IGMS Issue 48
Page 14
DE BODARD: Hahaha no, it was definitely a deliberate balancing act. At least where the theological questions are concerned - I didn't want to step into this for a variety of reasons (the main one is that it would have taken over the storyline and it would have been really hard to wrench it back). I wanted the questions of faith to still be something the characters struggled with, but without being too heavy-handed about it. I didn't think of the magic and addiction as a distraction; but I did deliberately focus the book on the plot, characters and magic.
(Also, I tend to dislike books that explain all the underpinnings of the world because I feel they show the author's hand a bit too much, and I didn't want to do this with my own book!).
SCHOEN: The cast of characters you created for House Silverspires is rich and detailed. This book is clearly Phillipe's story - or at least a piece of it - but I kept wondering how drawn you might have been to making it Morningstar's story, or Madeleine's, or Emmanuelle's, or any of several others. You've barely touched on most of these back stories. Will you be going back to reveal more of these in future volumes, or will subsequent books go forward without looking back?
DE BODARD: I actually think of it as being a three-voice story? Philippe probably occupies the most space in terms of scene, but for me it's equally Madeleine's and Selene's story - that they have slightly fewer scenes doesn't make their part in this any less important. And I did have a lot of back story for several people in the book (Asmodeus, Emmanuelle and Aragon are the three which come most to mind), which I never had space to cram into the book! Going forward I hope to tease some of these: certainly book 2 is going to be focused on the House of Hawthorn, so you're going to be seeing a lot more of Asmodeus and Madeleine.
SCHOEN: Moving away from specific works to the writer herself, how old were you when you first started writing, and can you say what pushed you into the authorial abyss? And too, in the time since you first took that step (or plunge) can you look back and see clear demarcations where your voice has changed, and if so, how?
DE BODARD: Strictly speaking, I think I was 12? I've always been a voracious reader, and I tried writing an illustrated book about the Emperor of space and a planet of cat-people, which proved a number of things to me: the first was that my future career was definitely not going to include any illustrations, and the second is that cat-people aren't a terrific idea either. I took it up again when I was an older teenager and living in London, and then sort of grew into it. I've got a number of very thick, very bad, epic fantasy novels in my trunk, which will hopefully never see the light of day, and from there I moved to novelettes, short stories (I had issues with writing short. It comes naturally to some people; I had to learn how to ruthlessly prune my complicated ideas into bite-sized prose), and then back again to novels when I felt I was ready.
My voice has definitely changed: I recently had cause to reread a story I wrote in 2009, and the difference was definite - more confidence, more willingness to take risk, and also a growing liking for semi-colons (grin). I'm not sure if I can pinpoint demarcations, but I can think of a couple of landmarks: the first is attending a workshop with Benjamin Rosenbaum, where he pointed out that since I was writing in a far future universe with radically different underpinnings, I didn't have to keep using the same rigid scientific terms (it was likely, for instance, that nanotubes were going to be called something completely different) - that was when I realized that scientific rigor in SF was more of a guideline, at least insofar as I was concerned, and that my stories didn't have to be constructed like a demonstration of engineering feasibility. The second was when I took the leap of faith to write about Vietnamese culture and base stories more explicitly on my personal history rather than trying to edge around topics that I didn't really have passionate faith in.
SCHOEN: Apropos of that last question and given that this interview will appear as part of the IGMS anniversary celebration, looking back on the experience, what do you feel has been the main and lasting impact of your experience in OSC's Literary Boot Camp?
DE BODARD: I think the main lesson I learnt from Boot Camp is that rules exist to be broken? Actually, that's not quite accurate, more that you have to know the reason for a rule, and then feel free to break said rule if it doesn't apply. This has come in handy countless times.
(And, also, of course, I met a lot of tremendously awesome people at Boot Camp and am pleased to still be in touch with some of them).
SCHOEN: You've demonstrated the ability to write vastly different worlds, in both short and long form. What's next for you? Will you continue the series of your most recent book, return to expand on your Aztec fantasy mysteries, or give us a Xuya novel? Or something else entirely new and glorious?
DE BODARD: Ha! At the moment my main preoccupation is writing the sequel to The House of Shattered Wings, which is going to take me a big chunk of time . . . Beyond that, I've got a few ideas, but nothing definite. I've been toying with the idea of putting together a stich-up novel set in the Xuya universe, but every time I keep balking at the amount of research involved - who knows, it might even come to fruition soon . . . (grin)
Letter From The Editor
Issue 48 - November 2015
by Edmund R. Schubert
Editor, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show
* * *
Welcome to this special 10th anniversary issue of IGMS. Yes, it really has been ten years since the inaugural issue of Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show.
One of the first professional online magazines to publish science fiction and fantasy, IGMS's debut issue featured stories by a group of writers who had one thing in common: they had all attended Uncle Orson's Literary Bootcamp. For those of you not familiar with Literary Bootcamp, Orson Scott Card has been training new and young (and some not-so new or young) writers via a week-long workshop each summer since 2001. Averaging between 15 and 20 students for the full week (there's a two-day class that easily sees 50+ students at the beginning of each week, too), that's . . . well, that's more math than this writer is comfortable with. But it's a heck of a lot of students learning a heck of lot about writing.
To celebrate the 10th anniversary then, I decided that we'd fill this issue with stories penned by former Bootcampers, just like that first issue. And just like the first issue, it features a brand new story by Uncle Orson himself, and one by little old me, too. Sandwiched in between the two of us are more Bootcamper's, old and new, a testament to the time and energy invested by Uncle Orson for the love of the genre.
Before we get to the stories, though, there's one more person who needs mentioning; someone who has also been onboard since the first issue: our managing editor, Kathleen Bellamy. You've never seen Kathleen at a convention. You've never read about her in the industry news. But I promise you that without her dedication and hard work, IGMS would not have survived to celebrate this milestone. Kathleen is the unsung hero that every great enterprise needs; the crazy glue that holds this crazy intergalactic medicine show of ours together. She works closely with the artists who provide the illustrations that accompany each story. She ensures our authors get their checks and contracts. She's formatted and proof-read and prepared every story in every issue we've ever publish, and she's done it for ten quiet, fantastic, irreplaceable years. To which I and everyone else who's ever had anything to do with IGMS can only say with gratitude, "Thank you, Kathleen."
And now, I gives me great pleasure to present to you the 10th anniversary issue of Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show:
The cover story, "Breeding True," by Orson Scott Card:
But of course the alien genome existed on thousands of computers, and thousands of scientists found the alien genome tickling the back of their mind. They had not forgotten it, they would not forget it, and with or without funding, they could not rest until they knew the answers to all the questions.
"Like A Thief in the Light" by Alethea Kontis:
Normally shadow thieves were blind, led
by temperature and feeding by soulsmell. But Sun was not normal. His mother had not been a shadow. He wasn't sure what she'd been, exactly, but she'd given him green eyes and a horrible skin condition to remember her by. His father had given him a lanky build, a big bulbous head, and the ability to pop in and out of shadow without having to suck souls.
"The Curie Priest" by Chris Phillips:
Before he left the apartment, he tossed all the toys back into his son's bedroom, cursing the anti-grief counselors as he did it. It was a morning routine that defied mourning. Stepan shook his head. His son might be dead, but thanks to his wife, and the counselors she had hired, the memory of Jem lived on in a macabre ritual they all played day after exhausting day.
"The Price of Love" by Dantzel Cherry:
I miss those stolen nights, when I was alone in my chambers and he would step out from the mirror. But over the course of the last fifteen years, as slowly and subtly as the dust settles on my vanity table, his words have twisted my heart with an expertise that alternately cause despair and admiration.
"For the Bible Tells Me So" by Edmund R. Schubert:
"What was supposed to be a 250-year, multi-generation journey to a planet known as Kepler 186f has become a voyage of the damned, with no real end in sight, and not much hope of survival. Welcome to our party."
Audio Story "Life With Slug" by Paul Eckheart (read by Stuart Jaffe):
And somewhere in the midst of it, they say -- and I'm alive, so it must be true -- I flicked my lighter and inadvertently destroyed an entire species in one bright, fiery foomp.
Lawrence Schoen's InterGalactic Interview with Aliette deBodard:
Aliette is an alumna of Orson Scott Card's Literary Bootcamp, a winner of the Writers of the Future competition, a finalist for the Campbell, Hugo, and Sturgeon awards, and the proud owner of a Locus and a British Science Fiction award, as well as two Nebulas. Her most recent novel, House of Shattered Wings, came out from Roc (in the US) and Gollancz (in the UK).
Reprint Story, "Starsong," by Aliette DeBodard:
There is a song, in the starlight, if you listen closely -- behind the endless lull of the stars, and the distorted shapes, and the pull of the darkness, like that of a current waiting to sweep everything away.
It was words, once -- human words, a prayer to the gods that inhabit the night.
Also along with this issue's stories, we're pleased to bring you the Story Behind The Stories, where you'll not only find essays by many of our authors about the creation of their tales, but also essays by former Bootcampers (Luc Reid, Rick Novy, and Alethea Kontis), about their recollections of Bootcamp, about the things they learned, and about the friends they made in the process.
Edmund R. Schubert
Editor, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show
For more from Orson Scott Card's
InterGalactic Medicine Show visit:
http://www.InterGalacticMedicineShow.com
Copyright © 2015 Hatrack River Enterprises
Table of Contents
Breeding True
Like a Thief in the Night
The Curie Priest
The Price of Love
For the Bible Tells Me So
Life With Slug
Vintage Fiction - Starsong
InterGalactic Interview With Aliette de Bodard
Letter From The Editor