Lightspeed Magazine Issue 32

by Judith Berman

  For a moment, there was silence around the Chamber of Audience. Then, the murals on the walls began to glow. The Ladies in Waiting began to clap and laugh and blush. The Pages leaped into the air and landed again on their toes, emitting the scent of Kifli flowers. The Guards cast off their veils and clashed their disintegrators on their shields, so that they rang through the halls. Everywhere, there was the sound of joy and of wonder. I myself could not keep my orifices from misting. To live at a time of the dreaming! The Hero had indeed brought us something greater than we could have imagined.

  I wondered, for a moment, if I would become one of those poets who are celebrated for having created what no other poet could have—if I would create the poem of the Child-Empress’s dreaming, of her becoming no longer a child but the full essence of herself, until eventually she emerged in the perfection of her non-physical manifestation. But then my humility returned. Such poems were still to be created. The first of them would be about the Hero, of how he had died and yet fulfilled his Quest.

  But today was a day of celebration. We sang and danced in the Chamber of Audience, celebrating the union of Lady Ahira and Captain Namoor. At the height of the festivities, the Child-Empress withdrew. But we knew now that it was not to contemplate her grief but to begin an important new event in her life. And we leaped higher and turned faster with joy, while the Musicians played their kurams and their dharms, until night fell and the mosses illuminated the ancient murals, and the moons rose, and the Jindal flowers spread their fragrance over the palace.

  © 2009 by Theodora Goss.

  Originally published in Interfictions 2: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing, edited by Delia Sherman & Christopher Barzak.

  Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Theodora Goss was born in Hungary and spent her childhood in various European countries before her family moved to the United States. Although she grew up on the classics of English literature, her writing has been influenced by an Eastern European literary tradition in which the boundaries between realism and the fantastic are often ambiguous. Her publications include the short story collection In the Forest of Forgetting (2006); Interfictions (2007), a short story anthology coedited with Delia Sherman; and Voices from Fairyland (2008), a poetry anthology with critical essays and a selection of her own poems. She has been a finalist for the Nebula, Crawford, and Mythopoeic Awards, as well as on the Tiptree Award Honor List, and has won the World Fantasy and Rhysling Awards.

  Author Spotlight: Judith Berman

  Moshe Siegel

  In your novella “The Fear Gun,” we witness post-failed-invasion humanity squabbling over resources, social rank, and power. Were the human survivors bound more tightly together during the invasion—which occurs before the narrative begins—than in the aftermath? Do you think our natural inclination in the face of such a civilization-ending attack would be to draw closer together, or splinter into “everyone-for-themselves”?

  They submitted to the sheriff’s leadership in part out of fear, the way people will give up civil rights in wartime or other national emergencies (or what are promoted as national emergencies). But they were also more cohesive with the sense of common purpose that comes in disaster or wartime.

  I think both tendencies are part of human nature, but show themselves more or less strongly depending on the individual and the circumstances … we’ve all seen examples of each in the aftermath of disasters. In theory it’s the job of social institutions to keep the worst of human impulses in check and harness aggression and the urge to dominate for the wider social good. But when social institutions break down, all bets are off. Part of what “The Fear Gun” explores is that condition of flux.

  Human survivors were quick to adapt and incorporate alien technology into their society as a means of rebuilding, yet they were unable, in the majority, to understand or utilize the “fearmonger” weapon. Does the revelation that fear comes from within—and humanity’s insistence on fetishizing alien doodads as inscrutable sources of power—suggest our general lack of introspection when confronted with the unknown?

  The flip side of a sense of identity or community is a sense of Other, and whether it’s your personal fears or social anxieties, there’s nothing more common than projecting it outward. And there’s nothing more Other than alien invaders … Curiosity, empathy, and imagination are some of the tools the characters in the story (and humanity as a whole) have to deal positively with the unknown, but those are hard to bring into play when you are already terrified.

  Alexandra believes that “only the weak” can “sustain empathy,” whereas “the strong” cannot “resist the temptation to use their knowledge” for exploitation. She explains to James that “good and evil begin in each person’s heart and mind.” Do you think there could exist any variety of global event (be it a pandemic, global economic collapse, or widespread natural disaster) that holds the potential to override humanity’s thirst for interpersonal dominance, or are we simply hard-wired for such?

  We’re hard-wired for it, some individuals more than others. But we’re hard-wired for other things at the same time, as Alexandra points out.

  When the desperate Yosemite survivors consumed alien flesh, they assimilated the eetee’s fearmongering abilities and the end result was a massacre. Fred the dog, in contrast, acquired alien telepathy and used it to manipulate humans via feelings of happiness and contentment. Is this a commentary on the “unaccountable” nature of humanity—i.e., another example of empathy’s exploitation—versus Fred’s simpler, canine instincts?

  Well, canines are social animals, too, and can have a pretty hierarchical pack structure. And dogs, some breeds more than others, can be aggressive and violent both toward humans and their own kind. So they aren’t meant as a contrast with humanity in that sense. That Fred is a tail-wagging golden retriever and he and his owner loved each other is more important for the story. In fact Fred loves everyone and everyone loves Fred. He could perhaps have been a human character, except that his plot function depends in part on his dog’s interest in smelly dead things.

  “The Fear Gun” explores events through a diverse cast of characters, in the spirit of much longer works—for example, Stephen King’s The Stand or Harry Turtledove’s alternate-history writings. Did you find it a challenge to contain so many fully-developed characters and perspectives in the limited format of a novella?

  “Challenge” is kind of an understatement. Not only does it have a series of viewpoint characters, the dog and his seemingly over-the-top paranoid owner are the only reliable narrators. And even Fred’s picked up a bit of trickiness. I had actually tried to write the story on the model of Richard Linklater’s film Slacker, in which a secondary character in one scene becomes the viewpoint character of the next section, but I couldn’t quite pull it off. The movie doesn’t have a plot, whereas I was constrained by mine.

  Do you have any upcoming projects that you’d like to tell us about?

  For the past few years I’ve been specializing in unfinished novels, so I’m a little nervous about trumpeting my work. I am pretty excited about my current project, a YA fantasy novel about family secrets and environmental destruction that’s set in the contemporary Pacific Northwest. In some ways it could hardly be more different from “The Fear Gun,” but there’s a fair amount of science behind it and there are common themes with my SF stories—about the ways people relate both to technology and to the natural world, and about the dark side of human nature.

  Moshe Siegel works as a slusher, proofreader, and interviewer at Lightspeed, interns at the pleasure of a Random House-published author, freelance edits hither and yon, and is a Publisher’s Assistant at Codhill Press. His overladen bookshelf and smug e-reader glare at each other across his home office in upstate New York, and he isn’t quite sure what to think about it all. Follow tweets of varying relevance @moshesiegel.

  Author Spotlight: Daniel Abraham

  Jennifer Konieczny

  Could you tell us
what inspired your story “The Cambist and Lord Iron”?

  This was originally a commissioned piece for an anthology called Logorrhea, where the schtick was that all the stories would be based on a winning word from the National Spelling Bee. Back in 1977, John Paola won the 50th National Spelling Bee with the word “cambist.” I’d been reading a lot of popular economics books at the time, and so I picked that one for mine.

  Why write a fairy tale of economics? And could you recommend other short stories or novels that also focus on economics?

  I came to economics late in life, and I’m tremendously fond of it (especially in some of its more modern, biology-based forms). The ideas in even pretty basic economics are fascinating and often counter-intuitive and delightful. Also, since I sometimes forget how to write short stories and have to relearn the skills, it’s nice to have a familiar structure like a three-test fairy tale to work from.

  The books I’d recommend that involve economics are Dorothy Dunnet’s House of Niccolo series, or if you’re looking for nonfiction, Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan.

  The Cambist insists that anything can be expressed in terms of anything else. What’s the oddest exchange you’ve ever made?

  A copy of Sandman issue #1 for a peculiar deck of cards.

  If you could exchange a day of your life for someone else’s, whose would it be and what do you think the rate would be?

  Hillary Clinton. I think she’s a fascinating woman with a broad and deep life experience, and I believe that being her for a day would teach me more about the world and how it works than I’m likely to learn in the next four years of my own life. I suspect the exchange rate would be pretty good. My days are comparably calm, restful, and low-stakes. I’d be buying education, she’d be getting a vacation, and we’d both come out ahead.

  In addition to short stories, you’re known for your novels. What do you enjoy most about writing shorter works? Longer?

  There are some ideas that only work in short story form. If you tried to pull them out to novel-sized, they’d feel padded and dull. And then there are some ideas that need a hundred thousand words to get where they’re going, even if you’re standing on the gas the whole way. Either way, what I like best is making a story that I’m proud of. I manage it on occasion.

  What’s next for you?

  Well, I’m writing an epic fantasy series called The Dagger and the Coin, collaborating on a Hugo-nominated space opera called The Expanse, and doing a Star Wars tie-in novel. I’m adapting A Song of Ice and Fire as comic book scripts, and I’ve got a couple short stories in the next few months. So I’m thinking next is probably a cup of coffee.

  Jennifer Konieczny studied English and History at Villanova University and Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto. She currently resides in Philadelphia and enjoys volunteering as a slush reader, author interviewer, and editorial assistant at Lightspeed Magazine, and inflicting her medieval-studies self on her students.

  Author Spotlight: A.C. Wise

  Robyn Lupo

  The opening of “With Tales in Their Teeth, From the Mountain They Came” is pretty much the definition of a hook opening. How did you come up with it? What was the genesis of this story?

  This is going to sound terribly cheesy, but … it came to me in a dream. Or rather it came in that odd, interstitial space between waking and sleeping. Once I had that opening, all the other bits that had been floating around trying to be a story came together. But I should back up a bit. The true genesis of the story was an “overheard” Twitter conversation between John Klima, Lynne Thomas, and Charles Tan. They were talking about dentist appointments, I believe, but I hijacked the conversation because the image of librarians with tales etched on their teeth wouldn’t leave me alone. Part of the story also came from wanting to pay tribute to Ray Bradbury, his passion for story, the idea of being drunk on words, and of course the theme of book burning. The Twitter-inspired imagery and the Bradbury-inspired imagery came together around the dream fragment and voila!

  It seems that Alba’s grief led her to the Library, but she almost rebels against its ways initially. Can you tell us more about this?

  I see Alba as someone constantly fighting her own happiness. She has trouble opening up, and trouble letting go. Even though she wants the Library to heal her, she is afraid of being vulnerable. It’s easier for her to fight the Library’s ways initially, rather than giving up control. Ultimately, she and the Library end up changing each other, and it requires them both to give ground.

  What books do you think were in the Library?

  All of them. Every book ever written and dreamed. And they’re all the perfect version the author had in their head, the wild and gorgeous thing they fell in love with and so desperately hoped the book would grow up to be, transported directly to the page.

  There seems to be a connection between what should be saved, i.e. the books in the Library, and what should be let go, in the case of Alba’s first lover. Can you tell us more about that?

  Again, I think it comes back to Alba’s fear of being vulnerable, and her fear of letting go. In order to heal, she has to become part of something larger—the books and the Library, the vast store of human knowledge and dreaming. It’s not so much that Alba’s lover isn’t worth holding onto, but he’s part of her old life, and symbolizes her fear of letting go in multiple senses of the words. Giving yourself up to something larger isn’t without risks. Her lover gave himself up for the cause of the war, and lost his life. If you never risk anything, you may never lose, but you’re unlikely to gain either.

  Robyn Lupo has been known to frequent southwestern Ontario with her graduate student husband and elderly dog. She writes, reads, and plays video games. She is personal assistant to three cats.

  Author Spotlight: Jeffrey Ford

  Andrew Liptak

  Hi Jeffrey—thanks for taking a couple of minutes to speak with us about your story “Daltharee”! What can you tell us about its origins?

  I think what it was that helped me come up with this story was the idea that there is so much going on around us that we miss—not so much the size difference, as it is here—the ant we unknowingly crush, etc., although that’s part of it, but just the other cultures and signs and matrices of knowledge that, because we are unaware, they remain invisible to us. We live in a world of worlds, but we rarely see beyond where our own begins and ends. I think it was something like that, but also, once I had that idea, somewhere along the line Kandor the bottle city insinuated itself into my thinking and that was it. I was writing my way into another world.

  While reading this story, I was reminded of another story, “Microcosmic God” by Theodore Sturgeon. Is there any connection between the two?

  There very well could be a connection between the stories for you and probably some other readers—those who know both stories—but, alas, I’m not one of them. I’ve read Sturgeon before and admire his stories, but unfortunately I don’t know that one.

  Paige is the only person to travel between the larger world and the smaller one. He’s persecuted in one, and the savior of another: Is there a religious element embedded in the creation of such worlds?

  Again, I don’t mean to be coy, but I’m not sure. “There could be” is really my best answer. If you’re of a religious mindset or if on an analytical lark you decide to read the story from a religious mindset, perhaps. Maybe it’s Science as the new Religion, but I never had that in mind when writing. Seriously, the last person to trust with an answer to that question is the author. It would be a lot more fruitful and interesting to find out what other readers think along those lines. Maybe some of your readers will weigh in on that question. I’d love to see their answers and ideas about it.

  Paige’s original efforts spell out disaster for his tiny world: How and where should people meddle with the natural world, if our understanding is less than perfect?

  This is a really good question and one that’s pertinent in the real world. I’m totally pro-s
cience, but I’m also aware of the human hubris that can sometimes get in the way—sometimes out of ego, sometimes in an attempt to try to do “the right thing.” And let’s not forget to try to make a profit. So I see now plans by reputable scientists to try to reverse global warming by doing things like seeding the earth’s oceans with huge amounts of iron. Maybe it would work, but think about the possibility on that grand a scale for problems to arise. How about Genetically Modified Crops, which are now found to be giving rise to super weeds and super insects, which are modifying themselves to compete with the new crops. That whole thing could lead to a rather big “Oops!” moment. I read about plans to implant tech devises in humans. Questions? How about all the weird side effects caused by a lot of these drugs big pharma pushes on people? Of course many of these medicines are miraculous and life-saving, but a lot of them are also useless and dangerous. Science is truly wonderful, but you have to remember that it’s a tool used by humans, who are sometimes blinded by their own bullshit. Interesting irony, which is always good for fiction.

  What do you have coming up next that we should keep our eyes out for?

  My latest book, in which “Daltharee” appears, is a collection of twenty short stories—Crackpot Palace. It has a new, unpublished novelette in it and author’s notes on each of the stories. In addition to that book, I have had recent stories in the anthology After, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (Tor); the July/August 2012 issue of F&SF; and Ghosts: Recent Hauntings, edited by Paula Guran (Prime Books). There are also short stories forthcoming in the anthologies Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (Tor); Hauntings, edited by Ellen Datlow (Tachyon); The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, edited by John Joseph Adams (Tor); Oz Reimagined, edited by John Joseph Adams and Doug Cohen; and The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, edited by Jonathan Strahan (Night Shade).