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 The manuscript, along with my other unpublished fiction, eventually went into a box for 15 years or so while I moved on to other things.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.
Interview: Kali Wallace on “Botanical Exercises for Curious Girls”
- Tell us a bit about “Botanical Exercises for Curious Girls.”
“Botanical Exercises for Curious Girls” is the story of a young girl
who lives a very isolated, very restricted life, and the day she
learns certain things about herself and the people around her, who
they are and what they’re doing, and from that begins to realize how
she escape to something else.
- What is the genesis of this story – its inspiration, or what prompted you to write it?
Conversations about robots, of all things, and a lot of time staring
out the window at trees. I was talking to some friends about robots
who don’t know they are robots, and from there I started thinking
about a character who doesn’t know she’s a mad scientist’s experiment.
The idea went through several iterations after that, various robots
and machines, biological and mechanical creations, magical constructs
and so on, until I found the right one.
- What would you say is the tone of “Botanical Exercises…?” Dark?
Hopeful? Or something else entirely?
There’s a definite creepy, sinister edge, but tempered by the fact
that the story is told through the perspective of a character who is
more inquisitive than fearful. My goal was to balance the fact that
where Rosalie lives and the realities of her life are quite
unpleasant, but she still finds them to be full of wonder and beauty.
Put the same character in a different setting, or put somebody else in
that same old house, and what they see and how they feel will be
completely different, and all of that is a puzzle of layering the
right words in the right places. That’s the fun of developing a tone
that suits the story. I do like to think it ends on a more hopeful
note.
- Most authors say their stories are personal. If that’s true for you,
in what way is your story personal?
I think everybody has days – weeks, months, years – in which we wake
up and look around us and realize that where we are, who we are, and
what we’ve been made into is not all we want it to be. That feeling,
the feeling of looking out the window and thinking, “I don’t want to
be here,” I think that’s universal, but a universal experience alone
isn’t enough to make a good story. That’s where the personal
experience comes into it. There’s no specific correlation to any event
in my life, but it is a summation of experiences: What does that
restless dissatisfaction feel like? What do I notice? What do I
remember? What am I scared of when I’m on the verge of a tremendous
decision, something that could change everything or end very badly?
Those are the questions I asked myself, and poked and prodded the
answers in a mildly uncomfortable manner before sorting out what I
wanted to say about them.
- What kind of research did you do for your story?
Very little. I looked up the genus names of a few plants and trees,
because I wanted them to have identifiable real world counterparts,
and then made up the species names.
- “Botanical Exercises…” is your first published story. What
motivates you to write science fiction?
Science fiction is the perfect outlet for combining the two things I
love best about writing: telling stories I have no other way of
telling, and making stuff up. All of the trappings of science fiction
are great fun; I’m a scientist by training and love exploring the
edges of what isn’t yet possible, or might never be. But more than
that, what I love most of all that uneasy border between the literal
and the metaphorical, the point in good speculative fiction where the
reader asks, “What is this story about?” then does a double-take,
gives it another look, and asks again, “No, wait, what is this story
really about?” When it’s good, speculative fiction can do that better
than anything. There are rules, but they are fluid. Even in a story
full of familiar realism, we can find those spots to slip over into
something bigger and weirder and – if we’re doing it right – end up
with something that isn’t less than reality, or removed from reality,
but is instead this world, the one we live in but don’t entirely
understand, examined from a different perspective.
- What are you working on now?
I’ve got a number of short stories in various stages of completion,
and I’m currently working on a YA novel that involves spending an
awful lot of time assessing cemeteries in terms of the potential ease
of midnight body-snatching. For research purposes. I promise.
“Botanical Exercises for Curious Girls” appears in the March/April 2011 issue.
Interview: Ken Liu on “The Paper Menagerie”
- Tell us a bit about the story.
“The Paper Menagerie” is about an American boy whose mother was a mail-order bride from Hong Kong. As he grows up, he becomes conscious of the prejudices of neighbors and classmates directed against his mother and himself, and he comes to resent her for tagging him as alien. But a collection of origami animals made by his mother when he was a child come to life and give him a message.
- What is the inspiration for this story, or what prompted you to write it?
There were multiple sources for this story. One, I enjoyed making origami animals when I was a child, and they provided endless hours of imaginative play. Two, the novel Auntie Duohe, by the Chinese writer Yan Geling, moved me with its portrayal of a mother and children caught between two cultures. Three, I read several accounts written by mail-order brides about their own experiences, and I was struck by the enduring humanity of these narratives of individuals forging new identities while holding onto the old. The ideas percolated around my head for a while before they coalesced into this story.
- Most authors say their stories are personal. If that’s true for you, in what way was “The Paper Menagerie” personal to you?
My wife and I just had our first child last year, and the experience made me reflect a lot about parenthood. As a parent, one source of anxiety is how your children will come to see you, whether they’ll understand you, know you, and be able to take meaning from your life. I think all parents are fundamentally afraid to appear incomprehensibly alien to their children. That’s the theme of the story.
- What kind of research did you have to do for “The Paper Menagerie?”
I was glad to take up origami again and to learn new folds and shapes that had been too difficult for me as a child. It was a lot of fun to try to see how the paper animals would fly, walk, leap, and pounce if they were alive.
- What are you working on now?
A couple of short stories, and a novel that I’m co-writing with my wife. It’s really hard to find time to write with a baby around, but it’s also gotten us to be much more focused when we do have a few moments to write.
- Anything else you’d like to add?
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the positive feedback I’ve gotten from readers on this story. I’m glad to see that it resonates with many.
“The Paper Menagerie” appears in the March/April 2011 issue.
Interview: Sheila Finch on “The Evening and the Morning”
- What is the genesis of this story – its inspiration, or what prompted you to write it?
Over the course of the lingster series, I became aware of a lot of unanswered questions that I’d written into the stories: Who were the Sagittans? Why were the Venatixi looking for them? What was the nature of the subtle relationship between Humans and Venatixi? Would there ever come a day when the lingsters were no longer needed in the Orion Arm? As I prepared the collection (The Guild of Xenolinguists) for publication, I began to hear a voice in my mind; later, he acquired a name, “Crow,” which even later still I realized was a nickname. There was something nostalgic in Crow’s voice, a tone I hadn’t encountered with any other lingster or magister or eruditus. Crow, I realized, came from the Guild’s end times. As soon as I got this straight, I knew I wanted to write the end of the saga in order to find out for myself what happened.
- “The Evening and the Morning” wraps up a long-running series of stories. What drew you to invent and write about ‘lingsters,’ and how did you come to decide that this latest novella would wrap up the whole saga?
I did it all wrong when I started writing about the lingsters! I had no idea that I was actually writing a series until I’d already published the first short story, “Babel Interface,” and the novel, Triad. The editor who published “Babel” encouraged me to write more stories about first contact and language issues. So I embarked on what became “A World Waiting” – and I immediately discovered I’d already written myself into a corner in this new universe I was creating. For instance, I discovered that I’d set the locale of the Mother House in Geneva when I’d much rather have had it almost any place else, certainly some place more exotic. At that point, I backtracked and wrote extensive notes (a bible of sorts) about the Guild and how it operated, and I’ve stuck with them ever since.
- How did you come to choose “The Evening and the Morning” as the title for your novella?
“The Evening and The Morning” (the title is from the King James Version of the Bible) suggested to me endings and beginnings, and from the very first draft it was the working title of the story – which took many months to complete. It went off track several times, and had to be dragged back whimpering and snarling. I put it on hold, mostly in despair of ever finishing it, and concentrated on a series of thousand word non-fiction essays about themes in science fiction, all of which appeared on SFWA’s Nebula Awards website. Then a couple of the other characters demanded to be heard, and I tried out their viewpoints, but they all had to be eliminated eventually. The story grew out of Crow’s nostalgia and his quest, which was also the Venatixi’s quest, and I wanted it to focus on that. (Along the way, I realized it had also become a meditation on what we mean when we talk about “God.”)
- What research did you have to do for this story?
Some of the research, on language origins, had already been done for the second half of the novel Reading the Bones, leaving me free to read widely in studies of the Corvus family. I admit to being utterly fascinated by crows and ravens and their kin, and I read without knowing at first what I was looking for or how I was going to use it. That’s the best kind of research for a fiction writer, if you ask me. I also was influenced by a recent book about what the Earth would look like without us, and by all the wonderful, disturbing speculations, both scholarly and fictive, of the world post-singularity.
- What are you working on now?
At present, I’m taking a break from the lingsters. I have scraps and rough drafts of several stories that have nothing to do with language that I want to work on. But I can’t promise never to return to the series – there’s lots of room in the middle! In fact, I’m working on my first collaboration with Juliette Wade, a story about a deaf lingster.
{for more info: www.sff.net/people/sheila-finch]
“The Evening and the Morning” appears in the March/April 2011 issue.
“Ghosts Doing the Orange Dance” by Paul Park on F&SF site
Since Paul Park’s novella “Ghosts Doing the Orange Dance” (from the Jan/Feb 2010 issue) is on the final ballot for this year’s Nebula Award, we’ve posted the story on our Website:
http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/fiction/pp01.htm
