Category: Science Fiction

Absurdity

Status Whatever

In a little over a week, I will be 70. The mind, as they say, boggles. How did this happen?

All in all, though, I have little to complain about. Physically, I seem to be in fairly good condition, I just got my COVID and flu shots, the minor inconveniences that dance around me like gnats are largely insignificant and can be ignored.

I have a lot on my plate, though, and I have noticed a marked decrease in…

I don’t know if it’s energy or just give-a-damns. There are things I think it would be a good idea to do and then I just sort of fade when it comes time. I have less time during the day when I feel like a ninja warrior able to defeat all enemies. (I haven’t done any martial arts exercises in I don’t remember,) Our local SF convention is this weekend and I have a full roster of panels and such. I’m looking forward to it, as much as I look forward to anything.

I’ve passed up some shows I wouldn’t mind seeing. Partly this is a money thing. I still cannot get my head around the price of tickets these days. But let’s not go down that path, which leads to a desperate nostalgia and does little good. At the end of the month we’re going to see a farewell tour (Renaissance) that I expect will be excellent though melancholy. All my musical heroes are aging out or dying. Kind of like the writers and actors I grew up with.

And now I have to acknowledge that perhaps for someone, somewhere, I count as one of those aging relics.

Trust me, I have every intention of seeing the Tricentennial. (I doubt I’ll make it, but everyone needs a goal.) It does, in a way it never did before, depend on whether civilization survives. We are on the cusp of that wonderous age we all anticipated from the pages of whatever SF magazine we were reading at the time. As William Gibson said, the future is here, it’s just unequally distributed.

But I for the first time actually have before me a handful of projects I could consider my last. Again, it’ll take time to do them, but I sort of know what I’m going to be working on for the next five or ten years.  In one way, that’s a bit unnerving, but mostly it’s reassuring that I have that much to do.

There’s a game some people (maybe most) play, if you died tomorrow would you be satisfied. I don’t quite understand satisfaction that way. It involves being “finished” in ways that I can’t figure into my own desires, but I get the gist. Maybe, I have to say. More so than not. The thing is, I still can’t quite accept that I’m no longer the new kid on the scene. I don’t know what has to happen to make that sense of myself go away. Not sure if I want it to. I suppose that means I’ll just keep working until.

Until whatever.

Anyway, the best part of the last seven decades has been the people I’ve met and the friends I’ve made. Fine folks. And they put up with me. I guess I still have them fooled.

So, unless something strikes my fancy between now and then, I’ll see you all on the other side of….damn….70.

Art

Anniversaries

Permit me to take a moment out from the current world mess to indulge a bit of personal nostalgia. Thirty Six years ago I was at Clarion, working hard and hoping I could become a writer, in company with some of the finest people I ever met, a number of whom are to this day among my best friends. It was the first time I had given myself over to such a program, had gone out of state to attend school (sort of) and had found the humility to know I couldn’t achieve my goal all on my own.

Did I achieve it? Well, I have a body of work: several novels, nearly 80 short stories, a bunch of reviews, opinions, screeds, etc. I’ve lectured, taught workshops, and even managed an agency for the support of reading and authors. The trail of evidence leading back over three decades would suggest that I am.

Since then, Clarion itself has moved (from Michigan to California) and those people I mentioned? I’ve lost track of some of them, but among those I am still in touch, they’ve done all right. A few of them have achieved more than I have. I’m proud to be affiliated with them. They write cool stories. That was what we all wanted to do, write cool stories. Publish them, share them, write some more, rinse repeat.

But I am not the same. Not in many things. I did not anticipate having to guard myself against cynicism. The thing is—and they can tell you this as plainly as possible and you still won’t fully accept it—the profession of writing can break your heart. In large part because it is so glacial in its machinations. It takes so long to get things published. I look back over my work and I can name only one novel (not a franchise) that did not take close to a decade to find a publisher. Many of my short stories languished in the files before someone picked them up. You have to be patient. Patient. And you have to love doing the work.

But hey, I got to do what I wanted to do.

Thank you. Clarion. And good thoughts to the friends and colleagues, that core bunch I met at Clarion and those I have met along the way. See you in the Future.

Art

Considerations Going Into 24

It has been a year of highs and lows, as are most years, but generally we pick one by which to characterize the whole. I can’t do that this time, because it is all of a piece.

The highs? A new novel appeared in April, Granger’s Crossing, the first in what may turn out to be a series. I have ideas anyway. I could stand a bit more love for it, not to mention reviews, both at the link and on Goodreads. But after a seven year gap, to have a new book out is amazing.  Likewise, my Secantis Sequence is about to be reissued in ebook format (paper copies will be available, I’m told) and that is something I never expected to see. When I have a proper release date I will post it here and elsewhere. And I was approached by the State Historical Society of Missouri, who contacted me about hosting my papers. This removed a nagging weight from my shoulders. The other day I handed over two more bins to them. I’m still assessing how this makes me feel, but it’s all positive.

What else…I found a new gym, where I’ve been experiencing better workouts than in the past several years. We made a couple of major improvements to the house. No major trips, but we did get to see some very good friends in Kansas City we hadn’t seen in several years. And I’ve been connecting with my mother. Not that we were out of touch, but the months since dad passed have been rocky. She seems to be handling it better than one might expect, but I’ve been getting together with her once a week for a couple of years now and she’s been telling me stories I’d never heard before. I’m happy to report she has more friends in her neighborhood than she knew and while perhaps not thriving, she’s doing quite well. She just turned 89.

We’re approaching the final year of Donna’s fulltime employment (fingers crossed) and that will take some planning. We intend traveling a damn sight more than we have been.

Our friends are all doing well, some in much better places than they had been.

Retirement has been a cliché-ridden experience—not knowing how I ever had time for a job kind of revelation—but I have been accomplishing more.

Lows? Well, expectations on certain fronts are still not being met, and I am getting….tired. I no longer jump out of bed of a morning ready to take on the world. And when I do settle down to work, there’s a bit of a drag in the back of my brain, like “why are you still bothering?” Goals have not been reached, a couple of them now bordering on the never-to-be-achieved. It would be so helpful to have a good agent—or just now any agent. After 35 years as a professional writer, I find myself still in the position of a beginner when trying to get representation—only, a beginner with baggage. A paradox, I know, but there it is. There are projects I have on hold that quite possibly I’ll never get to at this point.

But the big low was dad passing. I’ve written about that, so no need to go over it again, but from time to time I find I still have a conversation or two I’d like to have with him. Nothing earth-shattering, nothing with dire psychological consequences, we made our peace with each other, said our says, and we were good. Just…I think he’d be really pleased with the new novel and it would have been nice to talk about it with him.

I will be 70 next year. As they say, more of my life is behind me now than before me, barring some revolutionary medical breakthrough that might give us another 50 plus years. (Even if such a thing is developed, I’m cynical enough to know it won’t be available for people in my income bracket.) I’m supposed to be wiser now than ten, twenty, fifty years ago, but I’m not at all sure how to gauge that. The shock of living to now is realizing how unwise too many of my fellow humans are, and how their unwisdom affects those around them, even tangentially. That could very well be hubristic on my part, which is why I distrust claims of wisdom. My dad, who was one of the sharpest people I ever knew, used to say that he wasn’t very smart. A completely baffling assertion, I always thought, but I can understand now why he might say that. He and I, we may well be smart, but we’re not smart enough.

One of the reasons I write—or, more accurately, one of the reasons I write what I do—is to understand. In my youth, I read science fiction because it presented a clarity about the world I did not find in literary fiction. It offered possibilities, likely answers, or at least asked the right questions, and I could put a novel down and feel like I understood something better than I had before.  An illusion, of course, a byproduct of the inherent didacticism in the genre, but it would be nice to have that feeling again, just once in a while. I think fostering that feeling has a benefit, in that for a short while it enables the chance to act positively in a world seemingly determined to negate every good thing we attempt. It offers the possibility of right action, and for the duration of that feeling we might do some good, at least more effectively than from a vantage of gloomy surrender to the morass of the world’s contradictions. I write to find that clarity and maybe offer it to others. It is not an answer—there are no solutions in such a space—but a clearing of fogs so we see better what might be done.  I write what I do to find that for myself. I’m trying to explain the world to me.

An endless task, but after all this time still the only worthwhile path I know.

2024 will bring challenges and more muddle and into that path if someone shines a light or offers a hand or shows you a possibility, then be cheered that you are not the only one walking it and searching.

Meanwhile, be well, be safe, and love each other. Above all, love each other.

Art

From There To Here, the Curious Path to Granger’s Crossing

It’s a good question: how does a veteran science fiction writer come to write an historical mystery-slash-love story? Especially one set in a period and place wherein, as far as I can find, no one else has bothered to set fiction. 

There are clear parallels between historical fiction and science fiction (clearer still between historical and fantasy) in that, depending on how far back and where you go, world building becomes a major component, and science fiction is very much about world building. Though the emphasis on that has of late verged on too much. We still have to create character, develop plot, and have something meaningful to say.

Like most people who grew up learning anything about St.Louis and its origins, I knew the basic story. In 1763, Lafayette and Company came up the Mississippi River and established a trading post on a bluff which quickly became the town of St. Louis, named in honor of Saint Louis the IX (though it didn’t hurt, I’m sure, that Louis XV was still king of France). The Chouteaus developed the place into a vital confluence of trade and in 1804 it became one of the main entry points for the westward expansion of the United States after Napoleon sold the territory of Louisiana to Jefferson in a fire sale at bargain prices.

Like most students of my generation, that was about it. Things became more interesting in the 1960s when one of our mayors, Cervantes, went on a campaign to celebrate “our Spanish heritage.” Like many people living here at the time, I scratched my head and said “what Spanish heritage?” After all, this is St. Louis, there are streets with French names, towns to the south have French names, it was the Louisiana Purchase, we lived in a French Catholic city with universities named for French Jesuits…and on and on. Mayor Cervantes was going on about something that ran counter to our sense of self. What Spanish heritage?

Well. Like anyplace that has been around more than a minute, the history is far more involved—and interesting—than that which we learned in grade school. But I had to arrive at it by decades of roundabout study, which leaves me wondering why history is so often taught the way it is. Prior to my research, early St. Louis history for me began with the Founding and ended with the Purchase, with a brief note about Lewis and Clarke. Next time it entered my notice was with Dred Scott and then, almost as briefly, the Civil War. Next up was the building of the Gateway Arch. We are too often contemptuous the history of our birthplace and generally know more about other cities than we do of our own.

My entry point, though, was stranger than most, perhaps. 

Many years ago, I worked as lab manager in a photo shop. Shaw Camera. One of the two best jobs I ever had. We were a custom black & white lab and we had a host of amazing customers. One of them was the city water department, which possessed a huge archive of photographs going back easily to the mid-19th century. They embarked on a project to have their glass plates printed and new copy negatives made.

One day they brought in a series of plates of the construction of Eads Bridge. They were surreal in the way a lifelong SF reader might find them, stirring connections to Jules Verne. The pictures of the bridge, rising from the waters of the river, the early stages of the anchors, the steel. I made a separate set of prints and gave them to my friend, SF writer Allen Steele, and we spent an evening going over them and speculating and doing some story construction based on those images. The idea of writing a novel based around that place and time took root. I started doing research.

That novel has yet to be written, but I did a lot of research into St. Louis of the 19th Century. (I still have some hopes of getting around to that book, so I still have all the research.) In the meantime, other projects came up.

I developed an idea for an alternate history novel set in St. Louis. I won’t here detail all the byways that took, but I did write that one, plus two more. While working on it, I continued my research. Since it was alternate history, I went all the way to the Founding to make sure my divergent history made sense.

And in the course of that stumbled on the colonial period.

Did you know there had been a battle of the revolutionary war fought in St. Louis? I didn’t. At best I recalled something adjacent having to do with George Rogers Clarke and Vincennes, but had no idea anything directly involved St. Louis.

And that’s where the Spanish heritage came into it. If it hadn’t been for the Spanish lt. governor, De Leyba, the battle might have been a non-event. The Spanish were the allies of the American rebels and De Leyba insisted St. Louis fight.

It was a one day affair, mainly. There are a number of personal journal accounts, many of which contradict in certain details. And there had been an assault across the river at the same time against Cahokia. The battle itself was interesting, but did not in itself suggest a whole novel to me. But there had been an American presence and…

Step by step, sidewise and widdershins, the elements of what became Granger’s Crossing came together. I was toying with switching genres and thought to do mysteries. I wrote two, one contemporary, the other historical. For a long time, neither attracted any interest.

But the more I looked into the period, the more interesting it all became, and multiple stories suggested themselves. The first is almost entirely fictional. But the background, the setting, is as close as I could make it to what was actually there. 

St. Louis at that time was a village, hovering around a thousand people. Three major north-south streets, farmland shooting west, a pond and stream along which a mill was eventually built, surrounded by now-gone mounds left by a native civilization long absent, and just south of the Missouri River, it became the center of the fur traffic in the midwest, overseen by a number of prominent people, but dominated by the Chouteaus, who were a political as well as financial dynasty. It was the town to which French settlers moved in the wake of the Seven Years’ War from the east side of the Mississippi, and younger than Ste Genevieve to the south, which was eventually inundated by the river and forced to move inland. From its founding in 1763 almost to the advent of the Purchase, the population remained roughly the same, but that is deceptive, since it was a trade center and a good number of people came and went, both trappers and Indians, occasionally driving the population up considerably in some months.

Spain took over because when France lost the war, Louis XV ceded the Louisiana territory to them rather than see it fall into British hands. Since the British then dominated Canada and started building forts in the north, there was bound to be conflict, and in 1780 a half-hearted bid was made by the British to take St. Louis. That would have seriously crippled Spanish trade. They failed. The habitants of St. Louis fought them off, even though outnumbered. The fact is, the combatants the British fielded were not regulars but largely local Indian tribes that, while ostensibly fighting for the British, were there for their own reasons, and when victory was neither quick nor easy, they left the field.

Into this, I introduced my main character, Ulysses Granger, a young lieutenant in the Continental army, seconded to Clarke’s militia as an observer, along with his best friend, Ham Inwood. When Ham goes missing, Granger comes looking for him, and finds his body, clearly murdered rather than a casualty of combat.

Due to the necessities of war, it is three years before Granger can return to start trying to find out what happened to Ham.

That was the point of departure for the novel. 

I said that historical fiction shares a common trait with science fiction. The further back in time one goes, the more alien the world encountered. Granted, people are people, but customs and resource contour our reactions, and in truth claiming that “people are all the same” is a facile and almost worthless aphorism when trying to reconstruct a time and place. Quite a lot of how people lived ends up being conclusions drawn from conjecture and reconstruction. You have to sit back from studying what is available, close your eyes, and try to build the world suggested.

The temptation to overlay contemporary ideas of right and wrong should be fought. Not that certain principles would not be found harmonious across time, but they would not necessarily manifest the same way, and certain questions likely would not even arise.

In the end, though, it is fiction, and it must speak to us now. Just as when one goes the other direction to imagine a future that may or may not happen, care must be taken to remember that change is a constant, and what we take for granted now may not remain relevant tomorrow.

I found a few books that proved very helpful in pointing my the right directions. The World, the Flesh, and the Devil by Patricia Cleary; Beyond the Frontier: A History of St. Louis to 1821 by Frederick A. Hodes; Francois Valle and His World by Carl J. Elkberg; Founding St. Louis by J. Frederik Fausz. Those dealt primarily with St. Louis. I used a number of broader histories to place it all in the broader context of the Revolutionary War, but those books, with their excellent references, took me through and into details that helped make the novel better, and I than them for their work.

So now the book is in the world. I am working on a sequel, set a couple years after the events in Granger’s Crossing, this one based on an actual murder, though I am delighting in looking somewhat past what was recorded and creating what I hope will be a richer mystery. 

And then there are the other novels which led me to this one. It’s been a strange path to get here. One of the pleasures has been to answer that question from my childhood: “What Spanish heritage?” Indeed.

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The Meander

I’m a bit tipsy as I write this. A nice bourbon, at an inappropriate time of the day. But my mind is bouncing from topic to topic, so I thought I’d let folks know what’s going on.

Is the next Granger novel going well? Well. Depends. I have a bit over forty thousand words done on the first draft. I ran into a wall, called the Osage, and have been semi-diligently researching this rather impressive tribe of Native Americans in order to say things about them that will not make me look stupid. They had an intricate if inconsistent relationship with first the French and then the Spanish, at at least two geographical points—the Arkansas River and St. Louis—that made things complicated for the Europeans at the time. While researching, I’m writing nothing. I stopped at the pivotal scene where some negotiation is required, and later in the story they will again be pivotal. So.

We’re planning a road trip down to Kaskaskia, just to get a feel for the place. Virtually nothing remains today of what was there at the time (1785) but it would still be useful to walk the ground. And then there is Fort de Chartres, which is pretty much on the same spot, but completely rebuilt.

Consequently, I have been brought face to face with one of my internal contradictions, which is bound up in the rush of writing new material but having to stop till I know more. I do not do the degree of research some writers do. I do enough to write semi-confidently. Others will learn a period or place down to its DNA. I do not, though I generally end up knowing more than I realize. Then someone asks a question and voila! there’s this font of data I didn’t even know I had. But really, I meander through the material, picking up bits here and there, searching for the threads that bind the times together. In time, I meander over quite a lot, just not in a rigidly organized way.

Since turning 69, I’ve been doing these periodic reassessments. Another meander. How much of what do I have the stuff to do? I have no concrete answer. I get tired more easily, but that may just be that I haven’t yet slowed down or taken on less.

I’m in a bit of a slump. I’ve been trying to push the book more, and I’ve tried a couple of new things, but I have no way of gaging what is or is not working. It would be nice to see a few more reviews in the various places where such things appear (and appear to matter). There is about a year and a half till my better half retires and we have some negotiations to do for the after time. It’s easy to fall into habits that may not work well when the situation changes. I’ve been fortunate in that I have a wonderful partner who has allowed me to pursue dreams that have not exactly produced the desired results. We’re still indulging our read-alouds and right now we’re reading Nicola Griffith’s Hild, which is superb, to be followed by her new one, Menewood.

Speaking of whom, last month we attended the World Fantasy Convention in Kansas City. Mainly because friends said they’d be there and it would be great to see us. It was good to be there, with them, but it led me to the conclusion that except for connecting with good friends, there really seems to be no reason to continue attending conventions. I’m not a Name. Again, I don’t know how to gage this, but in a 35 year career I’ve been a GoH only once.  Hmm.

But these people, these connections, these friends…how did this happen? I have been so lucky to have met and connected with such marvelous people from so many places! That is its own kind of success and I feel I’ve been gifted with a dream-come-true aspect to life I never thought to have,

Now, then, where was I? Oh. All future things depend on all present things. For those of you interested in the Granger story, I have ideas for several novels. (More meandering, from one book to next, with other things in between.) It could well be a long series. I’m finding considerable pleasure just now revisiting the territory, so to speak. As to whether those future stories appear, that is, of course, dependent on market forces over which I have little say. Christmas is coming up, If you know readers, then Granger’s Crossing would be a great gift. I have no budget, word of mouth is the best I can manage, so brag about me. Get those numbers up., Make my publisher happy and then the next one may appear. (I think you’ll like the next one, I really do; at least I’m having a good time writing it.)

As for the science fiction, well, soon I’ll have an announcement concerning my Secantis Sequence. I’m pretty excited about it. Stay tuned. There are more short stories in the works.

It would be helpful to have an agent, but after my last one dropped out of the field, I’ve been just a bit despairing of that. Too many places are unwilling to look at unagented work, and I can understand that, I can, but it makes it more difficult to shop work around. (Several years ago, in my new position as consignment book buyer, I had a conversation with a young writer whose novel I had rejected. He was trying to convince me to change my mind and then said the wrong, or possibly the right, thing: “You have no idea how hard it is breaking in.” In one of my rare moments of “I don’t give a shit candor” in that job, I explained who I was, what I had done, how many years I had been doing it, and what my track record was to date, ending with “So, yes, I do know how hard it is and I’m telling you, your book is not ready for prime time. Go somewhere and learn how to write.” Which to my pleasant surprise did not get an angry hang-up, but a long pause and a heartfelt, “What would you suggest?” We then had a long conversation about workshops and how long and why and so forth and I hung up feeling that he just might pursue my advice to good result. No, I do not remember his name, nor would I tell you if I did. Point being, this is not an endeavor for those unwilling to stay the course and put up with a lot of obstruction.)

Changing the subject, I am still working out, trying to stave off the erosion of age as best I can, and fortunately the only negative effect has been a need for more sleep. But I am trying to assemble a regular discussion group again. We had belonged to one that last many years, sometimes based on a pure philosophical discussion, then at others times around a book (Dante, Joyce, Melville), but always in as deep a dive as possible, with sharp people among whom I always felt like the dullard. Some died, some moved away. I’d like to start that again, but there’s an organic aspect to that which cannot be planned for. I do feel a bit slower, mentally. Until I get involved in a deep conversation and then al the cylinders seem still to fire as they should.

2024 is coming up. I’m more than a little concerned for next November. I’m actually a bit anxious about my fellow citizens. It is difficult to feel confident in a community that once sent a berserker into office and may have the potential to do so again. I fear for my friends, some of whom would be sorely put upon under more of that kind of dysfunction. For the first time in my life, I really do not know what will happen.

But I’ll comment on that in more detail later.

In my own little pocket of life, things are not bad. I have great friends, a wonderful partner, health, a bit of optimism, and the ability to appreciate it all. So, onward.

This update has been brought to you by my optimism. I’m going to meander off now.

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Recognitions

I have long understood that I am not a competitive person. Not in the sense of besting others, striving to be better than, more than, ahead of. Somewhere along the way over the last 60 + years, what might have become a competitive drive morphed into something, to my mind, more benign. Self-betterment is not, in my opinion, competitive in the way most people apprehend the term.

That said, I like awards. I have favorites. It seems important to acknowledge quality, impact, set goals, and shine a spotlight on that which is most laudable (for the moment) in order to validate the work done. Recognition is meaningful.

So we went to the World Fantasy Convention last weekend to see friends and I found myself hoping for a win for my friend Nicola Griffith. Her novel, Spear, was up for a best novel award. I was there when it went to someone else.

Now, I’ve been through a similar experience. I was shortlisted long ago for the Philip K. Dick Award for Compass Reach. We spent the money, went to Seattle, attended the ceremony…and I didn’t win. It was a peculiar sensation, sitting there muffled in disappointment which I knew to be, in some broader context, pointless. Because really, Best is such a fickle, arbitrary thing. But it was recognition. And I very much wanted that.

Nicola has no shortage of recognition. She is amazing, she has just published a new novel that is receiving immense praise. In terms of any kind of competition, she’s doing well. I think I was more disappointed on her behalf than she was. Maybe not. It is true that the “just to be nominated” thing matters.

But it made me think about my own career and where I am. The whole weekend turned out to be a moment of reassessment. Not for the first time, I questioned what it was I was doing. I’ve reached a point of wondering if it’s worth the effort.

I do this from time to time. Partly, it’s impostor syndrome. But it’s also a consequence of trying to maintain a reasonable perspective. The way I look at it, I had a window, say between 1995 and 2005. Ten years in which to establish myself. All the possibilities were there. I was selling short stories fairly regularly, in 2000 I started publishing novels. And by 2005, the upward trajectory failed and I had missed the chance to get a major publishing contract and so the long slide into Also Ran status. A variety of factors, most of which were not in mt control, created this situation, and I was brought face to face with some of them last weekend. I’ve spent the last 18 years trying to come to terms with this while also writing with the intent of reversing the trend. I have a new novel out, in a new genre. I’ve continued publishing short fiction.

I wonder occasionally if my lack of a competitive drive has hurt me. Possibly. It was always the work that mattered. All the rest, as my dad used to say, was how one kept score.

Colleagues of a certain age acknowledged my presence. That felt good. But there’s a new generation on stage now and for all I know, none of them ever heard of me. I realized by the end of the weekend that I do not go to these things anymore for professional reasons, but to see friends, of whom I have more than a few, of those very good friends.

Except for that (I have been invited to and attended only one convention as Guest of Honor), I have no reason to attend anymore. (Yes, lightning may strike and next year everything will turn around, but that need for perspective prevents me from hoping, certainly from expecting.)

It was the conversations that made it worthwhile. More than worthwhile. I connected with a couple of new people, spent time in the bar, caught up with old acquaintances. That felt marvelous. That, it seems, is what matters more to me. An award or two would be nice, but it’s the afterparty stuff, sitting in a corner with a few folks laughing and drinking and eating and being in the moment. And for that, I am grateful. Lucky, in fact.

Thank you.

 

Art

On The Road, Off The Road, In Between

We attended an out-of-town convention last week, the first we have done together in many years, the first I’ve done since 2015. I made a policy not to go on the road when I have nothing to promote. The exception to that is the chance to see friends who will be at a con or who live nearby and the dates just happen to coincide. In this case, two of our favorite people live in Pittsburgh and seeing them was the deciding factor in choosing to attend Confluence.

Confluence is a small local convention that has in the past been surprising in what it offered, namely the chance to sit down with writers I respect and admire. I’ve had breakfast with Gene Wolfe, longish conversations with Michael Swanwick, met William Tenn (Phil Klass). The panels are of interest and usually the interaction with fans has been on a high level. I like the people who run it. They do a good job.

But it’s quite a drive from St. Louis to Pittsburgh, and while it has become a familiar one, we are older and more susceptible to road-burn. The weather was pleasant enough going up and it remained moderate while we were there, but it was hot coming back and we return to a scorching week. It’s Friday and I’m still recovering.

One off-site event was fascinating. Friday morning, before the con got started, a small group of us drove into the city to tour a church with some amazing murals. St. Nicholas in Millvale. Go to site, take a look. A Serbian artist named Max Vanka painted murals over most of the interior and they are amazing. Done in stages,  from World War I on, they are more than just religious paintings, and they are radiant. There is an organization trying to save them (watercolor over bare wall, the leaching is bad) and I commend you as an art lover to help if you are so moved.

You might wonder, knowing me, why I would marvel and support something like this. Religion aside, which I could not care less for, these are works of art. This is the product of people of skill and imagination. The passion is evident.

After that, we returned to the hotel (out by the airport) and spent a few days being fans. I reconnected with some folks I haven’t seen in some time. And we spent time with our friends, Tim and Bernadette, who are amazing. We needed a longer stay, but alas.

Confluence, as I mentioned, is good convention. They take science fiction seriously and are good to their guests. But I will tell you that I’m now of a disposition that I’m less inclined to just pop into a town, especially that far away, for just the con. Next time we will take more time, do other things, relax. The in-between time from the road is the vital part, even though we generally like traveling.  I want to take things more leisurely in future.

Next up, SF-wise, is Archon. Perhaps I’ll see you there.

Meantime, it’s good to be home….and not moving.

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Bending the Timestream

At the recent book release event at Left Bank Books, the question was raised if I am ever tempted to bend history. After all, I write fiction. I said no, that sticking to history is important to me.

Thinking about it since, I have to backtrack a little. I took the question to mean am I ever tempted to substitute a wholly fictional history for genuine history. I mentioned James Michener, who wrote dense, lengthy historical novels with such authority that one could be forgiven for believing things actually transpired that way. It is difficult to see where what really happened parts from what Michener intended as story. And surely here and there details get confused or altered or contoured to fit the narrative. Is this bending history?

History itself is somewhat malleable in the telling. Why else would we have so many books about the same events and periods? Interpretation of known events and extrapolation about the gaps in our knowledge occur all the time. What we think it meant plays a huge part. Is this bending history? How are we to regard those works that have been superseded by new information that overwrites what was once thought to be The Facts?

The challenge of historical fiction, it seems to me, is to be true to the spirit of a period. (In much the same way as in science fiction we strive to be true to the idea of science even when creating a whole new branch or reinterpreting for our purposes known science.) If there are events which occurred that form the background of our narrative, we are, I think, obligated to accept them as essential and not throw them out because we would rather something else had happened. If we occasionally put words in a historical character’s mouth he or she never said (because we have them talking to a fictional character that never existed in the first place) we have to be careful not to change that figure’s character. We’re walking on the eggshells of consistency and a careful tread is required.

I realized after the event mentioned above that I could have given a fuller answer. Because I have written alternate history, which is a form that not only bends history but quite often twists it all out of shape, supplanting what happened with a might-have-happened, I should have said that, yes, sometimes I am very tempted to bend history. Just not when I’m trying to write history.

Which leads me to another part of the conversation wherein I posited that historical fiction and science fiction can be seen as the same sort of endeavor, just taken in opposite directions. SF can be taken as history that has not happened yet. To a certain extent, it has to follow the same rules as historical fiction, namely period consistency. And it has to unfold the way we recognize as historically plausible. Furthermore, with historical fiction, it is not inaccurate to say that as we go back in time we are visiting another country. Go back far enough, another world. Further still, and we are in alien territory. The extrapolations necessary to create characters that live and breathe in the world of two, three or ten centuries ago are not that different from imagining humans in a very different world of a thousand years from now.

So a certain amount of bending happens, whether we wish it or not, in order to make room for the actual fiction. The best outcome is a work in which our fictional characters walk among the historical people as if they could really have been there, disturbing the timeline hardly at all. If here and there a bit of a tug or push is necessary to make the story work, well, we should bend it back by the end.

There’s more to consider in this and going forward I will be thinking about it. No doubt the history of my fictions will be bent a little in the process.

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Have I Mentioned…?

Did I mention I have a new book? It launches in April, the 25th to be exact, and I’d like to tell you something about.

Granger’s Crossing is a departure for me. At least, at first glance. After decades of writing and publishing science fiction, I took a shot at historical fiction.  In fact, this novel came directly out of another project, which was science fiction.

Quite some time ago I had an idea for an alternate history. I poked around for a good departure point and settled on the Louisiana Purchase. What if, I asked, it had never happened? What if Napoleon had never sold it to the United States? What if the continent had remained divided between France and the United States at the Mississippi?

After digging around I found what I considered a reasonable justification for this scenario and then went on to flesh out the novel, which took me in some fascinating directions.

One thing it gave me was more than a passing appreciation of early St. Louis history. After completing the first novel, I thought (quite arrogantly) hey, I could probably write a halfway decent historical novel.

On such unexamined assumptions surprising things are born.

This is NOT the alternate history. This one is the historical, though that doesn’t mean it is any less speculative.

One of the most under-attended periods of American history seems to be the Revolutionary War in the West. The eastern seaboard draws all our attention. That, after all, is where all the myth-making occurred—Philadelphia, Boston, New York, the Chesapeake, Baltimore. The prominent names are all  there—Washington, Hamilton, Greene. The West seems less important, but the Mississippi River was important and the proximity of Spanish Territory played into strategic equations more than is taught in the average high school history class. 

Even in my home I was surprised at how few people knew there had been a major battle. 

Looking into it led me into a deeper exploration of that whole period of St. Louis history and the shape of a story began to coalesce. 

I have never understood the general indifference toward history, particularly among people who otherwise love good stories. Pick up a volume of history and give it more than a little attention, and stories are everywhere. 

In constructing the plot for Granger’s Crossing, I found a cast of characters almost begging for attention. I had no shortage of actual people living in St. Louis at the time to fill out the substance and flavor of the village. 

At some point in the alchemical process of creating fiction, my hero, Ulysses Granger, took form. Step by step, I found cause for him to be there. I felt comfortable using a murder mystery template, at least to start the action, and once I found The Body, the plot began to take on a life of its own.

Given the circumstances—the Battle of St. Louis, known then as L’Annee du coup, in 1780—I had to establish a reason for my Continental soldier to either stay or return to St. Louis, which led to further research. The issues around the rivers at the time and the various interests involved, American, Spanish, French, British, provided the canvas on which to depict my characters, their motives, the challenges. 

Somewhat to my surprise, the world of young Ulysses Granger took on the familiar attractions of the worlds I had explored in my science fiction. In that, I find historical fiction mirrored by science fiction. In a way, both are history and both require an attention to detail and an ability to imagine displacements from the present. Halfway into the writing, it felt familiar, at least in the sense of examining places and people wholly unfamiliar to me.

(One of the curious things I found is that of all the things one might expect the “Americans” to have brought to the region, the one thing they did provide was record-keeping. A lot of it, although most of it appears to be a byproduct of, essentially, title searches.)

This is exciting. This is one of the chief pleasures of fiction, the chance to see life through eyes other than our own. This is a culture we can only assume to be familiar, but really it is in many ways quite alien and in that quite exotic. 

It took a few years to get this “right,” and by right I mean a satisfying narrative experience. Finding the beginning histories of my home town proved a delight and a pleasure. You can look at this place, where cultures met and intermingled in curious ways, and wonder how we came to be. As the population changed due to immigration and the long-distance decisions by powers not present on the ground, I found this period a kind of oasis in time, a singular setting for an evolving identity. Granger himself is very much an outsider, giving him a vantage point from which to see St. Louis as an observer. Though with Martine, the woman who takes center stage in his life, he is more intimately connected. 

It will be interesting (to me and hopefully others) to see how Granger changes at time goes on. Yes, that means I have more stories about him to tell.

I am delighted that Blank Slate Press is publishing the novel. Their enthusiasm has been infectious. My thanks to them all.

The official release date in April 25th. There will be a bookstore event at Left Bank Books in St. Louis. Call them for details (314-367-6731) and please consider attending.

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Year One

A year plus since retirement. October, 2021, I left the regular work-world. It was a harder decision than anyone knew, even me. I’d certainly given myself enough advanced notice, letting my employer know eight or so months in advance. Plenty of time to train replacements, let people get used to the idea. Even me.

Now it’s December of ’22 and I wonder at the time.

I’m sure most people have plans. Plans. “I’m going to do—.” Sure. And then reality swallows everything and what happens happens and maybe some of those plans survive. I’m looking around an office I had every intention of thoroughly cleaning, rearranging, and updating. Well, the piles are in slightly different places, and some of them are different piles than before, but in the main it doesn’t look like I’ve done a thing.

The same goes for the rest of the basement. Attempts have been made, but frankly I need a month in which nothing else makes demands on my attention.

I have, however, managed to clear some dust off my career (writing) and make some headway in getting it back on track. After my novel-writing period more or less crashed and burned, I finally decided to turn back to short fiction, and to my pleasant surprise things picked up. I’ve written and sold a score of new stories. And now I have a new novel coming out in the spring. (Not science fiction, which is a bit of a surprise, though very welcome. More about that later.) In recent weeks a few things have occurred to give me hope that matters will turn around even more. Allow me to leave that vague for the time being.

I include as an element of any advice I dispense to want-to-be writers that of paramount importance for a career is Persistence. Just showing up is inestimably vital. You cannot succeed if you quit. Persistence does not guarantee success, but surrender pretty much guarantees no success. I’m now of the opinion that this is a matter of playing in traffic. Put yourself out there, in the flow, and eventually something will hit you. Not the most coherent plan, but with few exceptions the one most of us are able to act on.

The thing I did not count on is the fading of desire. I remember the fire, the urgency, the firestorm of optimism, and the excitement at the creation of new work. The impatience with the molasses progress of execution. Why should it take so long to get these words down in the right order? Why did everything take so long…

And now, forty years after making the decision to pursue this thing, that burning eagerness has lessened. I’ve become a bit jaded and quite tired. Partly this is a kind of maturity that counsels me to use myself more efficiently, that the fire never added much to achievement. It still takes so much time to write something, to edit it, to shepherd it through the stages of getting it out into the world, and that now it seems to take the same amount of time as it did when in the grip of the fever. Calmer impulses marshal resources to better effect. 

But more than that, I simply don’t suffer from disappointment and disillusion as much. Rejections still hurt, but not as much, and there’s a muffling kind of acceptance that seems therapeutic now. If it will happen, fine, I can only work the machine the best I know how and wait.

I wonder if this is not just the result of callouses grown thicker and that I’m missing out on something that I once felt to be so significant, possibly even the point.

Still, I’m working. I believe I’m writing better than ever, the work that goes out is better. My impatience is the only thing that seems lacking.

And then there is the rest of life…

I’ve begun reading philosophy again. Once upon a time, I was a casual admirer of Ludwig Wittgenstein. I appreciated some of his approaches to what was known as Logical Positivism, part of the Analytical School of modern philosophy. Primarily, it was his (quite arrogant) thesis that all of philosophy’s “problems” stemmed from misapprehension and misconstruals of language. That if we just figured out how to be absolutely clear, we would understand. Granted, he realized later how simplistic this claim was and embarked on a deeper analysis of language structures and their application to questions of the real. 

I have believed for some time that science fiction is at base the most philosophical of literary endeavors, that the primary assumptions in most of it have no relevance outside an attempt at understanding the nature of reality in a unique way that emerges in the array of speculative presentations against which human struggle might be understood in evolutionary terms. In a way, the very idea of The Future has no actual meaning outside a philosophical framework. The best we can say is that something will follow the Now in which we exist. We call that the Future, but it has no material reality that we can examine. By the time there is something to examine, it is no longer The Future, and from our position Now we can only make assumptions about the Future because Now is the Future of a Past we can cite.

That is the exact sort of proposition that one would find in a good piece of science fiction. It is also the sort of thing that informs philosophical propositions.

It relates here, now, in this, because the day I retired I had a speculative framework of what my Future would be like. Ambitions, desires, expectations. (If you think about, life is a science fiction story.)

I haven’t attended to philosophy as such for some time now. It would be fun to get together a group (again) for regular discussions. The last several years have in so many ways challenged common agreements on causality, truth, and commonality itself, and it seems the only sane responses are either to yield to the impossibility of ordering the conceptions of the world (insanity) or work at better understanding in order to create conceptions that reduce the chaos. Ultimately we can only control our own reactions. 

Some of this, for me, comes from having reached a strange place in relation to those past ambitions. I am in many ways more comfortable in my own skin than I have ever been, but at the same time I recognize the world around me as a place I do not know how I found. I’m reading older books, my indulgence in history has increased, and yet I still revel in the new voices I encounter, even while the names on the spines fail to spark the kind of thrill I once had regularly seeing a new work by an author with whom I was familiar. I can see clearly how nostalgia can become a trap, one we may not wish to escape. The familiar has such gravity, increasing year by year, distorting our path.

It’s Christmas weekend. The landscape is punctured by rabbit holes. The people you surround yourself with (and who are likewise surrounded by you) are the only guidons to keep you on the solid plane of vital connections. The deep structures of reality (of perceptions) are anchors to a world navigable to the betterment of the soul. The hypotheses of conspiracy wonks are less than the shadows on Socrates’ cave wall. (I will not call them conspiracy theories—that elevates them above their utility and lends credibility where none exists—but at best hypotheses, at worst con games designed to distract from actual living.) I am still with my partner of over 42 years. Snow fell yesterday. The sun is bright today. I’m listening to some very good music (late period Herb Alpert, if you care to know—he seems to have left behind the heavy reliance on “catchy” tunes and clever hooks that made him so popular in the 60s but he is still one of the cleanest horn players around) and I have the capacity to speculate on matters of moment. The trick is to identify what matters.

Wittgenstein, as I noted, asserted that we need find the clearest way to express ourselves in order to “solve” the problems of philosophy. I have no real quarrel with that idea—after all, I’m a writer, story aside my work consists of trying to find clearer ways to say things that might lead to truth—but I would only add that life does not have A Solution. Living is a process, an evolving set of realignments, relocations, and above all recognitions (re-cognitions). There is no single answer, only the ongoing encounter and construction of an imagination that renders chaos meaningful.

Starting on that path can be as simple a thing as cleaning up one’s office.Â