Interview: Al Michaud, on "The Salting and Canning of Benevolence D."
Al Michaud–author of “The Salting and Canning of Benevolence D.,” which appears in our June 2008 issue–said in an interview that the story is the tale of a hapless lobsterman who finds himself the subject of a horribly objective haunting. "His haunter isn’t just any old ghost, either — she’s the most fabled phantom of local legend, a centuries-old decapitated young lady known in folkloric circles as ‘the Silent Woman,’" Michaud said. "For reasons that elude him, Clem discovers that he and the headless gal have virtually tied the knot, so with the help of his best man — a clam-digging buddy of his from way back — he begins the quest to annul this blissless wedlock and permanently uncouple himself from his otherworldly significant other. Along the way he makes new friends and incurs new enemies, some with agendas misaligned with his own."
Interview: Ted Kosmatka, on "The Art of Alchemy"
Ted Kosmatka–author of "The Art of Alchemy," which appears in our June 2008 issue–said in an interview that it’s a story about corporations that have become so huge that they’re not about making anything anymore, but instead exist as climax predators in the global economic food chain.
"Here in the West, we think of capitalism as a driving force behind scientific advancement, but what happens when advancement is at odds with corporate profits?" Kosmatka said. "In this story, Veronica, a high-level corporate bureaucrat for a huge, multi-national steel company, is contacted by a man who carries a secret that could change the world. It’s the holy grail of materials science– the secret to producing structural-quality carbon nanotubes on massive scale. But why bring that information to a steel company? The answer: for the same reason you’d bring an engine that could run on water to an oil company. Because they’d be sure to buy it. Veronica knows her company will bury the discovery, so she enlists the help of one of the corporate scientists, and together they take steps to release the information to the public. But the company finds out and sends a problem solver to deal with the issue once and for all."
Interview: Rand B. Lee, on "Litany"
Rand B. Lee–author of "Litany," the cover story of our June 2008 issue–said in an interview that the story began simply as an image of a tall, grey-eyed man knocking on the door of a real estate office in a small village in Northern New Mexico. "I had no idea who the man was when I began writing, except that he had come to the village looking for something," Lee said. "The key characters in the story likewise appeared vivid and full-blown without conscious efforts on my part. Particularly vivid was the image of the three-legged mixed breed black-and-white dog whom the stranger rescues. One week after I completed the story and submitted it to F&SF, a man walked into the Santa Fe nursery where I worked with a three-legged, black-and-white dog. The dog came right up to me and licked me vigorously on the face, causing his owner to remark in great surprise, ‘He usually is not demonstrative with men.’"
Interview: P.E. Cunningham on "Monkey See…"
P.E. Cunningham, author of "Monkey See…," which appears in our June 2008 issue–said in an interview that the story was originally written for an anthology with a tight deadline. "Normally it takes me forever to write something — I’ve got book and story fragments and chapters in the closet that go back 10 years or longer — but because of the deadline I had to go to work," she said. "I came up with the basic idea literally overnight, and went from first draft to final sub in two weeks, a land-speed record for me. I sent it out with time to spare … and it got rejected. In truth, I didn’t think F&SF would be interested in a pure sword-and-sorcery story, but then I figured, what the heck. And you guys surprised me and bought it. I didn’t think [F&SF would] like ‘Car 17′ either. Shows what I know. If I could just figure out what editors like, I’d sell a lot more. Hey, wouldn’t we all."
Interview: S. L. Gilbow on "Rebecca’s Locket"
S. L. Gilbow–author of “Rebecca’s Locket,” which appears in our May 2008 issue–said in an interview that the story is basically about an ordinary person trying to make his way through an absurd world. "Jerry Morgan’s personality and some of his memories have been downloaded into a locket which his wife wears around her neck," Gilbow said. "The rest of the story is about Jerry coping with his new form and trying to figure out his place in the world. I don’t start stories by thinking of other stories, but usually in the writing I start to see connections. Jerry reminds me a little of Kafka’s Gregor Samsa in that he undergoes an entire physical transformation."
The story started with the first line: "On a November Friday morning Jerry Morgan attended his funeral at the Cotton Springs Methodist Church," Gilbow said. "The next step was in figuring out how this could happen," he said. "The locket idea came to me as I was eating dinner with my wife and daughter at an Italian restaurant. I have a very bad habit of running story ideas through my mind while I’m out with my family. My wife will be talking to me and I will be trying to pretend I’m listening. Finally, she will say, ‘Are you writing again?’ It annoys her to no end. Sometime between the salad and the lasagna, I shouted out, ‘I got it. He’s a locket tied around his wife’s neck.’ Her response was, ‘You are so weird.’"
Interview: Alex Jeffers on “Firooz and His Brother”
Alex Jeffers–author of “Firooz and His Brother,” which appears in our May 2008 issue–said in an interview that the story is about Firooz, a young merchant traveling between Samarkand and Baghdad, who encounters a young dog where no dog should be. “After his own hound fatally wounds the puppy, Firooz discovers she had been guarding a baby abandoned in the wilderness,” Jeffers said. “Firooz accepts the baby as a gift from God, names him Haider, and raises him as his younger brother.”
The story came about as the result of a novel Jeffers has been working on for a long time. “For longer than I like to think about, off and on, I’ve been working on a big book called Dreamherder, a work of high fantasy that alternates settings between this world here/now and another,” he said. “At various points in the narrative, when the water needs muddying, the protagonist’s best friend tells an emblematic story from the life of his many-times-great grandparent, Haider. ‘Firooz and His Brother’ is the first: Haider’s origin story. Novelistic logic required brothers with benefits; the dog; Haider’s ability to change gender and his origin in the other world. The storyteller, a Pakistani of proud Mughal ancestry, gave me the setting. Those givens in place, I made a pot of Turkish coffee (not really — it was espresso), put on a CD of eighteenth-century Ottoman art songs, and the story wrote itself.” Read more
Interview: George Tucker on "Circle"
George Tucker–author of "Circle," which appears in our May 2008 issue–said in an interview that the story is about a Seminole shaman who’s hired to exorcise a downtown Miami construction site. "There are three threads that intersected to form this story: Native American mysticism, the Miami Circle, and the Miami housing bubble," Tucker said in an interview.
Tucker has been fascinated by Native American mysticism for as long as he can remember. "The first book I ever bought, while on a field trip to a natural history museum in northern Arkansas, was The Indian How Book by Arthur C. Parker. I reread [it] until the spine cracked and pages started to fall out — every page thrilled me," Tucker said. "I’ve written several stories featuring Native American protagonists. Billy Black is the first of these characters to appear in print."
The second thread is the Miami Circle archaeological find, Tucker said. "I’m a paleophile, pure and simple. I love the idea of finding a mysterious ritual site (in my mind an ancient, haunted place, where sacrifices had their throats cut while worshipers chanted praises to dark gods) in the middle of a thriving glass-and-steel metropolis. I’m infatuated by the thought that the ancient, dark and bloody past lurks under the foundations of our buildings and in our genes — and from time to time leaps out and takes us by the throat. Even though ‘Circle’ is a light-hearted story it touches on these themes," Tucker said. "By the way, the developer who owned the lot the Miami Circle was found on wanted desperately to move it — and Mayor Joe Carollo (aka Loco Joe) agreed, citing a $1.1 million loss in annual property taxes if the condo didn’t go up as planned. In my imagination, people like Joe Carollo decided that Baghdad’s Ministry of Oil should be heavily guarded in April of 2003 while looters took ancient and irreplaceable works of art from the National Museum."
Interview: Rachel Pollack on "Immortal Snake"
Rachel Pollack–author of "Immortal Snake," the cover story of our May 2008 issue–said in an interview that the story was inspired by a famous African myth known as The Ruin of Kasch. "I read it in Joseph Campbell’s book Primitive Mythology, but it appears to be centuries old," Pollack said. "I first read it in 1966, and it has haunted me for decades. So this is a story I’ve wanted to write for a very long time."
Pollack said that the plot is entwined with the setting: an imaginary kingdom where true power rests with astrologer priests known as Readers, for their ability to read "God’s handwriting in the sky," to tell them when anything has to happen. "The king, who is always called Immortal Snake, rules in great luxury until the terrible day when the Readers decide the Snake must shed his skin in a ritual death," she said.
Interview: Kevin N. Haw on "Render Unto Caesar"
Kevin N. Haw–author of "Render Unto Caesar," which appears in our April 2008 issue–said in an interview that the story is about a computer character from an online medieval adventure game–specifically, Duchess Willhelmia Bloodfang Elfbane, a seven foot tall female troll–being audited by the IRS for not reporting her income. "It’s a single scene, but shows her discomfort at dealing with the IRS and eventually arrives at an agreement of mutual benefit to both parties…and to the detriment of most taxpayers," Haw said.
Duchess Willhelmia Bloodfang Elfbane is a seven foot tall, green skinned troll with three inch canine fangs, a "Digital American" who normally lives inside an massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG). "Her day to day life is pretty simple: stay at the top of Troll Mountain, wait for players (’meaties’) to come on up, and then scream at the top of her lungs and charge them with her axe swinging, intent on decapitation," Haw said. "Sometimes she wins, sometimes she loses. In any case, she’s resurrected every hour or so, ready to go at it again after taking a break ‘backstage’ with her girlfriends to gossip over chamomile tea and complain about the lack of quality men amongst their coworkers. The hours are lousy and the pay is nonexistent, but she’s good at her job. She’d better be, since that’s what she was created to do."
Interview: Steven Utley on "The 400-Million-Year Itch"
Steven Utley–author of "The 400-Million-Year Itch," which appears in our April 2008 issue–said in an interview that the story is about the quest for happiness. "But, then, all stories are," Utley said. "Specifically, it’s about a character who finds herself wondering how she has come to be in a particular place, surrounded by other characters who claim to know why they’re there. Doesn’t sound much like science fiction, does it?"
The story is one of Utley’s "Silurian Tales," a series of time travel stories in which scientists explore the Silurian era. "Dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals have fascinated me ever since childhood," Utley said. "My early ambition was to grow up to become a paleontologist like Roy Chapman Andrews, whose books All About Dinosaurs and All About Strange Beasts of the Past I loved. Probably I became a science-fictioneer just so I could write about prehistoric animals — it’s easier work than actually digging up their fossils."
Many years ago in Austin, Texas, a plesiosaur skeleton turned up in a creek bed bisecting a neighborhood, and the local paleontologists, including Utley’s friend Sally Shelton, descended on the site. "It was a minor media sensation, and to discourage vandals members of the excavation team camped out with lawn chairs and blankets near the site each night," Utley said. "This was during the dead of winter, so one cold-as-hell evening I took Sally and her companion some brandy and sat and talked with them for a while. And as I left to return home to my nice warm bed and nice warm wife, I thought, So this is paleontology — work like a pit pony all day, freeze under a bridge at night!"
