Is this my own voice, this story? Or, more simply, am I a girl bullshitter? Yeah. Writer = liar, but in this case, my narrator isn’t me. She has a lot of me in her—the mimeograph exorcism in particular, is something that actually happened to me. But her voice, the truth of this story? Is sideways. The joy of writing speculative fiction rather than memoir is that you can throw some enormous worms into the story right alongside anniversaries and drinks and love. They can all coexist.
Whether it’s the giant worms or opening the main character’s chest cavity in a show of affection—is there an image from “The Traditional” that remains just as haunting as when you wrote the first draft?
I wrote this—you can laugh—as a present for my boyfriend who’d had his wisdom teeth out, and given me one as a present. He’s a writer too, and we got to riffing on traditional anniversary gifts, what else a person might give of their body. Their bones, skin, brain, et cetera. In my mind, and his too, this was a sweet story, like, total romance. (I didn’t think of it as scary at all, until my friend Kat Howard told me she’d had a nightmare in which she was trapped in it, trying to kill worms with a weapon made of fingers.)
Our riff slithered, as our riffs do, over to what would happen if you wrote a filthy mash-up of O. Henry & J.G. Ballard. As in, the super-romance of Gift of the Magi + the kinky questionable of Crash. Gift of the Magi has always creeped me out, which is probably a flaw in me and my understanding of what you’re supposed to be willing to do for love. I remember reading it as a little kid, and feeling infuriated. So, I think it’s always been in me to write some kind of rebel version. Ballard, well, he creeps me out less than O. Henry does. Maybe I shouldn’t admit that. I’m interested in wide-ranging notions of eros and despairos. (Maybe I apologize for that word, maybe I don’t.) The sexiness of universal disaster. It ended up being a grind I could dance to, so I wrote it.
As for haunts: It’s the worms. Giant tunnelling worms are not my terror. Tiny parasitic worms are my terror. I grew up in Idaho, surrounded by sled dogs. Worms, man. Worms. Tiny worms that get bigger as they eat you from the inside? Oh, holy. There’s something about how worms are, the way they can subdivide. Chop them up, and back they come. That’s some classic nasty. I have a small wrong theory that the notion of the Hydra is based on an ancient balladeer’s childhood bad deeds with worm dissection. How many times can I chop it in half? How many times will it grow back? Ahhh! It’s a monster! It doesn’t die! Fucking scary. Also, anything that’s got extra hearts freaks me out. You have an extra heart, it doesn’t matter to you what happens in the moment. The most dangerous sort of heartbreakers are people who act like they’ve got a spare.
If you were a character in “The Traditional,” who would you find yourself socializing with—those like our main character and her love interest, or in a land far away, battling the worms?
I’ve always said that I’d suck it in an apocalypse, because I’m a Type 1 diabetic and I have to take insulin or drop over dead. I’m essentially science fiction made flesh. I travel around looking like a normal person, but my insulin pulp is cyber life-support. So, you know, if the worms were nearby and I could bash one in the head with my high heel, okay, I’d love to, but heading out to the desert to put dynamite in wormholes would probably be beyond me. However, I’ve always had an airplane/subway/bus defender fantasy of stabbing a syringe of insulin into a hijacker. I grew up in a family that was very apocalypse-centric, and we made contingency plans. Every time I get on public transportation, I consider my battle options. How do you battle? With the tools you’ve got on you. Your bonecomb. Your insulin syringe.
You’ve just been nominated for a Nebula with “Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream,” so congratulations are in order. You’ve also experienced great success with The Year of Yes, and Queen of Kings. How (if at all) has this affected the way you approach new stories?
Thank you! It was so flattering to be nominated for the Nebula, because it’s a peer award. It’s pretty great to have other writers thinking you’re good.
As for being successful, I’m not sure it changes anything for me, really, in terms of story approach. A friend of mine once described it as, well, you get a story in the New Yorker, or you get a rave in the NY Times, or you hit a bestseller list (all of which would be amazing, don’t get me wrong)—and even as those social markers happen and your mom is proud, you’re looking to the next project, and moaning, because you still don’t know how the hell to be a writer. That would be the way of the screwed up vocation. I’d be suspicious if I ever felt comfortable, because a big part of my urge to write comes from discomfort. So many nice things have happened with the things I’ve written, and that’s always lovely, but all I want to do is write things I haven’t written yet. Some people in my life find this approach maddening, but it’s working for me.
In the previous Author’s Spotlight in July 2012, you mentioned a sequel to Queen of Kings and a YA work in progress—how are these coming along?
The YA book just got turned in to my agents. Hopefully by the time this interview comes out, it will be sold, and then I can talk about it at long last. I’m in crazy love with it. It’s a contemporary pirate-y kind of riff, and it was beyond fun to write. In truth, anyone who likes this story probably will also like that book. The narrator is sixteen, but there are very few restrictions these days on what you can do in YA, so it’s quite dark, and full of scary strange. It’s also full of funny. Girl bullshitter. Yes.
The Queen of Kings sequel—utter opposite of the YA book, in that it’s alt-history and Elizabethan England—should also be turned in by the time this interview comes out. I had a personal apocalypse year and things got a bit slowed down, but with every apocalypse comes the hope of fantastic reinvention. I’m excited about all the things I’m writing/finishing/starting right now. Just answering these questions gave me two new story ideas! In two different genres.
Patrick J Stephens recently graduated from the University of Edinburgh and, after spending the entire year writing speculative fiction, came back with a Master’s in Social Science. His first collection (Aurichrome and Other Stories) can be found on Kindle and Nook.
Author Spotlight: Sean Williams
Kevin McNeil
“The Missing Metatarsals” was first published in Cosmos (2012). Can you tell us a little bit about your writing process and what inspired this story?
One of the things I love most about science fiction is its fascination with language. I’m sure I’m not the only writer inspired by a dodgy neologism or pun. The original title of this story was “Steganosaurus,” a word that barely appears in the final draft of the story, but that was really where it all started. The idea of hiding a dinosaur inside a human by means of a matter transmitter seemed both absurd and too wonderful to ignore—offering another echo of The Fly, if nothing else. I decided to explore the idea by means of a detective story rather than a horror story for several reasons: one, because that seemed both to fit the idea and to offer a means of unpacking the larger story in a surprising way; two, because I’ve never written one of those in the short form before, and I do like a challenge (see below); and three, the notion of a recurring duo investigating crimes involving matter transmitters was very appealing. Peacekeepers Forest and Sargent operate in a very long tradition, but I hope they’ll feel as fresh and new to the readers as they do to me.
This is the latest in the series of your d-mat stories. What draws you back to this world and these characters?
Speaking of long traditions … I’ve been fascinated by matter transmitters since I was a child, more than a century after the first one appeared in print. It’s a fascination that just won’t let go. Maybe it’s because of the tyranny of distance Australians have endured throughout our history; maybe it’s because the idea is cool, and only gets cooler the more you pick at it. I don’t know, but my first attempt to write a “serious” short story revolved around the trope, and so does my next science fiction novel, Twinmaker, the first in a s
eries exploring the effects of this technology on a near-future world.
You might think that we’ve done everything there is to be done with matter transmitters in one hundred and thirty-odd years. George Langelaan had his human/insect hybrid, Larry Niven had his “flash crowds,” and James Patrick Kelly reminded us of the moral consequences of the technology (there’s another link to dinosaurs). Less famously, but no less interestingly, John Brunner, Algis Budrys, Arthur C. Clarke, Thomas M. Disch, Clifford Simak, Robert Silverberg, and many others all had a crack at it. What scraps could possibly be left around this well-picked platter? Plenty, I say. The superficial use of the trope on television as a means of getting people from A to B has left us with the impression that the trope itself is superficial, but the truth is that, in a world that has an operating matter transmitter, everything changes. Our relationships with space and time, our sense of self and identity, our societies, our humanity—all comes under examination when the trope is used well. I’m trying to remind people of this, through my fiction and also through the research I’m conducting as part of my PhD.
I have come to think of myself rather grandiosely as a bit of a champion for this overlooked trope. It’s not just about the trope, though. It’s about science fiction neglecting an idea that is gaining real currency in physics today. Look up “teleportation” on Google and you overwhelmingly find links to real science, real experiments, real people striving to make this technology work. Science fiction has a duty to the future to prepare the way—as well as to readers to tell interesting stories, of course!
You write in a variety of genres, from science fiction to fantasy to media novels, as well as in a variety of styles and forms, from short stories to middle grade and young adult novels. What are some of the challenges and pleasures to changing styles and forms?
The challenge and the pleasure are inextricably linked. I’m easily bored, so I’m always looking for the next thing to play with. It doesn’t have to be something completely new; I quite like bouncing back and forth between familiar series, familiar styles. It’s the difference between finding a groove and getting stuck in a rut. But there’s a fine line between productive experimentation and over-commitment, and that’s something I do have to deal with periodically. At the moment I’m working solo on one series, and collaboratively on three different series, one graphic novel, one picture book, one film adaptation, and one TV series. It keeps life … interesting.
You’ve written several successful novels with co-authors (Shane Dix and Garth Nix). How does this process usually work for you?
It used to be that, after writing a detailed outline in close collaboration with Garth or Shane, I would write a first draft solo in one big rush, then hand that draft over for them to make into something readable. These days, thanks in part to RSI, I’ve learned to be a bit more flexible. I’ve relinquished the first-drafting role on a couple of projects, and found that to be both stimulating and challenging. In general, I love the energy different people bring to projects. I love the surprises that come when you relinquish control. People often ask me about what happens when conflict occurs over some detail or other, but that rarely happens. There’s disagreement, but there’s never conflict. I choose my collaborators carefully, and they do the same with me. It’s like a business partnership or a marriage. If you don’t go into these things with your eyes open, then of course you’ll have trouble, but I hope I’m not that naïve.
How did you get involved with writing media novels, like The Force Unleashed and The Old Republic in the Star Wars universe? What are the challenges you’ve encountered when writing for an established franchise as opposed to your original work?
Tie-in work is at heart no different to other forms of collaboration. You’re playing with other people’s ideas, and you have to do so respectfully and productively. You have to accept the limitations, while at the same time giving something of yourself. Having grown up enjoying tie-in novels by writers like Terrance Dicks and Alan Dean Foster alongside those authors we would usually name as the greats (see my earlier list), this was work I actively sought out, and still do, when I can. It’s part of my creative practice. Some of my proudest creative achievements are listed on Wookieepedia rather than Wikipedia.
Is there anything else you’d like to share about this piece? What’s next for you?
Next up is the latest installment in the middle grade fantasy series Garth and I have been working on. Troubletwisters: The Mystery comes out from Scholastic US (and other publishers around the world) in May. Twinmaker will be released by HarperCollins in November. Various editions of Twinmaker will feature bonus material and stories expanding the world even further. Forest and Sargent will appear in the sequel.
Kevin McNeil reads slush for Lightspeed Magazine and is an editorial assistant for Nightmare Magazine. He is a physical therapist, sports fanatic, and volunteer coach for the Special Olympics. He graduated from the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2012 and The Center for the Study of Science Fiction’s Intensive Novel Workshop, led by Kij Johnson, in 2011. Kevin is a New Englander currently living in California. Find him on Twitter @kevinmcneil.
Author Spotlight: M. Bennardo
Patrick J Stephens
In the beginning, with the aspect of disembodied voices, what was the incentive to write from Jennifer’s perspective and not Roger’s?
If I can pinpoint any “beginning” for this story, it would be the disembodied voices. It was an idea that came to me years ago, when I was first living alone in an apartment and would sometimes hear my neighbors through the walls. I think at one point I actually heard something that sounded like a dropped casserole dish. But at the time, I figured it would be a ghost story, so clearly there was a dramatic mutation that took place that turned it into a romance instead.
But at every stage, I imagined a protagonist much like myself at the time when I started living alone—a young, single professional in a temporary living space with not many close attachments. I lived alone because I could afford it and because I wasn’t bothered by being alone. But when that happens, “home” becomes a place you go to after work to eat and sleep and watch TV. For the most part, all the interesting things in your life happen elsewhere for the simple fact that there’s rarely anybody else at home with you. Which I suppose is why Jennifer could so easily get over the initial shock of having somebody else in her apartment—she just never had much of a life there to disrupt.
Roger, on the other hand, has a dual nature. There’s one half of him that is like Jennifer. But the other half is living a slightly different life as a restaurant employee who hopes to become a chef. That part of him is probably living on a smaller income, probably sharing housing, working odd hours and living out of sync with the rest of society. He’s just generally forfeiting some comfort today in the hopes of being able to do what he loves tomorrow. So Roger’s story, I suppose, would be about those two halves confronting each other, and making some sense out of each other. Meanwhile, Jennifer’s story is simpler and more like my own.
In the creation of “Water Finds Its Level,” what came first: the relationship, the voices, or the Collision? Without the Collision, and the ability to see what Roger could have been, do you think that Jennifer would have met and fallen for her world’s version of Roger?
The voices came first, and then the explanation for the voices. As I said, I first thought they’d be ghosts of some sort. Then I realized they might just be from another world—then I figured I might as well collapse that world onto ours and see what happened. The relationship was a result of that.
Personally, I think the relationship was one of convenience, and I’m not sure it was ever built to last. As young people, we get thrown together with all kinds of people and make a lot of connections that may or may not be meaningful in the long-term—college roommates and classmates, co-workers, neighbors. But we’re also transient at that point in our lives, and all it takes is a move to a new apartment or a new job to sever a lot of the connect
ions we thought were important.
Ultimately, Jennifer and Roger don’t do much to actively make their relationship work. It’s kind of thrust upon them by physics—they need to find a way to deal with the fact that they both occupy the same space. They can either be friends, or hang up sheets to hide each other from view. They obviously like each other and get along, but would they ever have gotten together if they hadn’t been put in that position? I doubt it—and I think that’s why it doesn’t last in the end.
The scientists explain the Collision with “water finds its level,” and then—even though she admits she doesn’t quite understand the phrase—Jennifer uses it. As the creator of this story, what do you think “water finds its level” means?
It means that humans eventually accept things the way they are and learn to live with them. There may be temporary interruptions where everything seems unsettled and confusing, but we always find some settled state in the end.
It doesn’t mean that the new state will necessarily be better or worse—the new level of the water could be so low that it leaves your well dry, or so high that [it] covers the roof of your house. It just means that after the uncertainty and flood is over, there will be a new reality and a new level, and we as humans will find a way to adapt to it.
I never used that phrase before this story, but it’s an idea that I’ve repeated to myself many times in moments of stress. It’s just a reminder to myself that I will inevitably find a way to cope, even if I don’t know exactly how I’ll do that at the moment.
How would you react if the merging in “Water Finds Its Level” came into fruition—would you prefer to share reality with a complete stranger, a duplicate, or a counterpoint to yourself?
This is another way that Jennifer is like me—I’d rather not meet another version of myself. I’m not even sure I can explain why. I think it’s because we only have one chance to go through life, and I’m very happy with where my life has led me. But seeing another version of my own life would just be a reminder that nobody can ever do it all—that we all have to leave big parts of our potential untouched. That would be a hard lesson to be faced with.
Lightspeed Magazine Issue 36 Page 25