock it the hell off because otherwise Bad Things Will Happen. And Bronsky, who naturally doesn’t want Bad Things to Happen, endeavors to knock it the hell off…and fails spectacularly. It’s about fatherly love, acceptance of what you can and cannot change, and why famous people always seem to die in threes.
- What is the genesis of this story – it’s inspiration, or what prompted you to write it?
It actually had its roots in a conversation I had with Harlan Ellison. I called Harlan one day and said, “How are you doing?” He said, “I’m dying.” Naturally I reacted with great alarm and concern. Was he having a heart attack? Kidney failure? What was wrong? Well, it turned out that nothing in particular was wrong. Yes, he was enduring a variety of ailments that aging inflicts on one, but there was no one thing in particular that was sending him off into the void. Nevertheless he kept saying he was dying. And he sounded quite accepting of it. And I said, “You know, I wish you wouldn’t sound so casual and comfortable about your dying.” His response was, “Yeah, everybody tells me that.” Then later on, I called up my father just to chat and HE started talking about dying. And that just triggered something in my mind.
- Most authors say their stories are personal. If that’s true for you, in what way is “Bronsky’s Dates with Death” personal?
Bronsky is really a combination of Harlan, my Dad, and me. I took little pieces of all of us and mashed them all together and came up with Bronsky and his personal life and his family. Of most particular resonance to me is Bronsky’s relationship with his daughter, up to and including his recollection of lying on his bed when his daughter was an infant, and how both of them were dozing and she nearly slid off his chest. He recounts how he immediately snapped awake and caught her. That was me and my youngest daughter (now eight.) Bronsky’s daughter has traits of all my daughters in her. So she’s probably what makes the story so personal to me.
- It’s both a funny story and a touching story. Which aspect of it came to you first: the humorous or the emotional?
I suppose the tone is set by the narrative style which, appropriately, I cribbed slightly from “Repent, Harlequin.” The tone is tongue in cheek, but the emotional aspects of it are so tied up in it that I really feel it’s organic to the story. The humor sets up the emotion, but human interaction is frequently funny, so it flows right back out of it.
- What are you working on now?
I’m working on a novel about two damned souls falling in love. It’s called “Hope in Hell.” It’s a tale of damnation, redemption, and Harry Truman. I’m about 30,000 words into it and it’s coming along nicely. Don’t have a publisher yet; in fact, I may wind up not using one.
- Anything else you’d like to add?
Well, I’d like to explain my previous comment about not using a publisher. My current endeavor is being part of an authorial collective called “Crazy8press.com,” in which five other novelists and I are putting out our own novels via Amazon and Barnesandnoble.com e as both eBooks and trade paperbacks. We’ve just come out with our first offering, “The Camelot Papers,” written by yours truly. It’s a revisionist history of Arthur and Company, told first person through the eyes of a young female slave and written like a political potboiler. It’s really a liberating feeling, to be able to write whatever I want and know that I’ll be able to get the books to the readers no matter what. I highly recommend people check it out.
“Bronsky’s Dates with Death” appears in the July/August 2011 issue.
Interview: Don Webb on “Fine Green Dust”
- Tell us a bit about the story.
It blends two ideas. On one hand it is the encounter with the young woman by the middle aged man that teaches him he is middle aged and not lover material. This is Updike territory — Run, Rabbit Run, and on the other hand it is a story of ecological disaster. In Science Fiction we can deal with the theme of a human seeing/desiring an entire world that he does not have access to; it happened to the lame boy of Hamlin, who could not follow the ratcatcher. It happens to some Bradbury heroes who can’t afford passage to Mars. Despite my best efforts some Lovecraft mythology crept in — “Bokrug” is the name of the reptilian god worshipped at Ib. So my story can be read as the mail-order version of “The Doom that Came to Sarnath” — if the term “mail order” applies to stuff bought off of the Web . . .
Maybe in some way these are the same idea — male middle age angst and sense of exclusion from a fantastic realm — the first horizontal and the second vertical — examples of all fiction being part of John Campbell’s Speculative Fiction matrix.
- What was the inspiration for this story, or what prompted you to write it?
I like stories of metamorphosis. My first book, Uncle Ovid’s Exercise Book was about stories of radical change of form. I am watching central Texas burn this summer in the worse drought in recorded history — foxes and deer are nowhere to be seen. Our beautiful bluebonnets didn’t show up, and geckos do abound. I threw a dream of hope, although a rather sad dream, at a disaster that is unfolding before my eyes.
- Most authors say their stories are personal. If that’s true for you, in what way is “Fine Green Dust” personal?
One of my mentors Zulfikar Ghose says that all narratives are autobiographical especially those that seem to be otherwise. The story takes place in a thinly fictionalized version of my neighborhood. I even mention a fellow teacher at my school Lance Kaminsky by name. Lance is getting married in July, Congratulations Lance! I should have worked in more owls; my wife and I do owl conservation. The obsessive movie watching is one my dreadful habits. I use that theme quiet a bit - it shows up in a story “Edgar Allen Poe’s King In Yellow” about a non-existent Corman film that I am hoping Joe Pulver will buy for his King In Yellow collection. On a deep level I would like to change into whatever comes along after humans. The twin threads of Life and Mind that make us always want change. Mind desires to dream new dreams, Life desires in new forms. It is only Death in us that wants stasis, my stories are about exalting creativity and change over stasis and the familar.
- What research did you do for “Fine Green Dust?”
I am an WWW addict of the worst sort. I researched giant lizard movies and the chemicals used to make sunscreens, and the chemical effect and biological effects of salvia divinorum. I have the much-research approach of a great Austin writer Howard Waldrop. As my fellow Turkey Cicitznes point out, sometimes I put too much research into my work. My latest story that Dr. Pickover and I penned required research into isotypes of americum, Faust plays (both Marlowe and Goethe), Andy Warhol, and quantum gravity theory. I am (sadly) not unlike Stephen Keeler, who liked to take three of four weird things and make a story from them, as opposed to Stephen King who writes his rough draft first then researches. I once wrote a story with the late (and great) t.winter-damon (no capitals) that my biggest spur to writing it was the fact that frozen radon glows the same color as a dreamsickle.
- Did Neal Barret influence this story or your writing in general for you to dedicate this story to him?
Neal is truly one of the grand old men of science fiction. He has the same sort of career as I have. At times he is a great gonzo writer — he was “New Weird” thirty years too early. China Mieville has good things to say about Neal’s influence. At times Neal is a serious literary writer, look at The Hereafter Gang, and at times he’s taking what work he can get — doing journeyman stuff like writing Longarm Westerns. Neal has too little critical attention, and is too much an Austin writer not to be mentioned. If you are going to write about Austin writers creep into your mind, we are not only the Live Music Capital of the world, but ever since O. Henry a literary — a fairly eccentric literary capitol of the world. Although Neal had the bad taste to be born in Oklahoma, he made it to Texas soon enough. He and his wife Ruth are dear to Guiniviere and me.
- What’s the writing scene like in Austin, TX?
Because of the long time influences of people like Chad Oliver, Howard Waldrop and Bruce Sterling as well as institutions like the Turkey City Writers Workshop and Armadillocon, Austin is one of the best places in the world to write Science Fiction and Fantasy. Many people have put serious work into making Austin a writers’ paradise — all the folks in FACT (Fandom Association of Central Texas), book dealers like Willie Sirios and writer-critics like Lawrence Person( you should chcek out his Futuraman blog ) The FACT people have brought World Horror, World Fantasy, Readercon and other huge events here. Austin also has a huge university. I attended college later in life and I was able to take classes from luminaries like Dr. Don Graham, Zulfikar Ghose, or the great Joyce scholar Dr. Charles Rossman. In my other role, a writer of esoteric matters I had the good fortune to meet Dr. Stephen Edred Flowers through my game master Allen Varney years ago. I’ve written gaming material with Allen and of course Dr. Flowers has brought out four of my books through Runa Raven. Austin keeps making new stars as well such Jessica Reisman or Nickey Drayden — all in a great place to write. The tradition of Sicne Fiction and Fantasy is amazingly strong here.
- What are you working on now?
I just finished a hard science fiction story, “The Wave Function Doesn’t Collapse Like It Used To” with Dr. Clifford Pickover, possibly one of the smartest guys I’ve ever met. I sold stories to a couple of Luis Ortiz’s anthologies, and I have a couple of Lovecraft things in the cue to be published. As usual I have 11 stories of poems at market somewhere or other as well, and I have a “Curiosities” piece in the next F&SF. I am finishing up another esoteric book for Runa Raven Press and after that I will return to a nonfiction book on the occult aspect vampires. I have a novel in progress and may work on a collaborative novel with Dr. Pickover. In the Fall I will be teaching another class in SF writing for UCLA Extension, where I have been an instructor for nine years. So all in all nothing much, just the same old, same old. Oh and two more Wildside Press Doubles are coming soon — The War with the Belatrin (my space opera stories) and A Velvet of Vampyres ( my vampire fiction)
“Fine Green Dust” appears in the May/June 2011 issue of F&SF. Below are links to an article about Don Webb written by Paul DiFilippo, Don Webb’s wikipedia page, and an experimental short film done in collaboration with his wife, Guiniviere.
http://www.uri.edu/artsci/english/clf/n2_r1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Webb_(writer)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaF7sMcwbVE
Interview: Chet Williamson on “The Final Verse”
- Tell us a bit about the story.
“The Final Verse” is about a slightly over-the-hill country/bluegrass singer who becomes involved in a search for the supposedly missing verse of a classic traditional song. What he and his friend find isn’t quite what they’d expected. They get the verse and a little, shall we say, bonus material.
- What is the genesis of this story – its inspiration, or what prompted you to write it?
I’ve been a huge fan of roots music for years (I got into bluegrass through playing guitar back-up for my son when he played in fiddle contests). I have a massive collection of Bill Monroe, The Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, and other roots artists, as well as traditional blues — everything rootsy, really. And I’ve always been fascinated by the research done by John and Alan Lomax and those like them, going back into the mountains to track down the original sources of classic traditional songs. I wrote the story when a small press publisher approached me and asked if I had a reprint story that would work for a chapbook/CD series. I thought it would be fun to create a story that could be heard as well as read, so I wrote “The Final Verse,” and created music to the lyrics as well. Unfortunately, the necessary financing didn’t come through for the project, but I remembered that many of Manly Wade Wellman’s wonderful “John” stories, which use mountain legends as their source, had appeared in F&SF, and I submitted the story to Gordon, who liked it.
- What kind of research did you do for this story?
I had to do very little, really. I know this music so well that to recreate a similar tragic mountain ballad was a real joy.
- Would you say that “The Final Verse” is characteristic of your stories in subject matter and tone, or does it represent a departure from your norm?
The horror element is certainly there, and I think that the story slowly creeps up on the reader, so that the full tale isn’t told until the very end, which is something I always try to do when I write. So it’s not really a departure. I love to read this kind of story, and it seems to be the kind I end up writing.
- What do you like best about “The Final Verse?”
The lyrics of the song, and the double meaning to be found there. I wish readers could hear the music — it’s eerie and minor key. I read the then unpublished story at a Halloween reading, and played guitar and sang the lyrics, and listeners were really creeped out by it.
- What are you working on now?
I’ve been concentrating this past year on getting my out of print backlist into e-book format through Crossroad Press. There are seven e-books now available (including a never before published novel, Defenders of the Faith), both in the Kindle Store and from Crossroad Press, as well as audiobooks that I’ve recorded of my own work. I’ve also narrated novels by Michael Moorcock, Tom Piccirilli, David Niall Wilson, and Zoe Winters. That’s kept me so busy that I haven’t had much time to write new work, but I’m currently plotting a novel. I’ll also be shooting a film this summer that Joe Lansdale’s producing, based on one of his stories. It’s a zombie film called Christmas With the Dead, and I play a crazed preacher who provides a bizarre communion service for zombies. It’s going to be a blast!
- Anything else you’d like to add?
Just that one of these days I’m going to record “The Final Verse,” complete with music, so watch for it. And it’s always a real pleasure to have my stories appear in F&SF. The magazine is an institution, and I first appeared there way back in 1983, and am glad to still be hanging around its pages. I hope readers get a kick out of the new story!
“The Final Verse” appears in the May/June 2011 issue.
