Author: John Knych

A review of “The Works of Vermin” by Hiron Ennes

Published in the Los Angeles Review of Books – January 12th, 2026

Read Here

(5 minute read)

(Thank you to Eric Berger and his book, Liftoff, my principle source for this essay)

In this year of our technological overlords, 2026, SpaceX as a company is going public. It is estimated to be worth $800 billion. The achievements of SpaceX have single-handedly brought down the cost of sending objects into orbit by a factor of five. Let’s look at how this all happened, through their initial failures and first success:

Once upon an imploding star, in May of 2002, Elon Musk founded SpaceX. Five months later, in October of 2002, Elon Musk received $175.8 million from selling PayPal. Now he had a significant chunk of Monopoly money to design and build rockets.

After a failed trip to Russia to buy missiles (ICBMs), in which the Russians laughed in his face, spit on his shoes, and tried to rip him off (they originally wanted to charge $8 million/missile, but during negotiations suddenly raised the price to $21 million/missile), Musk and SpaceX spent the next three years developing the Falcon 1 rocket. He hired the best engineers possible. A typical query by a propulsion chief, during an interview, was making sure the candidate knew how gas behaved in the intense environment of a rocket engine. The Merlin engine development occurred entirely in-house. SpaceX funded its own remote launch site at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshal Islands:

Failure 1: March 24th, 2006

Failure Time: ~33 seconds after takeoff

Cause: A small B-nut which had not been properly tightened on a kerosene fuel line. John Hollman (Launch operations) and Eddie Harris (structures engineer) had removed and reattached this B-nut to access an igniter valve that needed rewiring. This aluminum B-nut [cost: $5] on the fuel pump inlet pressure failed, not only due to improper tightening, but because of inter granular corrosion cracking; corrosion from sea salt spray on Omelet (the island) the night before. The B-nut ignited and triggered an engine fire. NBC News headline: SpaceX rocket failure traced to bad nut.

Back to the drawing board. One year passes…

Intermission: The ablative nozzle caused SpaceX hell.

It is made of something akin to fiberglass, the ablative fabric is a resin mixed with silicon fibers. The fate of SpaceX was hanging on these [ablative] chambers. $30,000 a pop, manufactured by another company, prevents nozzle from melting from super hot flames. They had to do “basic pressure test” after “basic pressure test,” $30k after $30k. With chamber after chamber, the ablative coating would bubble, then crack. Musk had an idea: perhaps if they applied epoxy to the chambers, the sticky, glue-like material would seep into the cracks, then cure, solving the problem. Musk stayed up all night, missing an Xmass party and ruining a $2k pair shoes, with workers applying epoxy to the engine chamber. Didn’t work. The exhausted engineers and technicians working all night with Musk still admired his “willingness to jump into the fray, and get his hands dirty by their sides.”

Failure #2: March 21, 2007

Failure Time: ~5 minutes after liftoff

Cause: Residual Thrust after Engine shutdown, caused state separation failure

The main engine shut down normally, but there was remaining thrust that pushed the first stage into the second stage of the rocket. The stages collided instead of separating. The vehicle lost control and was destroyed. Hans Koenigsmann, Vice President of Flight Reliability for SpaceX, acknowledged that he and everyone else had missed the threat of residual thrust.

The shutdown dynamics weren’t fully modeled. Basically, when you test a rocket engine on the ground, the ambient air pressure is 15 psi, so if the rocket chamber has a pressure of 10 psi due to residual thrust, you just don’t see it in the data.

In the vacuum of space, however, with rocket hardware so close, even a minuscule thrust is enough to force a catastrophic collision between stages.

One year, five months pass…

*Flight 3 was delayed, however, because of a crack in the engine skirt due to courier driver hitting a pot hole when delivering it between airports.*

Failure #3: August 3, 2008

Cause: The first stage re-contacted the second stage, again caused by excessive residual thrust, but worsened by timing and “software control logic.” The engineers just couldn’t test the problem adequately on the ground.

The engine thrust tail-off lasted longer than expected. Separation occurred too early. The First stage clipped the Second stage. The Second stage spun uncontrollably.

A single line of code had derailed the rocket.

Since only a single line of code had caused the failure, Musk pushed for the next attempt A.S.A.P.. This was their last chance; they only had the hardware left for one more rocket and six weeks to launch it. For Flight Four, all SpaceX had to do was add four seconds to the time between main engine cutoff and stage separation. However, there was a chance that there would’t be a Flight Four. In addition to the time crunch, Musk’s money was running out. Tesla was on the brink of collapse amid a global financial crisis. I broke my ankle falling through the roof of a school. Musk’s marriage was falling apart. In September of 2008, after eight years of marriage, with 4-year-old twins and 2-year-old triplets, Musk filed for divorce. He was vomiting at night from the stress, as his entire fortune from PayPal had been invested in these two companies ($100 million into SpaceX, $75 million into Tesla), which both teetered on the edge of bankruptcy.

Normally, the parts of a Falcon 1 would be shipped from the U.S. to the Marshall Islands by sea, wrapped up like this:

But this sea transport took 2-3 weeks. SpaceX didn’t have that time. A rocket, their last chance, was flown from the U.S. to the island in an Air Force plane (C-17). But the manual provided to SpaceX, concerning how the plane operated, was outdated, and the descent and depressurization rates for C-17 on the charter flight were significantly more aggressive than the figures provided in the manual.

As the C-17 lost altitude to land, the LOX tank of the rocket (liquid oxygen fuel tank, which only had a small opening, a one-quarter inch fuel line that went though a desiccant so that no moisture got into the rocket) suffocated, and the rocket imploded. The crew heard “loud, terrible popping noises.”

The last rocket of SpaceX was crumpling. The SpaceX engineers’ faces went white as ghosts. One engineer started crying. The structure of the rocket “caved in, one loud ping after another, as if some giant were slowly squeezing a beer can.” They rushed to the front of the craft.

The pilots had a decision to make. They had a $200 million aircraft with two dozen lives and an imploding rocket aboard. They were thinking it would be safer to just open the plane’s large rear door and jettison the unstable rocket into the ocean below. (They would have done this if the SpaceX engineers weren’t there.) But the SpaceX team said, “Increase altitude, climb back up. We’ll fix this.”

“By the way,” the pilot said, “we only have thirty minutes of fuel.” The SpaceX team had ten minutes before the aircraft would restart its descent. They had to solve this problem or SpaceX as a company was toast.

The SpaceX team in the C-17 went back to the rocket and started pulling all manner of knives out of their pockets, then began cutting into the white shrink wrap over the rocket.

They needed more tools. The C-17 “loadmaster” gave them a tool chest: it contained a flathead screwdriver and a single crescent wrench. This, at least, allowed the technicians to open a couple of small lines. But to adequately equalize the pressure inside the rocket with that of the cargo bay, somebody needed to open a large pressurization line leading into the liquid oxygen tank. This could only be accessed by climbing into the rocket’s interstage.

The rocket continued to implode, thousands of feet above the ocean. All hell was breaking loose. Zach Dunn stepped forward.

“I’ll go in.” He turned to his friend, Mike Sheehan. “If the rocket starts to blow, pull me out.” He held a wrench and crawled into the interstage. Darkness surrounded him as he moved slowly, deeper in, along the wall. Sheehan’s hands held on to Dunn’s ankles. As Dunn moved, sharp components lining the exterior structure scraped his back, and the tank continued to pop and ping.

Dunn reached the pressurization line and managed to use the wrench to twist it open. To his relief, he heard air whooshing into the rocket.

“Take me out!” Sheehan yanked Dunn back across the tangle of pressurization lines and valves, which ripped into Dunn’s body.

The rocket hissed as it repressurized. Before the engineers’ eyes, the metal stage began popping back into its cylindrical form. Did this mean the rocket was a lost cause? The aluminum skin had never been intended to flex like this, as a rocket should never be exposed to higher external pressure.

“We all thought we were done,” Chinnery said. “The tank had imploded. We were devastated.”

A few days later, a tiny camera attached to flexible tube, known as a borescope, was inserted through a sensor port into the first stage to assess the damage. About ten engineers crowded around a tiny screen as the probe snaked around inside the LOX tank. A baffle had been torn out of its bracket.

“That was the moment,” Dunn said, “when we knew for sure the rocket needed surgery and that we were screwed.”

Chinnery estimated it would take six weeks to take the first stage apart, inspect the damage, fix it, test it, and get back on track to launch. Chinnery presented the plan to Buzza. Buzza and Thompson shared it with Musk.

“Elon saw that and went off the frickin’ deep end,” Thompson said. Six weeks was too long. SpaceX didn’t have six weeks. Realistically, SpaceX did not even have a month before its funding ran out. Musk believed the rocket could be made functional.

There was no time for quality control or meticulous records. They did not have six weeks. They had one.

Back in Hawthorne, Texas, Thompson and Buzza grabbed all the hardware they might need (such as baffles, clips, and fasteners, and much more), then loaded Musk’s Dassault Falcon 900 jet down with supplies on Saturday. (Musk was busy at Tesla, sleeping on the factory floor, the Tesla Roadster production line was failing repeatedly, especially the transmission: he had pumped his last remaining $20 million liquid cash into the company, in order to pay suppliers for the next few weeks, but if Tesla didn’t receive $40 million from investors in October, the company would fail. If the Flight #4 didn’t work, confidence would fall, and investors were unlikely to give any more cash to Musk).

On Monday the Falcon 900 jet landed in Kwaj, but there was a skeleton airport crew that checked the flight in, and allowed Buzza and Thompson to check out, but told them that they couldn’t unload their plane until the next day. There was no time to wait. Buzza and Thompson drove down the road outside the airport, noticed an open gate near the jet, drove their truck through the gate and up to the plane, and unloaded the cargo themselves.

On the island there was a thrumming whirlwind of activity. An engineer’s emergency room flooded with structural-engineering patients with gunshot wounds. To support the one-thousand-pound engine, Ed Thomas had fashioned a makeshift platform from some wooden blocks. In the span of a single hour, they had stripped the rocket and put its engine on blocks.

Broken slosh baffles were replaced, welds inspected, lines straightened. Within less than a week, they buttoned the first stage back up.

“We knew full well that if anything failed, it was game over,” Thompson said. But in a week a small group of engineers and taken apart a rocket, then put it back together. That’s incredible and unprecedented. This process takes NASA months, without the pressure of a financial guillotine about to the chop off the head of the organization. Then again, this story reminds us: pressure in the brain, rather than a LOX tank, can be good.

After pressure tests, which went well, they bolted the second stage on to their first stage. Then the launch team rolled the entire rocket, the very last Falcon 1 hardware they had to use – out to the launchpad. By the last week of the month, they were as ready as they were ever going to be. It was all or nothing.

Flight #4: September 28th, 2008:

Success. Falcon 1 became the first privately developed liquid fuel rocket to reach Earth orbit. SpaceX was awarded a $1.6 billion Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. Thanks to…

(Delayed stage separation)

(Added settling thrusters)

(Improved shutdown modeling)

(Update flight software logic; i.e. they fixed that single line of code)

(The follow transcript below was machine-generated, and we all know that A.I. can often be a dumbass, so please excuse the errors as I clean them up.)

[00:00:01.730] – John Knych

Hello everyone! Welcome to a book talk on Salvation with Peter F. Hamilton. Peter does not need an introduction. He is a celebrated British Scifi author who has had a long career publishing tons of books since 1987, I believe. And the books that we will be focusing on today is the Salvation Trilogy, which were published I believe in 2018, 2019, and 2021. My first question to you, Peter, is about the origin of this trilogy. How did you conceptualize it? Do remember how you started to write it? And what was your your origin idea?

[00:00:44.600] – Peter F. Hamilton

There was no one idea, there’s never one idea that sparks all of this. It’s all a combination of themes and ideas. I think probably the main one I’m thinking of now is: the trust people place in others these days and how misplaced that is a lot of the time…when you’re in this sort of post-truth era that we seem to be in… who do you turn to in times of crisis…those of the kind of things that are quite big throughout the book. Yes.

[00:01:20.770] – John Knych

Excellent. Moving on the Brandon.

[00:01:25.300] – Brandon M.

Thank you Peter for being here. 

[00:01:29.260] – Peter F. Hamilton

I can see my books in the background there.

[00:01:31.690] – Brandon M.

Yeah yeah.

[00:01:34.030] – John Knych

He’s got the best book case right now.

[00:01:37.150] – Brandon M.

So my question is, I really like the portal technology. You came up with and you creeted this economy around these portals. We use for terraforming. It’s waste disposal, transport, transportation in all kinds of that. That so I think so this whole The changing society around it. So can you tell us a little bit about how you came up with this portal, think and like the ways that like. How did you come up with how all the ways that it could affect society and all just kind of your world building process. I guess, that sort of thing,

[00:02:18.570] – Peter F. Hamilton

It is I mean, it’s a very on the whole whole thing that you have to have you have to have both sides and now remember this, you have to have both sides of the whole together to start with, and then you have to transport one, but it’s always an instantaneous movement between the two. So you don’t have faster than light travel, but you do when you when you’ve taken at home all out another. Way and you’re traveling at relativistic speed. It will take two years to get one of the portal there. But then you can just step through Instantanée. So it’s that kind of transport system. So what I do from there is just kind of look out how that will affect the economy ? I mean it’s not unique, I mean. Larry Niven and space University has a different version of it, but he and I love this story and them back in the seven days. And it is here again. I had really thought through the value and work and how it would affect people and when you when it is so cheap to go anywhere a lot of barriers in society, we will collapse which will become one way towards a monoculture, which I don’t think it’s a good thing from the point of view and all that kind of thing so transport costs are kind of what I’m not here, become minimal.

[00:03:55.870] – Peter F. Hamilton

You don’t take transport if you’ve got it if you need fresh water in the Sahara, which I think was one of the things they were doing it. From the antarctic you just wait and see and all the way through it. It’s easy, it’s cheap and easy and when you have that level of technology things can really start being done that you can’t consider today, it’s like dumping all out of ice in the middle of the Sahara or think it was the Australian Dazed and the book of stuff like that. And then it’s just that they transport. Introduced in salvation where I mean it gets up in the morning in Glasgow and walk to work which is in London. I think and it’s basically if you’ve ever seen the London tube map it’s not the map that has everything in the relative position to each other is the line of the line. The train goes down is just the line with the space one after the other. You don’t need to know where they are in the physical relation to each other. That’s just what you get on the tube.

[00:05:08.370] – Peter F. Hamilton

That’s the next time. You get off. So it’s exactly the same principle is that there was one section. They make me cut from the book, which which was in that very early periods, which I was trying to explain how everything is connected through networks, which are then connected to each other and I think I think it was the one that there is one of the lines. There is in the circle. So the station are out in the circle in real life, but because they are back to back to each other through the portal link. It’s just the straight line line. So if you stand into one. You can see the back of your head because the portal are connected in the circle, but there are only projects in the straight line at which the editor said. I think we’ve had enough details and it’s just gonna confuse people. So yeah, it’s stuff like that you can ship anything around for minimal costs. So you can finally all the dirty infrastructure machinery manufacturing of world or somewhere horrible that it isn’t gonna matter you can clean up the world with by dumping incredibly toxic crafts that we’ve produced with the last two hundred years, just get rid of it once and for all all of which will will shape and change the economy, so it all in every step of the idea.

[00:06:35.390] – Peter F. Hamilton

I had like what will we do with waste with toxic dumps that we’ve got the day that we’re just bearing in the land or something we can just get rid of it and make the world a better Ecological and to leave in.

[00:06:52.330] – John Knych

Thank you.

[00:06:53.860] – Brandon M.

Thank you.

[00:06:55.390] – John Knych

You enjoyed the of what you did with the portal and the investigation of investigation of that graphic crime where they were like. That was satisfying. Use of the text and moving on to Noemie.

[00:07:14.440] – Noémie

Yes, I’m sorry. I didn’t remove my my sound. I’m going to ask you more general questions. If that’s okay with you. I have read all your books so far except for this. I haven’t actually read the last one. I’m so sorry, I was alive, but I found that the writing of the characters changed the low through the years and salvation stayed in my mind because it was very different and the way you would characters into the plot and into the story was very different. CAN you explain why the shift if there was a conscious one.

[00:07:49.120] – Peter F. Hamilton

Of my writing has progressed over the years. I’ve been doing this for years now. So I’m getting better at it. The the thing that made it is the first book of salvation was the structure of the story which for those of you that I haven’t read it. It’s the five people going on a journey to investigate and en alliant spacecraft and each of them tell the story on the way which I’ve seen before in Dan Simmons, Hypérion and I thought this is a fabulous way to introduce us to a new world science fiction team in everything like the portal system has to be explained and it does it without too much too much. I have enough dump kind of narrative. And I wanted to do that for years, but I knew very well that everyone would go. Oh yes, he’s just copd down and which is actually goes back to show. So it’s what I did on the Canterbury Tales. He had this pilgrims going in the age of the history and I was then when it was published two thousand fifteen or something.

[00:09:08.300] – Peter F. Hamilton

I was at the point in my my career where I did I really do not care If people just say I’m starting from Simmons and enough that were comment on it when it was published. But like I said I didn’t care because it is such a perfect way of introducing the science-fiction story. So that’s that’s why there was that big shift. I like to try and do something relatively new each time, which is what I’ve written in so many different universe if you like I mean, I have I think I think I want to. And I really right back from the start. I did not want to be the guy who is written by two books in one universe. I just I just couldn’t be myself and I wanted to explore other concepts and other ways of doing things, which is why different university of been created through it my career, so so of evolution and I wanted to do something new. I thought that was a great way of being the character in the world of science-fiction, and I stand by that it is other people are now friends to use it.

[00:10:15.640] – Peter F. Hamilton

So yes, that’s it, that’s how it happened.

[00:10:18.370] – Noémie

Okay. Thank you so much welcome.

[00:10:23.710] – John Knych

To Jenn and also for those who just arrived like that. If you don’t ask questions, you know how to ask you can just say so.

[00:10:32.650] – Jenn

I saw the feature in the book feels really familiar and reliable even know so much has changed. How do you go about keeping a world so recognizable and still transforming it completely.

[00:10:48.770] – Peter F. Hamilton

AM I trying to resonance, which is strange world to use, you know who has this amazing job easily rushing around and fire, but is still got relationships issues and is still worried about money and is still in need time off and all this kind of things which we do all related to is just his job is different, but everything that spin out from his job is the same and is recognized Bill today in all things are still going wrong. People are not doing what he wants to the politics doesn’t agree with him and half of it. We’ve got this, we’ve got this, so I try and build in the the every man and the every woman and to all I have to have somebody to have this kind of character, I help in most of the books because space opera used to be the big dramatique conflict between the good guy and the bad guys and was all very exciting and adventurous and more interested in in the little people underneath. I mean what the big conflict is is fabulous and when it’s over changed what changed the guy who wasn’t in the big battle scene and wasn’t on the front line there.

[00:12:10.180] – Peter F. Hamilton

How they supported have they not supported ? What’s going on All that has all that is essential to me and I think to put in the little guy story, and that is another way. I can get people to related to them by taking them as when they were when they were first introduced. Salvation we took a ride through this transport system, which gives you an idea of what can happen in this world, but it was, it was somebody going to work every morning because he’s got to because he needs money to pay the money in the bill and everything so yeah, It’s that combination of what we used to. In this exotic setting and I think blending. The two is such a good way of introducing the world as well.

[00:13:02.130] – Jenn

You and felt really natural your world building and like you said. It wasn’t that was just sort of the way. They’re telling your story and going about their lives. It was very natural. Thank you.

[00:13:14.730] – John Knych

Thank you. I saw Jane do the post that she is immediately ordered. The second one. Thank you just finished the first one who ordered the yes.

[00:13:24.240] – Jenn

But I don’t want you want to feel like. They can’t ask ask questions about the next, but I understand that there might be. Spoiler.

[00:13:31.350] – John Knych

Spoiler. If you want going to do it. Spoiler. Alright moving on tout tempsen.

[00:13:43.760] – Orateur 6

Cinq Over you this world but to me that it seems like that you really build them from scratch first and then you had things in. I just wanted how you build up the stories to build up the entire world to start with or do you think about the caractère or the problem or the plot will come together.

[00:14:07.610] – Peter F. Hamilton

I want to say yes, but it starts with as I said the idea of the trade, whatever I want to do so I’ve got the idea of the main problem that people whatever it is and which I think ok well, if it wasn’t what is a kind of invasion Story So what kind of technology and science and society, what we have that will stand a chance to fight against this. So it’s that kind of level. You gotta have that level of to be obvious in science fiction weapons that we have power have we have. WE have we struggling for energy all that kind of thing so that kind of the society will what kind of world will that it into and we are going to have slightly Startrek universe where every planet is habitable or are we gonna get a little bit more real you know and you can find a world that has the right condition, but we’re gonna have to therefore, it is changing and then do we have people Who do know you can’t do that we got to keep in worlds pristine for example, you know that will be a part of society.

[00:15:23.570] – Peter F. Hamilton

If we have to get out there and start turning the universe into the earth. So yeah, That’s all those Together and then when you work out the industrial level. Well, what kind of finance is available in that which leads to use the politician and what kind of functions ? I’ll be what works and what what the people want and they shouldn’t have. Social media developed and do something even more around us. All this kind of thing and you’ve got that world now. So who’s gonna leave it ? So I’ve just said I want my every man and every woman in it and what kind of job. They’re gonna do and they’re gonna be proud of this problem. And it just that’s when it starts literally coming together organically. So you come up with the world is all the people in it. You just have to pick the right one to tell the story through. And I make my choice of every man, you know in and it was. Very part of this big company. What was the company called the transport Company.

[00:16:31.010] – John Knych

Connect. Connexion.

[00:16:32.450] – Peter F. Hamilton

Connexion. Yes. So there is a lot of people that which helps explain it at which is another introduction to the kind of world. It is so it all come together like that it all come together very organic and then you start feeding them into the okay, You’ve got your good guy. The side kick. Maybe just be very crud about it and that so they are placed in the story and and then and only then do I start writing and of how I’m gonna tell the story. So the world building is very much first and that is built around what the issue ? What the problem or the plot is going to be then. Then you pick the caractère.

[00:17:15.230] – Orateur 6

Thank you.

[00:17:16.250] – Peter F. Hamilton

You are welcome.

[00:17:17.420] – John Knych

Thank you for that. Peter Alright. Moving on the team.

[00:17:21.440] – Orateur 7

And I’m good afternoon what I like about the book is the underpinnings of the science within and often. I thought of think of it is potentially a sign of actuality if humanity. Keep going. Rather than science-fiction. Are there any of go to contemporary journals of science ? Sources. You read regularly to give you some spark of ideas for developing that so the concept of futuristic thinking, but is potentially achievable by humanity.

[00:17:50.950] – Peter F. Hamilton

Yes and now I mean, there is some research in so many areas. It’s impossible to keep out the front of it if when I’m putting the world together, I need a specific technology or idea. I will try and read it. But it will only have to be at the pop science level. I mean the true is for me is you don’t learn about science from science fiction, but it is the application of the technology interests me most like like we’re dealing with the salvation. This instantaneous travel the effects that will have on us how we get around how we can do stranger things without thinking about it and want to think it is specifically years ago. Six years ago There was I help put together with the science fiction writers they are at Calum fusion research plants in oxfordshire. So we all went along trips too long to date and look around the fusion center and also the reaction engine, which are building and inbreeding. So we do kind of look at things like that and see how they can be applied and how they will grow.

[00:19:03.300] – Peter F. Hamilton

It’s not in the salvation books, but the the books before that’s the Commonwealth. I had what I called organic psychiatry tattoos. WE found was just basically a tattoo on your own your hand and that it came about very very simply because it’s this. This extrapolation that science-fiction of taking something like mobile phone, which we didn’t have when I was a kid have got small and small or more and more powerful following more law, but also tattoos which again were not around in my youth. They were the preserved cells, basically and that has exploded across society. So I just do not combined the two which seems perfectly logical to me at the time. So that’s how I’m kind of the angels. I look at this thing is. Where is it now ? What was it ? Where is it now and where can I push it to him and and then when it’s that good, how it is affecting society. So that’s the kind of process. I’ve got to do that the question.

[00:20:11.730] – Orateur 7

That was lovely. Thank you.

[00:20:16.800] – John Knych

Thank you. Thank you, Peter Criss. You have a question or would you like to you.

[00:20:27.980] – Orateur 8

Will be very quick cause I am a work. I shouldn’t be doing this but. I’ve been snake. I just always find I’ve just finished salvation of red Exodus as well as well as the Commonwealth sargas and I just love where the character and the dynamics from so of the police side and the detective side comes from and and have noticed that you’ve got a bit of that in salvation. Obviously, it’s very heavy in the Commonwealth saga as well as this is there any of the place where that it comes from like that. I don’t know what to do you have family and like the police force or is it just like the just the detected in the newer kind of settings. I really enjoy it.

[00:21:12.110] – Peter F. Hamilton

Thank you very much. I always think that it again. Like this the story structure and salvation. This is On a trip together and telling their stories. Detective stories to my mind are a very very good way of introducing a science-fiction world. Because you’ve got to send your detective down and to those mean streets and have him searches around so there for he gets a good lift. Good look around the world is and that’s the way to tell the story. That’s the way to explain the world to the reader again. Avoiding the big dumps. You know it’s the same thing. I know I’m always getting accused of writing books in the far too big if I was doing a contemporary work. WE will get up in the morning get to the airport and fly to somewhere. That’s three sentences in salvation. How he gets up and how it gets to work for you, because you need to be told this but Because it is so it’s the same thing with the detective, He’s looking up and down on the streets what you can find.

[00:22:26.180] – Peter F. Hamilton

How does it get there was there for him to see ? How do I do this job in those circonstances ? So I just think it’s a great way of telling the story plus I really like thrillers and detective fiction as well. So good for me.

[00:22:44.060] – John Knych

And you cry two people in this talk, take two or are participating from work. So thank you for taking the risk.

[00:22:53.030] – Peter F. Hamilton

Of his work related to it will help you.

[00:22:58.310] – John Knych

So now, we’re back to the beginning. So my question. Peter Piggyback theme question which has to do with your technology. So the right you have a question to your right very naturally with the Rich world with everything from data splashing across tarsus lance the telomeres treatment to 3D printing Asteroid mining, nuclear fusion of all the technology of writing about which have you encountered in the real world ? Where you’ve been the most surprised at its progress meaning you know who said the team that you don’t sort of actively write with a lot of science, but just to being in the world. What technology has have struck you as like Wow, That’s it. That’s progress in a way that similar to my books that is surprising.

[00:23:52.480] – Peter F. Hamilton

And I’ve got to say that that time when we want to look around. And it’s just saying and they all the knowledge. It is always in the future. Well actually that allows us to see that it’s hopefully a lot more than that. I’m not talking next year, but it’s the progress. I’ve made is quite astonishing in the technology ? They have is quite astonishing. It’s not cheap. Well, well will get the commercial fusion in the next twenty years. I don’t know, but it’s it changed my view of it to understand that I believe that is gonna be the energy. So we’re gonna be using when when will runs out so yeah that I would say I mean well, we’re getting it also the more thing about computing. It is. It is it is in capacity and have in every month. It’s I don’t know what they are now that’s just going. There is gonna have to be limits that at some point when you get down to the wire that can only take one electrons at the time quantum quantum is there is going to be a plato and that we’ve come ridiculously forts in just the last ten Now we’re getting into the cubic computing and all that kind of thing, But I think we’re all I think we’re all most of the platform that I’d love to be wrong, but that also has come along to create profound degree and it’s coming out of the research lab.

[00:25:32.420] – Peter F. Hamilton

Now we will see in the application of any way. This is this thing about what is it gonna hamper creativity ? And I’m not sure that it goes. I don’t think you can hear and creativity plus there are a lot of benefit in the coming along with the use of various diseases and everything with which will be made easy by whether it will hit the silver bullet at some point. I don’t know but yes, that’s the kind of things I will keep an eye on it when I said I think I don’t need it if the story is featuring a specific technology, I will try and ride up on that so I don’t get to many of complaint projects where I think it’s going.

[00:26:21.760] – John Knych

Thank you all right back to Brandon.

[00:26:25.690] – Brandon M.

You will have to agree with some other side with the. I really like the detectives and science fiction. You’ve done, you’ve done with that. Thank you so my general space travel and you’ve had this amazing career writing space opera. So what do you think realistically And knowing that space travel is is incredibly hard to do. Do you think you will ever leave the solar system realistically.

[00:26:58.780] – Peter F. Hamilton

Not with any technology. It’s gonna come across gonna be developed in my life. Time I love Myself and all Reynolds and learn and stay in people like that are all of the same generation. WE grew up with Apollo Skylab and the space shuttle. And then nothing happened. I mean that there has been up there fifteen years even something like that and it’s done so the amazing science and we have learned a lot of engineering about it, but the actual moving and from what we had been talking about artemus, maybe in twenty-seven, but then I was I was when we first landed on the moon and the technology will be very very different from the engineering point of view, the the kind of space launch system. WE have now are far more sophisticated. They are becoming very risibles cheaper to get out there. It’s what you put up. There is is the looking at the moment. It’s still very expensive for human spaceflight. Now I’m gonna put this without getting criticism. I admire Musk attempt to get to think he is somewhat stating it from what we’ve learned from the SS and the kind of medical biological problems human encounter, just going into what it is is bad and that if you are going to miss.

[00:28:37.700] – Peter F. Hamilton

You be coming back, you’ll be have to be fucked up to dialysis because your kidneys will not that kind of time. There is also the radiation exposure. The problem is actually traveling outside the magnétosphère huge and so what we have learned a lot, but it’s not necessarily been good news. WE have to get around all those systems all those issues and problems To get to more and maybe I will see that in my life time actually traveling the wonderful place to go by Jupiter with this moon and see if there is life under those days and stuff like that would be what I think further than that. I’m not gonna see it. Maybe we will start, Maybe I will deliver us in a few years, who knows that would be one thing playing into another lovely, but I’m optimistic for the very long term. Note I think the right of progress for space travel has not not going to have, I was hoping when I was younger, but it that way.

[00:29:50.590] – Brandon M.

Thank you for that I asked. Robert Charles Wilson the same kind of his will send von Newman replicator or Space probes out of the solar system instead of people.

[00:30:06.870] – Peter F. Hamilton

Yeah, That’s a long way in the future when you gonna get stuff down to the molecular level when you can literally build cells that will be an enormous shift in in how it will affect society. I mean for the start of bullshit any kind of problem. If you can a sample of living, so so yeah, that that he’s probably right about that and you and you come out with the nation or any of the other wonderful science-fiction. You put your mind in the in the storage and grow yourself in your body when you get to the new planet. Of those kind of personality with looking at the use in several hundred years time. I don’t think I don’t think I’m gonna see it.

[00:30:57.030] – Brandon M.

Will.

[00:30:57.720] – Peter F. Hamilton

Be happy to prove wrong.

[00:31:02.020] – John Knych

Bien que Peter Brandon. I am optimistic about my hair and our life time. I think will will send you.

[00:31:08.200] – Peter F. Hamilton

I will see some of them on nose.

[00:31:11.410] – John Knych

And we’ll quick before we moved to Noemie. There’s a book that came out the us at two years ago by saying all the problems which you just lifted Peter about like radiation liver problems, but I was thinking when people left you up to go to the new world right. There was scurvy and both they don’t know what was there ? There was wilderness. There was problem but people still went right now, we have technology and and ways to do with it. So I think we’re.

[00:31:39.850] – Peter F. Hamilton

The european expansion. If that’s what we want to call it. I was only technology driven that we could build the ship good enough. There is also an economic reason behind it. I’m not sure. There’s no reason to go to it. It’s purely scientific which is where the funding problems in it ? It would be delightful to go there and research stuff. It’s gonna be very expensive even with risible. Super rocket.

[00:32:09.390] – John Knych

Yeah. I think we’re quick and I think that’s why SpaceX is going public and if anybody heard that but it.

[00:32:15.330] – Peter F. Hamilton

Is very well as well we all accounts.

[00:32:18.690] – John Knych

Billion and billions of dollars all right for that quick corruption all right and to and.

[00:32:25.740] – Noémie

Thank you. I’m watching you do a lot of research about the technology and the science. You want to use is there one or multiple, maybe that you have researched a lot and couldn’t wave into your story and some ways all that you really want to use at some point, but you have to go into it yet, maybe ?

[00:32:44.400] – Peter F. Hamilton

Yes ! It’s very very clever and his ideas of consciousness. I just just got it here somewhere I’ve been reading up and it cause I thought it would play into my. New stuff. Where is it completely lost in having said that sorry ? It’s a bit of the theory of consciousness and he has received it at the moment space time is something that holds consciousness. WE are little blob of consciousness in space time. His series is that it is consciousness that creates space time. So it’s what we have now and I can’t get my head is done the matter of heaven. And I just can’t get my head around that at the moment. I’m sure it will be very useful to me when I do. But at the moment I’m yeah. It’s kind of well out there, but it is genuine Angel of Research. So yeah.

[00:34:00.100] – Noémie

That’s interesting. Thank you so much. I have to look it up to you.

[00:34:05.140] – Peter F. Hamilton

I should know his name. I’ve been doing a lot of proofreading. So my mind is his blank on that kind of thing and I’ll try and remember before the end of the end of the podcast.

[00:34:21.160] – John Knych

Back to Jenn

[00:34:24.640] – Jenn

I have questions about the character in Salvation was there was there one that you had the most fun reading or that you, they were your favourite. Maybe when you were reading the book.

[00:34:39.490] – Peter F. Hamilton

It was. I think the the kids in the future that have been brought up to it. I think the name Layla you and. I think they are my two of every man and every woman for that I’m in that she’s not she’s not a hero in the get out and have a big punch up to save the universe trip. She is doing but she’s the need for it. I’m very very conflicted and is actually completely in love with the friends. And I guess you that was there kind of my favourite there. I think in that that series rather than the ones. WE were following a lot in salvation itself. WE do follow them more in the second and third books and and what she does so in the big way to help resolve the whole crisis by going against the grain. I mean that is that is a classic. I do you like it is the rebel with a cause so yeah. She was she was fun to write. She was interesting to write I put it through hell and a lot of ways, but she she would be my standard I think.

[00:36:03.440] – Jenn

Tanks. I’m looking forward to the next few books. Okay.

[00:36:08.540] – John Knych

Thank you. Thank you, Peter. I would not have just that I would I would have just one of the one of the five interesting all right and two of.

[00:36:20.270] – Orateur 6

The kind of similar to previous questions about why you draw inspiration from with the science. How do you develop this ADN lifeform or the ecology of plant life ? If it’s so different from what we know in real life is there anything that has inspired it one that really stood out to me was this and from Right ? Just so weird but where there’s no direct or obvious kind of parallel in our world or what we’ve seen before. So how do you come up with this.

[00:37:02.740] – Peter F. Hamilton

Thing that I mean ? I grew up in the seventh where we had star trek, which was man in very good rubber masks with the bad guy, but but they were not necessarily even alien itself as you understand what the xenomorphes are about it ? They just killing machine so I wanted something that was so big and so powerful you can’t fight it. But what is it doing what it does and deliberately didn’t ensure that in the book. It’s just there and it was that it can also came out of one of the threads. I was building People who are on the opposite side you politically or radiological is why can’t they just say the things my way ? Why they are wrong all the time. What do we have to do to make them understand and where is because they think exactly the same thing about you and there is this and it’s getting worse, Obviously, you are having at the moment, but there is that I don’t know why I don’t understand why why why and that was what the answer is obviously doing something which is very important to them and whether it’s whether it’s a kind of colonization or their version of terraforming.

[00:38:25.530] – Peter F. Hamilton

WE don’t know, but they see us Why Why are they doing it ? And there is no thought you never can get somebody on the experiment and politics from you to change the mind. You can come to compromise, but to do that you’ve got to understand them. And they just don’t so I thought that is the real thing that is the absolute otherness. Which I mean what are we going to see when we get out there ? It’s not gonna be all wonderfull. Things and we get fusion power and they get all of medicine or something like that. That’s it. That’s it now, that’s not real. So when we get out there. It’s going to be something that you can’t talk to you can’t understand can’t. Can’t go around. That’s what I absolutely loved about this. And I’m really really proud of them.

[00:39:24.830] – Orateur 6

Is there amazing ?

[00:39:26.360] – Peter F. Hamilton

Thank you.

[00:39:28.160] – Orateur 6

Thank you.

[00:39:31.160] – John Knych

Thank you. Moving to team.

[00:39:34.580] – Orateur 7

At the British author to enjoy. I’m incorporating weaving in British location within your books and purposes living in the room and being a fan of the detector side of the great North road is one of my favourite books of years, I’ve been able to relate in the UK to the location of the road is very rewarding rather than all by the best in different countries, and this is where I mean.

[00:40:01.630] – Peter F. Hamilton

I was born and grew up in living in rutland for a very long time I think and rutland for those of you didn’t know is the smallest country in the UK. I have run out of rutland place names. I’ve just have used them all around my family comes from new Castle. So I was up there lost in the city and the seven days. And I did go up there and so to walk with those mean streets that the detective would just to get the correct geography in my head and to understand that. It starts with the body being dump into the time and I’ve I have I walked along the time to find out the best place to drop the body and into the time, and it is next to the time of this as I said and which I loved the art and that so yeah, I know that it was very much deliberate very much that those of the real streets if you encounter a street name, there is there it exists, which is nice to do with you in science fiction is something that you can go, and it is not that anybody will be you can do the great North of Newcastle if you wanted to and it is something again.

[00:41:16.600] – Peter F. Hamilton

It is this basing stuff on realities and extrapolation. I used to live in a very very old house. It was built in sixteen where was at work and developed into the real right and then it had me in it right in science fiction and I think well the building is still the same, but the use of change so much that that’s son extrapolation. Again you learn to extrapolation. And if you need that grounding, which is what the great white was new castle in what is it about time ? So yeah, I’m getting it right was very important to me.

[00:41:58.130] – Orateur 7

And great thank you. So how is changing in the last thirty years ? I’ve been around here and then looking that be further is nice again for yourself as the reader extrapolations to work past yourself.

[00:42:09.650] – Peter F. Hamilton

Yeah yeah.

[00:42:14.330] – John Knych

Thank you. Moving back to cry. If you can escape work or secretly.

[00:42:23.060] – Orateur 8

You can secretly escape escape are just thinking of you mentioned. The the kid in the future and everything and I keep to get in the name of the day Bâtiment. But it kind of reminds me of what you write in us. With regard to the celestial because that kind of so of evolved further from humanity. And I just like si do you sometimes take certaines troupes ou in your books of the idea of love as you go from the book is like the wormholes for me because I want the Commonwealth saga and kind of how I love it. Let’s go back into it. Which is why I like the salvation, But it so is that something that you Do you so of take the concept of all. This is this is really enjoy writing about this. This is really interesting. CAN I so of expand that somewhere else kind of thing you. I have to.

[00:43:33.460] – Peter F. Hamilton

Try and do something new every few I think the Commonwealth is some of fully explored. Now what if I come up with an idea that will be in the Commonwealth and all right it again. I think you’re talking about the omnia in salvation. That’s what it could be. A way.

[00:43:58.890] – John Knych

Is.

[00:44:02.820] – Peter F. Hamilton

The day where we came about as part of the big time for the salvation. Was this what you put your trust in people the world were very good. Very liberal idea of how we get equality and the day cycle through male and female cycles. I think the banks did very well in the culture as well to the degree and so you know When you start with the quality when you get rid of the inequality between sex and gender to start with him, but then they became very very prevalence and which points it seems to be a liberal idea and became doctrine and you can’t get out of doctrine without being a rebel and then you get found on by the authority and all that basically, it was an example of the road to hell being with good intentions is because it was that is what became limiting to the survival of the human survivor from earth, and is that they they all went off and their various directions. They will develop new plan to build build the weapons and go and fight the bad guys, but they are doing it because that’s what they supposed to do that was what the doctor said and and that is why they were doing so badly.

[00:45:29.780] – Peter F. Hamilton

So yeah, That’s how that kind of idea filters in there is what I wanted something. This is great. This is gonna have so many problems, but then it has its own self created the problem of something is is so far so good. It never seen the lost in the original state for me and it does become intolerant people become people who are the morphological. They are the more intolerant, they become and because they so this is us is the future, the way forward. Then they stuck to it for two rigorously and I’m going, but there is something that that I don’t.

[00:46:17.890] – John Knych

Think you cry. So this will be the number people have to be my last question. So well, I’ll go around the go around the Horn. One more time Des so pills is not the first of years that are red and something that struck me is that you ? Thank you so much you so much in right there. And you mentioned a couple of times and this took the different inspiration like the Hyperion, Chaucer, Hyperion. But also the the culture of the omnia is being similar to the culture. But you can take a little bit further with the analysis of them, the question is and with the other authors. This do you read ? Are you ? Do you keep up to date on contemporary sci-fi ? WE won’t have Alastair Reynolds for one of these talks and he said that in the eight early days. It is possible to read like all the literature. But now Syfy has expanded so much that it’s difficult to keep up and the general, but do you have you over the years to try and there is some authors that you go back to that you continue to read or have you sort of night raid contemporary ?

[00:47:41.030] – John Knych

What would do you ? I guess we are. What are you sure ? You are ?

[00:47:45.140] – Peter F. Hamilton

You are now it’s on the road. Don’t tell him. I haven’t found it all that is part of the problem as I know people like Alistair and Paul and Steve and Adrian Trajkovski and all this are you. So I’m really keen to see what they are doing. But that kind of you are always. I was well red and till the point I started writing with your time shrinks like that and then I had kids and I make it more of this year. To read more than the kick in the problem of I Influenced by. I’ve been there are other ideas and I would have done that. I don’t want them to work. So I do try and keep up. Against this. What the scene is I mean ? I don’t know how many science-fiction writers there are in the world. There’s clearly a lot because like you say that this is so wonderful. These days, there is every night. You can think of and I like it. I meet up with with my friends and convention, but we don’t sit down and flow.

[00:49:03.310] – Peter F. Hamilton

Where’s the direction of science fiction going ? It is everybody writing what they want to which is lovely and so I don’t I don’t see this. It’s going in that specific directions. It’s it’s so multiple these days that we’re going in every direction and I have done other stuff and I could be at the point of which I can do what I want to would in my career, I can I can publish or other stuff as well, but I do like in the space opera and the times and I’m now doing another completely different universe for myself and so I do try to read. It is not as much as I’d like to read and I you and it doesn’t need to people. I know all that I get sent obviously get a lot of books to create and so I read a few chapter one and maybe I don’t go as much as I should do with those books, but it’s all read all as much as is practical.

[00:50:16.560] – John Knych

I would be back to Brandon.

[00:50:20.610] – Brandon M.

Alister is right all of your books.

[00:50:23.820] – Peter F. Hamilton

He has and.

[00:50:29.970] – Brandon M.

It should be an easy one a star Trek or Doctor Who. What do you prefer to ?

[00:50:42.570] – Peter F. Hamilton

Probably. Star Trek. Doctor Who. Doctor. Who is John Pertwee. And that’s how I grew up with him. And it is and I always was intended for all by diplomatic a younger audience. Time of life. I don’t really fit into it. I don’t think I know a lot of people who still love it my age. But I’m a kind of and I have seen the new doctor who I haven’t put time of side to see the new doctor The same in search of what I’m just starting to watch the strange new worlds and I haven’t seen all I mean, I was I kind of water when you did I think that I didn’t see much and which I because I didn’t have the time. So I’m in my final answer is Star Trek awesome.

[00:51:45.600] – Brandon M.

Thank you.

[00:51:48.450] – John Knych

I want to know. For her last question.

[00:51:52.920] – Noémie

Do you have a book or a plot our character, you would have written differently now than when you first did it is there is there something, you would have changed and you would like to change if you could maybe.

[00:52:06.900] – Peter F. Hamilton

I’m gonna give you that is pretty much all of them and we had this. I think this was about the question. I don’t think my writing has changed and the one thing I haven’t done very much of my old stuff. I’ve had no name but the little snippets. I have read some of it is how you worry about. I’m not going to be that good again. And then you switch to the next beat, which is God. Why did I write that ? So I think if I had an infinite amount of time, I would rewrite them all and they will be there to be different. But it’s always I think there’s something that I used to write which are two crude. I think for now another stuff. I’m really pleased with so I stand by it all. But if I was wondering if I started back at the morning star rising now, I think I will be quite a different book. I was still have the same flow. But I think it will be. I think you will be quite different.

[00:53:06.320] – Peter F. Hamilton

I’m currently writing something which I’m determined to make it a good news for everyone and I seem to be doing a lot more time than used to doing the revision every day cutting is really ruthless with cutting at whole paragraph and lines and trying to make it a little bit of each paragraph a little bit more precise and so I think that all comes out different again to the lost books. So whether people see this as progress. I don’t know, but yeah, I would I would rewrite a lot. Yeah yeah.

[00:53:43.960] – Noémie

That makes sense. Thank you so much. I have to go for work. But I just want to take a quick moment to see you. Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to talk to you and to ask questions. It’s always very precious those moments and I hope that we will have you again someday and thank you for all the time. You take to write your beautiful stories. It’s it’s the best gift. You can give you a lot of people like us. So thank you so much and thank you for inviting us again. Thank you have a lovely day.

[00:54:13.810] – John Knych

Have a good day. Excellent en tout, J’en.

[00:54:21.930] – Jenn

Passe. To the next person.

[00:54:24.900] – John Knych

And to time.

[00:54:28.920] – Orateur 6

Out of all of the worlds and caractères that you’ve written what would be the crossover that you would like to see.

[00:54:37.980] – Peter F. Hamilton

Hmm between my universe. Hum hum. Oh, that’s it be on the spot. Hum. I think I think I think I would be like to see. How how would get on in the fall and dragons world from the Commonwealth ? WE get done in the fall and dragons world. I think that would be a very interesting crossover. It can’t be done. But putting here there are there. I don’t do multiverse of the multiverse of putting her there would would be interesting.

[00:55:27.200] – Orateur 6

Thank you. Welcome and thank you for all of our questions.

[00:55:31.790] – Peter F. Hamilton

Thank you.

[00:55:35.390] – John Knych

Great moving to team.

[00:55:39.170] – Orateur 7

Well known for your sweeping and that you have to stop the time. There are there printed ? What’s your Outlook on something like that ? This is the one of the great North road. You see that as you know. It’s gonna be a single book is that we have a break in the time to take a breeder or or you are you always fearful ? You start off with a single book, but you think you might be tempted to go to the second to a third one that wasn’t the initial intention.

[00:56:05.960] – Peter F. Hamilton

I wish I had that planning skills to help you see the thing is salvation is salvation, salvation and signs of which is one story. It is split in two three days, some days and cliffhanger there, but it is one story time with the night down, which is about. It. It’s one book technically. So it is just the question of Where do you split ? Those kind of stories. This song is just physically. Where do you want it ? But I do you like that when I’m writing in the name. It is a stand-alone and the one after that is probably gonna be a stand-alone. Whether it’s me realizing. I’m running out of time and I need to get these things and it is a huge commitment to do trilogy. Now that those kind of thousands pages books and I’m going back to I’ve learned a little bit more about writing to become a little bit more precise. So I can’t see possibly I can see some Dewalt is coming. I can’t think I’ve ever been going back to the kind of night stone and void trilogy again.

[00:57:28.200] – Peter F. Hamilton

I think that help me to it, but I think that kind of stuff.

[00:57:35.040] – Orateur 7

Thank you.

[00:57:36.060] – Peter F. Hamilton

Welcome.

[00:57:40.110] – John Knych

Back to cry.

[00:57:43.500] – Orateur 8

Hello. Yes, sorry about the last question. I think we just did just did it all and on a more fun one of your characters that you have created and with or without you have created the law who would be one that you would like to go on like, you know on a lunch with or go out for a drink me personally. I would be from a Because I think he’s l’arriou, but who would be like the one. You could go on like for a mail or for for a drink. Who would it be.

[00:58:21.890] – Peter F. Hamilton

Since you.

[00:58:23.690] – Orateur 8

Are really ?

[00:58:26.960] – Peter F. Hamilton

Why would you think ? Yeah Absolutely.

[00:58:30.680] – Chris

No no no no.

[00:58:34.760] – Peter F. Hamilton

Osez ! Osez ! I would like. To be scary.

[00:58:43.220] – Chris

Yes. Yes. Perfect. Again. I’ll just what everyone else is said. Thank you very much for your time and for for you know the the story that you have written and how they are and I’m really looking forward to the second part of the saga. I think that comes out later on this year and will not the next year Thank you very much. I.

[00:59:15.280] – John Knych

Think. Thank everyone for your great questions and thank you for being here. I really enjoyed this discussion. So the last thing we always do Peter and we were right on the do our time. Oh yeah. What do you working on now you are working on the standalone. If you want to share more about south of what the next project is and then also I shoot out if there is a living author who or other than in house of Suns, but someone who is living who you respected and read and what we could.

[00:59:50.320] – Peter F. Hamilton

Do it from one cinq. 101 This one is going to be interesting. I think it’s coming out of this is the proof of it is called the infinite state and there is it is fairly space opera and. Yes ! Yeah yeah It’s good. I like it a lot the society of fighting against is quite horrific. But it’s a good battle to be had and some interesting stuff in their as well. Yeah yeah that will be my my one of my recommended day every month. But that they have could be with that when you’re wonderful.

[01:00:43.560] – John Knych

Thank you, Peter. This has been, it’s been a great talk. So this is recorded. I’ll send you an email with the link to the the video and have a great day. And thank you everyone for coming. Enjoy the conversation.

[01:00:56.580] – Peter F. Hamilton

Thank you.

[01:00:58.290] – Tim

Thank you. Thank you.

[01:01:00.390] – Orateur 7

Thank you.

[00:00:03.110] – John Knych

And everyone. Thank you for being here for a discussion with Robert Charles Wilson and his books spine and we will jump right into the discussions. So thank you for being here. Spain was your thirteenth novel and my question is the two part number one CAN you share with us the origin of the book here you came to the idea of how you came to write it and also why you are writing it Did you know it would be so successful because it was the two thousand six Hugo award winner. That’s really and you know how that process was like, but where you surprised that it was so successful.

[00:00:39.830] – Robert Charles Wilson

Well, it’s it’s been about twenty years now at that time out. So it’s a little how to create my mind when I was writing it, but. You know some of the team and there I’ve been addressing since I first started writing one of my earliest books was a book called the harvest which was about the. Extraterrestrial Century arrived on earth and offer everyone immortality. So the idea of what we might expect from a more advanced Civilization. How that would interact with our own biological nature ? These things have had been on my mind for a long time. So it seemed like a natural book to write at the time. Now, I did not know that it would be lucky thirteen. I did not know that when I wrote it. It was just my next book and I was in my books. I’ve been doing well, I mean I’ve just before I write my editor Described me is that that I think a successful writer. So what because I’ve been doing reasonably well and. Many of them have been translated and published overseas.

[00:01:53.780] – Robert Charles Wilson

But I have no idea that would take off the way it did It is exactly make mainstream bestsellers in North America, but it is so well and persistently and it is received the ultimately received the Hugo award and was published overseas. It was translated more broadly than any of my other books had been so yeah, It’s access to all that want. It was a gradual process and I could acclimate to it. But it came as a welcome to me.

[00:02:35.900] – John Knych

And before it would want to. Brandon. I’m pretty I’m very certaines that Gabriel is French and live in Australia and I think Spain had a successful in France and I’ve seen the French readers talk about it online. Alright. Thank you wanted to Brandon.

[00:02:54.140] – Orateur 3

Yeah ! Thanks again for Here we always when authors and talk to us.

[00:03:01.550] – Robert Charles Wilson

Not my pleasure.

[00:03:02.960] – Orateur 3

So I guess my is so a lot of this. It seems like tyler is kind of almost the secondary. Caractère de Jason. Jason, He is the one. He’s the one in charge of he’s making all the plan the strategy to deal with this. So why did you use to write the point of view of Tyler ? Instead of Jason.

[00:03:31.160] – Robert Charles Wilson

Again. I have to write the years of this one and I should see that I think this is the usual among others. I’ve finished the book, I put it the side and don’t look at it again. I’m always on my next work. And I haven’t literally haven’t looked at or any part of the spine, except for the usual public reading of a few paragraphes In the last decade, so it’s a little difficult to answer some of these questions, but I have always been attracted to the idea of looking at some of larger than life caractères. Through the eyes of someone much more down to earth. And I think that’s what I was doing with the relationship between Tyler and Jason. It also been kind of claustrophobique to spend a lot of time inside Jason had so I thought Tyler had a more interesting of broader point of view you could look at different from from different angles. I guess that’s the best. I can say thank you.

[00:04:35.590] – John Knych

Thank you and it’s before he moved to the gene is almost like a parallels between your reflecting on this book from twenty years ago and now in the book the director are reflecting on the right what happened decades before their childhood that is interesting parallel You.

[00:04:56.710] – Orateur 4

Are also thanks for being here. I really enjoy the book. So this might be another one. It’s hard to answer. WE don’t find out much about the hypothetical during the course of the book. And I was wondering when you are reading. It did you have like this concrete idea of what they were in your mind, And you just didn’t want to tell the reader or was it more nebulous for you to.

[00:05:20.320] – Robert Charles Wilson

All I do remember that one of the things I wanted to do with the structure of the book was to. Buy a bunch of questions at the beginning and answers them one by one. I felt like building a suspension bridge between the beginning and the end of the book. So yeah, I think that play it and I did that it create a certain kind of intellectual suspense at least after I was trying to do so that I had a fairly firm idea of I wrote that book a little more than some of my others. I didn’t have a really strict outline as to how was I was gonna let myself improvise a little bit. But in terms of the outline of the book and where it was going into the picture is where and what the what the hypothetical were in those were pretty fairly fixed in my mind, but I started writing.

[00:06:13.460] – Orateur 4

Thank you.

[00:06:15.920] – John Knych

With you, babe. Brian. Gabrielle, you see you did something that you have any reason to have a question. Now. Gabrielle. Gabrielle. Question. Okay. Back to me the again. If you can this just like I said. No problem. WE can I can move to another question. But to continue with the theme of the hypothetical am I found it. I found your explanation of the spine and why was happening and deeply satisfying Meaning. It is as a sci-fi reader when you are right thing about alien’s right. There are so many ways, you can go wrong or destroy the ability of the of the book to do as a sci-fi writer is that always have the ability like a goal of years like extreme ability and that allow the review of Spain really focused on how this is a literary. It’s really like. It’s not alien Shooting laser out of the sky is that always been a team for you or was that new with with this book ?

[00:07:27.970] – Robert Charles Wilson

Oh, no, I think I think that’s always been the same for me. The idea of it. I always liked stories and that explored something extraordinary by putting it in the context of the ordinary or the familiar with the recognizable, and that was something I tried to do with the most of the books I’ve and you know it is far from the only way to write a science-fiction story and this is certainly not the only legitimate way to write the science-fiction story, but it’s it’s the way. It’s a kind of story. I’d like to read and it’s a kind of story. I’d like to write so so that that aspect of it can naturally to me. I think.

[00:08:08.980] – John Knych

Thank you to.

[00:08:13.900] – Orateur 3

All let me maybe it’s more about the present day, but also and what so you can have you can’t talk about a little bit about how space travel and conventional space travel is extremely difficult. Kind of the sun is von Neumann at the space instead. So what ? What are your thoughts on like today’s space travel technology with SpaceX and. NASA and the state of all that I mean. Do you think you think WE have you have the chance to get back in the space ? I mean what you are. What would you think you’re on space travel realistically.

[00:09:02.360] – Robert Charles Wilson

Where obviously, I don’t know, but it seems to be that the eu the exploration of the solar system has been ongoing for many years robotics and we will be achieved an enormous amount we’ve got a lot of knowledge about the solar system. WE live in over my life time in the amount of when I was born at the time when people want you whether they were here and now when you know what I knew what people speculate that might be rainy. And over the course of my life time will find a lot of that stuff so certainly the robotic exploration of the solar system has been enormously successful it With every increase in our technological capacity it becomes easier to do that. The man in the exploration of the solar system is is a much more difficult propositions, but it is it really is only a technological challenge I expect date sooner or later in the us. WE really do something dreadful to ourselves that that that will happen. Whether we will ever really calling the solar system that is impossible for me to say it depends what drives this And why we were doing it and what we do and what we’re looking for and whether we get it.

[00:10:21.840] – Robert Charles Wilson

But if you’re talking about Interstellar travel. It’s worth. It is all. You know. Interstellar travel is the device. The science fiction readers like to use because it’s a way of exploring questions. You couldn’t really explore it as a practical proposition that is extremely unlikely. Why would you travel to other stars where you have to be ? You would need longevity and Curiosity. And and better technology that we have. I’m assuming that the speed of life is of living is this is a feature built in our universe and how fast we’re gonna get to anywhere outside of our own solar system. So but the idea of a. Machine exploring the galaxy machine can be extraordinarily patients if there is soft replicating machines. There’s nothing that would I have seen the calculation somewhere that could cross the galaxy in something like ten thousand years and. Even at the end of something reasonably short of the speed of light. So if any civilization want to put that it into the progress of the day. They can do that I suppose we might be able to do it and a century or so we’re here, but the question is why would you do that I mean if you are driven by Curiosity a human life time isn’t long enough to see the results from that.

[00:11:58.800] – Robert Charles Wilson

On the other hand. I’m not a big believer in the idea of uploading consciousness in the machine, but if that were a practical proposition or something something like human consciousness consciousness could be carried out to other stars and long enough that we could afford it for curiosity that won’t be satisfied for century of millennia. So you know, and you know that that could make it happened what kind of exploring the idea and in the published novels. I’ve just my mind is just started something for the summer, the I returned again and I take for the third time in my career to this idea of. machine intelligence in the galaxy, so it obviously. I can only guess that the ability of it.

[00:12:53.940] – Orateur 3

Thank you. That’s really interesting.

[00:12:58.230] – John Knych

And I see before we moved to you. And I see in the chat. Gabrielle, you can’t talk with his camera, but he he wants to ask you to describe your side categories. If you have to I guess place yourself in the in the general is really interested to have him described this category even if even if the world is awful. I don’t know if it means world is awful world is useful. So you how would you describe your your category ?

[00:13:27.150] – Robert Charles Wilson

I’m not sure, I’m not sure exactly what you mean by categories.

[00:13:34.770] – John Knych

I’m not sure maybe or Un if. If it wasn’t mind all these questions to be like in what authors ? Do you read and like ? Where do you see your place and in the in the case of. Of science-fiction.

[00:13:53.970] – Robert Charles Wilson

Where I. I I grew up and classic postwar science-fiction and those influences with you. So all the usual name. There are working there, you know in my Cranium. Heinlein Asimov in all of those names. There is there. In in terms of writing about it and how to approach the story from where I was actually enormously influenced by Stephen King and I started reading Stephen King when when he was a brand new paperback and the Rotary racks and I followed found everything sense and what really struck me about that was the way the way you could use. In the town of the generation to get inside your details to get inside a protagoniste head and to bring it to life on the page. I think he’s better and bring it to life on the page and sometimes bringing settings to life on the page than any other reader, name and in fact it very seldom right anything, you can describe a science-fiction, but the approach to take is the transportable and I’ve tried to use some of that in my writing.

[00:15:16.950] – John Knych

Thank you So I have you read all books like that you found his career. Thank you.

[00:15:23.790] – Robert Charles Wilson

It’s pretty much. I mean there might be something here and there is that I haven’t read. But I’ve gotta have got a book in another room with his books on them. And he did me when I’ve never get him. But he did my big favor shortly after spin came out as he he made in the book and he was ready for entertainment weekly at the time. And he did you buy ? He was, he was listening, he was a list of best western readers about mystery writers best writers and he he for him apparently, I was the best science-fiction writer and he promoted and promoting spin was afraid to be calling by the best science-fiction writer was not necessarily. I don’t like that and I don’t know what else who would but in terms of promoting my work. It was, it was an enormous favor to me and it was nice suddenly feel recognized by someone. I had been used to all those years and to realize that he had been playing the amount of attention to my work to.

[00:16:28.950] – John Knych

Thank you and my copy of spin. There’s a Stephen King. Stephen King on the back pressing. Raising your work.

[00:16:37.220] – Robert Charles Wilson

That would be.

[00:16:39.200] – John Knych

Wonderful alright if you have a question or you can pass.

[00:16:44.300] – Orateur 4

I want more questions. So you write about intelligent species across the Galaxy inevitably just burning themselves out and make me think about the drake occasion and maybe how long intelligence BCS or intelligent civilisations might existe before that happens and I’m wondering if you feel like that that is in the ability like you or for humanity or maybe any other potential civilization out there or do you take a more positive view ?

[00:17:18.290] – Robert Charles Wilson

I take it that of the diagnostic view it. Is becoming clear that that evolving the kind of Intelligence. If you want I used to make it possible to create a technological society doesn’t necessarily included the kind of intelligence you need to manage it and to avoid over stepping yourself and over stepping. Ecological limits and doing yourself are in the process. Clearly it’s possible not to drive yourself into extinction. Not the drive for species, not to drive itself and. WE could be dealing with this much better than who we are. So if if there are multiple technological civilization out there, I would that at least some of them find a way around the roadblock and and traps, but the roadblock and trap or real too. But in terms of the Drake. I mean in terms of the Fermi Paradox, the question of if they have those of the civilisations existent. We’re here we are and we. Are really suspect that they would not be present in ways that we could readily detect necessarily. And they might not announce themselves to it to us for any number of plausible reasons so I’m kind of agnostic on this subject of.

[00:18:51.950] – Robert Charles Wilson

Interstellar Civilization as they may not if they do exist. WE might not be able to detect their signatures and they may not be used to show themselves to us are there for their protection or for our so it’s an open question which makes it interesting for me. Use of science fiction writer.

[00:19:11.780] – Orateur 4

Thank you.

[00:19:14.420] – John Knych

Thank you alright. I’ll see you are there any questions from Brian Gabriel now. The. End of this question is like a Research questions page one hundred eighteen, you are talking about more and then Tyler brings like the martian. Read more like the actual book is how much if you can remember from twenty years ago, How much where you are researching more and what we have learned about our solar system at the time and how the types of riders that incorporated that into your writing are where you are specializing. How much as your research research relates to your writing at the time.

[00:20:02.840] – Robert Charles Wilson

Of research and what to the book, not necessarily the subject brightly. So was looking at the idea of terraforming Mars. And again because that wasn’t the central point. I didn’t go into it and great details. The reason the reason I’ve made in the Kim Stanley Robinson is that I just ? I don’t know at the time. It seems to be there is that you need to write science fiction week end to forget that there’s other science-fiction world week end to our science-fiction universe where there people don’t write science-fiction. So I wanted to acknowledge that there is a literature on this that pré-existe whatever I wrote and it just seems that kind of pleased to me and that you are at the time. You know we research is interesting things that can be you can do it like a black hole or or you can neglected, you know and come up with it and your products, but so I tried to strike a balance, but sometimes the research has its own rewards. Sometimes it’s the struggle. It depends on the subject.

[00:21:18.710] – John Knych

Thank you before moving back to Brandon. I see you have questions about your writing routine. You share with What does your your writing routine ?

[00:21:28.730] – Robert Charles Wilson

Is it’s changed over the decades ? I’ve been working on it. It took a certain month of discipline the first to how you know the traditional device back and I started was to try to write a day. If it’s just you can’t throw it out the next day, but it establish the routine and keep the discipline and I tried to do that, but I mean, I was working day job for much of that time to do. So it wasn’t always be there were a few period of my career when I would start writing for time. And I couldn’t really like it wasn’t a conçu to recharge ma batterie. It wasn’t because what they call writer’s block. It was just I would because of other issues in my life or or for no reason that all I would say things that the work of side for for a while I have my first. my first published story came out in night in seven years old, but I didn’t publish anything else is still. A part of that time, I was reading and just looking away what I wrote occasionally.

[00:22:38.440] – Robert Charles Wilson

I would be something that would be rejected, but I was all that time I was learning by writing and learning by other writers to understand what they were doing trying to get a more look at it from the creators perspective and see how it worked so none of that was wasted time I think but I mean you know in general and and these days. You know I’m gonna be something next month and. Of the writing and publishing environment is so different from what I want was that I don’t discipline myself away I used to figure. I have another book, but whether that provide to be the things I will see I’m taking it a little more of these days.

[00:23:26.630] – John Knych

Take it back to.

[00:23:31.490] – Orateur 3

You. So I want to do with Jacques about researching of you. I have you done a lot of research for that one.

[00:23:46.400] – Robert Charles Wilson

Of the. The new book was. It came out of interest and I’ve had for many many years in the since I’ve been doing the research for it. For decades. There were specific areas where it had to look at specific questions, but since it was a book that play the mystery and play the things that I was already fascinated by. I didn’t have to do a lot of specific research for that particular book now.

[00:24:21.490] – John Knych

Que oui. Jeanne. If you have a question or you can pass. Thanks all right and I don’t think Ryan or Gabrielle has the. One of the things I loved about Spain is there were many intimate moments between the caractère really deeply moving, especially with Jason. I mean the relationship between Jason and Tyler et Tyler. The passing of Tyler mother I found deeply poignant. Do you might not be able to ensure this because of two years ago, but do you try and do you put personal life details into your books because it felt so felt so real that I can’t help wonder, you know that had you had a loved one passes away while reading the book. Do you try to keep your personal life ? Completely out of your your story ? You are what is what was the balance of your personal and and engineering in this war of the real in the relationship between the director.

[00:25:38.030] – Robert Charles Wilson

I can’t imagine not using my personal experience and my writing I mean that that is part of a really, of course you transform experience and take them apart and put the back together in different shape of my father died when I was night in its kind of a vulnerable. I was was for me. And he was a protracted. He died from lung cancer was a protracted death and he died at home so And I became one of the caregiver for him so going through that of that. Wasn’t available experience. And yeah, it’s what I think one of the privilege is that you can take often sometimes deeply disturbing the experience and make something make out of them. If I can use that world. Of course those experiences play in the writing of. The day they often do there’s a. In one of my blind like there is the scene where one of the character is. His father asks for a if you get what it was exactly a photographe or something like that that. That you wanted to see and this is his sun doesn’t want to that he’s getting rid of the photograph is no longer exist and.

[00:27:26.620] – Robert Charles Wilson

And that. That was exactly what happened with my dad ? He had made of a home recording at some point of himself with the before I was born of him with my brother and sister, and he wanted to hear that in his in his last days and I had put it in a box and give it away the box at some point, and it was a hour of experience and I’ve been looking for it and that I couldn’t find it, but I knew I knew what it happened to it. And you know so you know what you do is something like that you know it. It’s it once you did it again. You know for you the place that you can find a decade of experience that you might not otherwise be able to write consistently about all about it. So yeah yeah, of course your personal life comes in your right thing. I think you’re writing the most superficial possible. You have to draw in this kind of experience.

[00:28:37.710] – John Knych

Thank you. Yes before moving into the person who just arrived. Yeah ! I want you again. It’s so it’s rare in sci-fi to have died for me. Like the emotional go punches of the moment between caractère. Tenderness loss. Love and Spain. Had it all I mean and to have that have that be with the art of love at the end of the world of all of you to have to have it will be with us. It is extremely rare. Enjoy it all right. Hello ! Welcome. CAN you ? It is this. Are you ? Virginie. Virginie. Friends. Colleagues.

[00:29:21.540] – Orateur 5

Yeah ! I’m fatty benaribi. I’m a mathematicians. And I’m calling of Virginie.

[00:29:27.990] – John Knych

Welcome to everyone in my my wife. She worked with someone who really in the science-fiction. So I shared with them the link. Do you know who Robert Charles Wilson is would you like to ask a question or just back and and.

[00:29:45.540] – Orateur 5

You are sorry for for the rising sun that I u I actually read in many years ago and I loved it. Love the whole trilogy and so yeah. I particularly enjoyed how you conjugated the how you join the scientific aspects and the sociological aspects like how the society evolves from its consequences of the scientific constraints and the whole end of the trilogy was really ? Yeah ! It was really a shock and I don’t know how much I can spoils You can everyone and read the whole body. You are the whole, the whole part with time travel and and how to connect people from several timelines to their personal backstory, you are really human backstory. It really interests me and I try to write myself and I see is what ? It is of inspiration. So thank you. And maybe if I have a question it would be. How do you ? Have ? How do you do you ? Do you see the science ? More as the strength to to create a story around or something like an inspiration or where you think of the story first and think of what the science ?

[00:31:30.660] – Orateur 5

I could I like to think about interactions between science and literature fiction. So I’m we’ll be really glad to hear if if if if it has already been said before. Sorry for.

[00:31:52.050] – Robert Charles Wilson

What if if I was the question was whether how I thought the science and the human story which comes first the. Sorry anyway I. Will I mean for me ? There’s always there is there is the big idea that there is there’s always the big idea that makes it an exciting science-fiction story, which is involved some kind of scientific speculation where you know in this case about. It is about what technological civilizations eventually produce and what the consequences are on the galactic sky, but the question is always ask yourself and what are the human consequences of this ? What does it mean to you know the person out the window. There is looking down the street and. How does it play into our human experiences ? Hum. Hum. I used to say that. That the real question science fiction is not not how well the future by but how our how might the future be what what will it feel like you know what I mean ? The scientifique question is how do you travel to the the science fiction ? Question is what it like when you get there ?

[00:33:35.220] – Robert Charles Wilson

You know what you do there ? Are you lonely ? Are there other people ? You know ? How can you see the stars at night ? Are you underground ? Is it claustrophobic ? How does it feel like a transcendence ? Where does it feel like ? I love those are human question that you ask about scientific subject. So that’s a century the approach. I take I hope that is the question.

[00:34:03.720] – John Knych

So I think. I lost the the take it back to me for the question. Is that I’m not jumping anyone ? Because this question is actually back and what you just said babe ? Did you know this would be a trilogy when you started writing because the ending definitely left open possibilities or what is the success of Spain that then you are you ready to say look ? This should be the trilogy or did you know going into it ? That is that it had a trois possibilités.

[00:34:39.120] – Robert Charles Wilson

Now now, I wrote at the standalone and I think it’s still works as a standalone. I was in all about the possibility of following it up and I was. I was open to that suggestions. I’ve never been completely happy with the the two Because to be honest. I don’t think they did what ? What ? What did you mean ? I’m not. I’m not happy with them. But I don’t know. I would never touch the book like spinning, but if I had a if I was given the opportunity to go back and look at the walls. I would probably do something with them. But you know you’re right what you’re right and that’s what it is so.

[00:35:33.290] – John Knych

Right back to brandon. If you have, I have a question.

[00:35:39.470] – Orateur 3

You can you can you on how the publishing industry is over your career ? And do you think it’s hard now to publish or is that you are now like what you are your thoughts and that ?

[00:35:55.940] – Robert Charles Wilson

It’s changed dramatically over the course of my career. I mean when I broke in the field. Basically, there was a big audience for treating science-fiction. And there were published in magazines trying to beat that the mind. And if you had any kind of time and all you would be welcomed. I published a story with a who. Is everybody there ? I can’t hear from here. I am very early in my career before I had published in I saw the story two. Isaac Asimov, Science-Fiction magazine by the editor was Sean McCarthy. And it was only my second published story. This was like a night in two or three. And I’m only did she publish the story that Sean McCarty When she moved to. Write to me and said. Do you have a novel ? I’m really like to look at the novel from you. And so I lied and said yeah, I’m working on it right now. So I came up and that was the genesis of my first story of my first novel which was called the hidden place, which was published way back and I’m so yeah, that that situation, which I think you know obtained for.

[00:37:28.580] – Robert Charles Wilson

The fifties sixties, the seven days the advice to stay in the night is there was a big audience and and publisher is looking to feel it all of what I look around now. I see is a lot of people computing for attention publishers computing with each other for for an audience readers computing with each other for attention people desperate to to find a way to get people to know what I’ve written and to respond to it and and the audience. Maybe I don’t know what it is. I don’t know if it shrinking, but the reasons that have the audience everything now. The audience is usually I think and there’s a and of course we have so much media science-fiction. Now, it is easy to say the appetite for science-fiction. What ever opening you are looking at a magazine. So. It’s a very different situations and I think it must be a very uncomfortable one for people trying to break it with the field right now and yet people still do it and you know you still sit and interesting books been published and finding it.

[00:38:37.250] – Robert Charles Wilson

So it’s certainly not impossible, but the kind of ease with which I found the career in the field. It doesn’t seem to get it anymore, Unfortunately.

[00:38:56.600] – John Knych

Yes, thank you, Thank you. Thank you. Yes ! Yes ! I just saw that I’m Gabrielle. Ryan Asking about your writing influence. And then Gabrielle asking about him with some distance. Now looking back at blind lake and anything about the book of their structure ideas. Would you see different today ? So yeah. Influence and looking back at blind lake. Do you see it ?

[00:39:25.940] – Robert Charles Wilson

Differently today Looking back at blind Lake. Specifically.

[00:39:29.720] – John Knych

Yes.

[00:39:31.100] – Robert Charles Wilson

Oh well that goes even farther back, then and so I don’t know I mean there’s uh uh uh every book. I write was kind of provisional. I mean, I was the best book. I can write at the time. I think I’ve learned a lot since then I’m reading is a profession where you keep learning. I can do a lot of those books. box in the. Right now, but I wouldn’t do it now. Those of the books are right because of the person, I was then and with the skills that I had then I can’t think of a specific specific than that to say about blind lake. As far as influence has got you know I already in the story of postwar science-fiction and Steven King that I am I would like to go in there because. In those few books that he wrote that are considered science-fiction classique and a lot of his short stories pretty much invented a lot of the tropes. WE use and are still exploring. I mean, he was at the time when those those ideas were out there and there was the idea of the geological past and the possible future of political and technological.

[00:40:50.750] – Robert Charles Wilson

But the victorian were through their telescope for the first time. And he grabbed that low-hanging fruits and and he he would at our story like the time machine seemed to be so so perfect and that it is it delivers that science-fiction rush so direct directly. It. It. It. It takes a miracle time travel which is not scientifique at all. But it was the miracle to explore and current ideas about the possible future of the geological. Over the past time and cultural evolution over time and biological evolution over time. And I think a lot of science-fiction. I loved it has that that kind of structure. Where you know where there’s an obvious miracle. Interstellar Travels says that we use this device for you not going somewhere. You can’t really got literary and using that for some really substantive. SPECULATION and that is something I really tried to do with my eyes yet to be published book is too. It’s very well and then I said that it takes a community of people and put them literally forty years in the future.

[00:42:21.820] – Robert Charles Wilson

On a transfiguré Earth and use that for some. You know it’s a story. It is there. It also explore some speculation about what the deep future might hold for us as a species. I love that kind of fiction. So I would have to put well, it’s one of those influences.

[00:42:45.370] – John Knych

Thank you and then in the shade having. How people reacted to the pandemic information speculations the science world, not fully understanding it, etc. And the psychology impact of it. How do you feel about how you wrote the psychology impact of people in Spain because for me the sci-fi premisse felt so terrifying and I think this I felt some pandemic echoes or reading Spain and how you discuss the political menu, you know and what I loved you did to his people is also just continuing to leave their lives because what else can they do right ? If you have their economically limited, right ? You just keep going to work. So how are you ? How do you feel about what you want ? You were observed in the pandemic and how you wrote Spain with how people reacted.

[00:43:43.600] – Robert Charles Wilson

Yeah, I get that resonance and make sense to me. Ah ! I guess I was just. It just seems to be a realistic way of humans and the way we don’t understand. Or or or rush to cope with things. WE don’t understand why try to explain the way things. WE don’t understand or try to ease our discomfort with things. WE don’t understand and we do that politically emotionally culturally for better for worse. Oh yeah. So that’s the kind of thinking that when in the spine and and I can’t say I’m gratifying. This is the cause of that and in the pandemic or in contemporary politiques. But yeah, you know and I don’t think I took a new approach at that way. I think we’ve seen how people historically have they are not dealt with the CATASTROPHIQUE. I didn’t have any particular in mind and I write the book, but I have had enough history to do all those things you know in in in our culture and other cultures at time. So yeah.

[00:45:05.530] – John Knych

Thank you. And then I hear your passing in this way. To go back to Paris if you have. If you have a question. Of the list. But if you have a question.

[00:45:24.190] – Orateur 5

To go back to spin like if I take the example of the initial initial problem de de de de spherical force field around the earth you you put this in the in the story and you explore the consequences of it Notably scientifique consequences of it like if there is such a forced field and time flows differently. What would they simply to this this and that and at some point you need you need to stop making this cooking with her physical laws because at some point you have to break the physical lose it like with time travel or anything else. My question is when and how do you decide ? Okay, now, I’ll say this is magic U opposed to I want to go to explore if the rest of all physical laws remained the same with this would like this. This and this so how do you decide when to take this is magic ?

[00:46:39.670] – Robert Charles Wilson

A eu By magic in terms of technology. Is that what.

[00:46:47.380] – Orateur 5

Exactly like saying ? Okay, you could see if I. Time travel, then the space, the space, I was before will disappear so. Pressure of air will will go rush out and this is like a real physical consequence of an Unreal happening the time travel so same for the spine of or any of your books. When do you decide okay ? And now I don’t need to u to be realistic in the sense anymore.

[00:47:25.300] – Robert Charles Wilson

I think it’s just the ability. I mean the idea of the. Of the spine bubble that surrounds the earth is obviously not something I will ever expected to happen. I have no idea, whether it would be technologically possible. I really do it. But. Given that I think one of the ways to create ability or very similitude is by addressing some of the question around it. About how it affects how it buffers between. What ? If time were passing that slowly on earth the exterior universe will look extraordinarily energy and how would you buffer buffer against that of it ? So I mean, I can’t all those questions of technology. I don’t understand but be raising them and suggesting the possibility of something. I just take it creates a greater level of possibility of various similitudes. It is it is of course, it’s magic, but it is less like magic it to it being a technological process rather than a arbitrary magical when I guess I could say that.

[00:48:47.130] – John Knych

This is shifting back to your development by the. This might be me reading into spin and create my own interpretation of it and I’ve only spend the only. I’ve had of years. So I’m not sure if I’m about to ask you down in other books, but I I kept wandering while following Giants, Jason and Tyler that they were representative of larger forces like that page one hundred ten I wonder if Jason represented the health of Civilization because I know he was getting to do with Spain, where you are just to remember just giving them this creative director that you and I wanted things to happen to them or was there a plan that you wanted them to represent and other things in the book like broader teams or did you just go into it ? Just these are the factors that things are going to happen to.

[00:49:52.510] – Robert Charles Wilson

Well to take represented different possible reactions. To the spine. There are other resistance and I hate you pointed out some of those and you’re not. I did not deliberately those out. But they seem to pop out of the text and time to time. So you make the most of it make the most of what you find the right thing is a process of discovery and so that. That. That was part of the discovery process and writing the book. But there was those some of those echo and resistance and were not something that I had in mind when I started writing the book.

[00:50:41.070] – John Knych

Thank you alright. Let’s do final round around the round table and do you have ? I have a question to ask.

[00:50:51.750] – Orateur 3

So I know Alastair Reynolds is said that he he doesn’t really science-fiction. He doesn’t read much more, especially when he is writing. So my question is Do you keep up with the current science-fiction books that comes out ? Do you have my favourite ?

[00:51:11.430] – Robert Charles Wilson

I have following way behind I have found way behind partly for that reason. I don’t like to read other science-fiction books while I’m writing and since I’m generally writing. Partly because the field is gotten. So that it’s hard to keep track. Partly Because so much of my reading has been devoted to non-fiction. You know if I’m reading history of science. It’s something that is something that helps to generate ideas and play is back in my work. So no, I have to confess. I have not keeping up with the field. I mean I fell in love like I said before I fell in love with postwar science-fiction and I keeping up with the field up till the turn of the century up and maybe. I was still keeping up with it. But now this thing nothing is the last thing you live here and there and enjoy them, but it’s been sporadic and very powerful. So I can’t really speak to current science-fiction with any authorities.

[00:52:24.600] – Orateur 3

Do you have books ? I would like to recommend to us.

[00:52:30.630] – Robert Charles Wilson

Oh gosh. Oh my gosh, I know nothing springs to mind at the moment. I’m sure it is as soon as we finished this discussion and turn off my computer titles will appear to me. But are the tip of my tongue. No.

[00:52:48.480] – Orateur 3

Thank you.

[00:52:51.390] – John Knych

I think you have two questions in the chat from. From Gabriel and Ryan. So this is back to the blind lake, so Gabriel said which one of the mystery and blind lake is whether the observation system itself have some kind of intelligence is to know whether you were exploring this idea that complex system can create their own agency like and I were you doing that with which blind lake or or no yes.

[00:53:21.930] – Robert Charles Wilson

I can I was playing with the idea all that was able to think of it as I and any modern sense, but there had been some ideas about how algorithmes creating algorithmes and coming up with results were unpredictable and sometimes indéchiffrables in the way that often modern I will so I had this, I had the idea of this sort of some sort of. Quantum télescope for a better world hooked up to some sort of what we would now and artificial intelligence system that would consistently refine refine images. To the point where in the center of practice of the book. WE could literally observed in daily life on the planet outside of our solar system. The planet circling all the stars. WE could observed in such details that we could take a look at what ? WE could take a look and try to decipher what what was going on there without being able to Using visual information, but this is happening by a process that was itself difficult to understand so the same time people are trying to understand life on this world. You have to ask questions is this really happening or is this just one is it a hallucination as we would say it now ?

[00:54:47.540] – Robert Charles Wilson

So yeah and given what we know now about that kind of process. It would be fun to revisit that idea to be honest, but I did I did with that what I could at the time.

[00:54:58.250] – John Knych

Thank you. Yes ! Gabriel feels vindicated. He said I knew it great and then before moving to I want it to echo Branden said before about Alastair Reynolds because we discussed we had to discuss with him and he said something similar to you and that when he first started out in the Syfy field, he felt like he could read everything that he was aware of everything that was being published, but is just expanded so much that now it’s it’s an impossible task and even if and said he could feel like it could be uptodate and scientific progress. But now there is just were drowning in in in information. Alright, Ryan is one thing that really impressed me and Spain was how your narrative spend decades and they were obvious great changes taking place globally you cover this element in such a way that you gave the broad Strokes and let the readers imagination run with the morsels that you gave you’re not getting stuck in the needs of the details and I agree with this year you moved to cross time very smoothly and he was wondering how you made those decisions in the writing process and was it deliberate decision to keep the navel as aerodynamic as possible.

[00:56:12.200] – Robert Charles Wilson

Again I. Must have that is now I don’t know I don’t remember too much about the process except I had this idea of trying to create. The structure was at the idea was to for the first half of the novel, I would have question big and small one after the other one after the other and at the point of the novel. I would begin to answer them the small question and big question. One after the other and the conclusion. I had not attempted to do that you have particular structure with anything. I’d written before. I don’t even if you call that the structure or a strategy, but it is very large in my mind when I was imagining reading the level of blocking it out of my head. So and I think that helped me bridges, not only the range of ideas and things in the book, but also the period of time that it that it was so I guess what ? But that’s the best answer. I can give you is that that’s what I was trying to do when I wrote it.

[00:57:23.660] – John Knych

Thank you alright. My last question is very small in the title of Spain. Did you choose to using this title or where you were you happy with it because at one point like this is the the face of the world spine as describing the process do remember. Did you like you to use it ? Or or not.

[00:57:48.950] – Robert Charles Wilson

In my books, I’ve had characterized by the title of the book in Spain was always called spine and my mind. I’ve got another novel called the crown of. The book somebody there is that appear in the present from the future commemoration events that have it happened yet and the cold chronos Chronos this time. Stone Chronos is a combination of great and latin, and that become the popular name for the object and at one point in the book when the director is what I got ugly name for these things. This is it. It’s a terrible name for these things. So I’m the character is often the title of the book of their character. But I was always been in my mind and that I think it worked as a title. That’s it simple short and it is memorable.

[00:58:49.110] – John Knych

Thank you. Brandon. Jane.

[00:59:00.090] – Orateur 5

Euh, il y a un header Model of time travel that you prefer between like stable time loop or multiple timelines that you that you find easier to write stories in all the person of paper.

[00:59:18.000] – Robert Charles Wilson

I’m sorry, I can’t hear that.

[00:59:21.160] – Orateur 5

CAN you hear me now ? Il y a eu Is there a model of time travel that you prefer between stable time loops multiples timeline and search and why ?

[00:59:35.440] – Robert Charles Wilson

The question is about time travel and the. Weather how I approach the idea that the world.

[00:59:43.960] – John Knych

I wish you prefer I guess to explore the types of.

[00:59:50.710] – Robert Charles Wilson

Ideas. Hum hum hum. In terms of you know I mean something about time travel is that time travel travelling through time in the future is perfectly plausible all you have to do is somehow hold still and that the universe change around you traveling in the past is almost certainly impossible because you would have to hold yourself static and understand the entire universe back to where you want it to go. Much more energy intensive than just trying to hold yourself still. It is nevertheless deeply alluring idea I’ve written various versions of all of the time travel stories. I read a book called last year and which traveling did this idea of traveling to the past and traveling to a different versions of the past that you could interact with only two and alternative that it worked with all the year zero or something that way you could interact with that environment without creating the obvious paradox. Time travel paradox themselves don’t trust me that much, they seem to. It’s the subject has been done that I think in the eu nevertheless. it’s the time travel itself.

[01:01:20.590] – Robert Charles Wilson

The idea is just so well, it’s impossible to resist. So I haven’t done a whole lot of time travel, but I have not been able to really know it better.

[01:01:35.350] – John Knych

I think that he has a final question you find your good. Thank you so much for doing this really enjoyed this conversation. I’ll get the transcript. Share it with the readers in the group and we hope to read your your next novel used for the thousand summer of that the correct.

[01:02:03.400] – Robert Charles Wilson

Is great and you guys appreciate it the question. It was. It was a conversation. Thank you.

[01:02:08.680] – John Knych

Wonderful everyone. Have a good night. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good day.

[01:02:13.390] – Orateur 6

Thank you.

[01:02:14.350] – John Knych

Bye bye.

[01:02:15.520] – Orateur 7

Bye.

[00:00:01.18] – John Knych

Hello Hiron Ennes, thank you for being here. Today we will be discussing The Works of Vermin, doing a round table discussion, and will start with Noémie, with your first question.

[00:00:13.09] – Noémie

Yes! Sure. So my first question was: Did some of the ideas that you had for your first book didn’t really find their place in the first book, in Leech, and then they found their final ways into this one, was it something that you had to work with?

[00:00:28.13] – Hiron Ennes

So there were some parts of Leech, that made it into Works of Vermin, but the parts of Leech that actually did make their way into Vermin, were very minor parts of Leech, so for instance: one of the characters in Leech, Helen, in an earlier draft, like her back story was that she was actually really famous cellist from the city, and that got me sort of rolling into: I wonder what music is like in a world like this that has like ended over and over and over again? And like what changes have taken place to music theory and performance and art in general and I sort of like that really small part of Leech; I sort of followed down this bizarre tunnel all the way to the Vermin, and which art is basically just a huge part of life, in their part it; the world.

[00:01:35.00] – John Knych

Thank you now and to Brandon.

[00:01:39.19] – Brandon

Thank you so much for being here really appreciate this.

[00:01:44.15] – Hiron Ennes

Yeah, thanks for having me.

[00:01:46.01] – Brandon

So I guess can you explain like how your world building process a little bit…did you…I mean you have this incredibly imaginative unique world that you’ve built up. So did you build the world first, and then write your story, or did you kind of do it as you were writing the story? You just add more and more of the world? I mean how was your whole process of world building?

[00:02:10.23] – Hiron Ennes

You are so it was sort of intergrated processes. I came up with the general bones of the story of Vermin first. I knew it was going to be in this war of Lush hot wet disgusting city, but that’s all that I really know when I went in and started writing the first chapter and the first chapter the first of chapter of Vermin, changed considerably over a period of three months. I just wrote the beginning over and over and over again because something wasn’t right like originally some of the creatures that the exterminator would go after word of ghost like etherial things that want it all and you know that was two broad I needed to know it down. What sort of what sort of creatures would terrorize the city built in two and three stump. Oh you know, but I’m just gonna I’m gonna keep it the boys. I’m gonna keep it the past and then from there the sort of mafioso like world of computing extermination company of integrated from that idea downward and it was as far as like world building on the over city side to like what happens at the opera ?

[00:03:41.08] – Hiron Ennes

Is it ? You know Is it gladiatorial or not do people make it on the outcome of the story that they see. Those to be sort of arrived at me in the same way where I Something what happened to be like all ? That’s not quite right. And then I leave it for a while I think about it. And then that element the world building with sort of present itself as a solution to do whatever the character were stuck doing. So it was a very very integrated process.

[00:04:16.02] – John Knych

Interesting great, thank you to Jane and also I need to say it loud that doing the roundtable discussion. Anyone does not have a question or if it’s very bad and you can just pass so and.

[00:04:29.23] – Jenn

Thanks for being here. I’ve enjoyed both of your books, so. Environmental collapse is really embedded in English in Vermin, and I was wondering to feel like the environment is kind of a caractère in your books and not just the backdrop.

[00:04:47.03] – Hiron Ennes

Absolutely I think that the environment, whether or not, it’s a Géographique. Or ecological as it was in Nietzsche and I mean and in Vermin to but whether or not. It’s like the natural environment or the natural environment like the system that people build like from the rebels of worlds that comes before are really really integrated into how I like to tell my stories and the the environment itself sort of play the role as a team like in which you know isolation and loneliness was huge. So why would it take place in in in your way ? The same way Vermin is where where is Vermin is about excess and life and arts and culture and and all of these things sort of Evolve with the caractères and because of the caractère. So yeah I think I love to integrate, whatever is happening in the environment. Whether it socio-politico economiques or natural. I’d love to incorporate that into the story and have it with caractère pretty directly.

[00:06:14.17] – Jenn

Thank you.

[00:06:17.00] – John Knych

Thank you and.

[00:06:23.12] – Brian

Thank you both both here because we’re all right when it came out and I think I think about it. Yeah, which is good for a while so my first question on this one, just to go on the world building and so how do you ? How do you decide like when you are going to use it a little bit, but when you’re building the setting. How do you decide which elements too much together because some of the things really felt like in both books that they wouldn’t fit for most stories, because you have this, you know technology of like this kind of world that you can have been discovered even even in Vermin, they said you know they talk about the discovery of the camera like even things like that our technology has been lost and come back there there building their society on top of the ruins of something that used to be there, but then you have you know the culture being built on this, you have you know environment and you have been built into the stump of this great tree and you have this river and you know the past and everything Obviously, how do you decide, which actually will fit for your stories.

[00:07:38.19] – Hiron Ennes

All that’s hard. I think my process I can I think with Sofia Samatar who said that like the way I write a book is I write a book and then delete the person of it and that that was kind of at least in the case for vermine is that I like first draft totally overstuff there were footnotes. There were long rambling acid Victor Hugo about like the like there is all sort of shit in there that I found I was quite delighted in what I was told by my editor today. I got it so half of it half of the things that stay and half of things that got the things that got at first got because they might be contrary to where I want the story to go like I really love and elements, but I’ll be like this exists in this world than it presence like two years Easy of a solution for something is find some situation my caractère find themselves in or if it, if it is contradictoire to the story not necessarily like and celery to the stories because there’s a lot of environment and that’s just sort of like meandering Worldbuilding that I love and I love saying that in books a lot of the time, but there’s a lot that doesn’t necessarily people the story, but it’s not like countries indicated in this in this process, so usually by the time, I give a first draft to someone all of the worldbuilding elements that are included are the one that are not necessarily like totally countries and then from there it becomes like.

[00:09:39.10] – Hiron Ennes

Kill your darlings one by one brutally and over a long period of time. And there have been many darlings that have been cut from this but a lot of things that have said.

[00:09:54.04] – Brian

It’s awesome. Thank you.

[00:09:56.00] – John Knych

Typekit. Brian continue with the worldbuilding theme.

[00:10:00.23] – Hiron Ennes

And go for ever.

[00:10:02.12] – John Knych

Before it before I do after sometimes ask how we discovered them. So I need to shoot out. Peter Watts who is an author we had before you when we ask him. He should we read here immediately said Nietzsche and then Jeanne and Brian had already read and so we were super happy to read your book before it’s related to the public, so that that’s how I guess.

[00:10:27.22] – Hiron Ennes

I love this writing. I I think he’s great, Yes.

[00:10:33.16] – John Knych

We have a question related to the similarity and and and style, but continue with worldbuilding with maybe we get back to that later. So it’s just now how you decide what to keep and that many darlings are killed. When you’re digging for digging and building the world Do you ? Do you read history and people from history ? And I ask because when I came across like a margrave, which I have hereditary title for some prince of roman empire and then soon after a silver writing which has a drinking vessel from Greece. So are you I mean that you study history and this is just there. Or are you reading history ? So like when you’re digging where you find in all this information.

[00:11:19.23] – Hiron Ennes

So when I’m digging, it’s an interesting process particularly for veerman. I mean I guess and it’s because both of these both of these stories takes place like thousands of thousands of years and the future like on sort of like layers of dead society, the same way we live it up layers of. Heroes of Geological time and my goal for putting little bit and pieces of history is to make it sort of delightful incongruous. There are some like I never studied history formally, but there are some factors and some things that I love about the society that have comes before and that are still going on. And. I like to get them in a way that is not historically accurate or in a way that like sometimes like when we look at history from an archaeological perspective. WE can’t really know what these people were using this object for or what significant other things are like WE don’t we can make our best guess, but we don’t really know. So my goal girl in integrating some like anachronistic historical things in Vermin was sort of from that I would like to like maybe they found this or they saw this in a picture that they dug up and they’re like all we want to recreate it because we think it’s beautiful.

[00:13:01.17] – Hiron Ennes

But we don’t know we don’t know what it’s for or you know why why they used to use it so like in the case of the right and it’s something that you like this is the type of your CB in during gladiatorial Oprah battle. You know you don’t you don’t drink from it like it’s just you all of my historical references are anachronistic in the city and they don’t come from like necessarily a deep understanding of history. Because that’s not like my goal is not to accurately recreate historical society, but just like pick and choose from the same way that that we sometimes pick and choose meaning from the past that we don’t necessarily know is through.

[00:13:49.10] – John Knych

Thank you right back. Back to the top. Noémie.

[00:13:53.07] – Noémie

Alright. Thank you. I am very curious about your inspiration. It’s something. I’m very curious. I think with all the authors that we’ve meet when I read Leeds and this book I really thought about China miéville for example with the beat of the fucked-up society that he’s building on top of each other that makes sense. I don’t know if it was something that you thought about but to me gave me this. I thought that with all about Nausicaa as well the Ghibli movie and I thought about Oliver twist and I don’t know if you, you know had inspiration that you draw from when writing the book.

[00:14:28.22] – Hiron Ennes

I think those are good inspiration actually China Miéville definitely someone that I read in my things that was super for me. So pretty the street station is definitely like a very very blatant inspiration for this, I would say. And it also gets compared to it a lot. I have this horrible habits of being inspired by things that I’ve never seen or red. So the reason why I started with Jeff Vandermeer who my love by the way is because someone said that Jeff or someone said that he was like and celery justice meets Jeff Vandermeer and I hadn’t red idea of those things and that I read them and I’m like us. This is great. Similarly I’ve never seen it like I just watch the thing like a couple of months ago. And I’m like Oh, I see I see you, but yeah. I think that a lot of my inspiration, especially for Vermin comes from a very weird Place Perdido Street Station. Definitely one kind of monte Cristo is definitely in inspiration for it as well. And then I would say Jeff vandermeer again.

[00:15:55.24] – Hiron Ennes

But I did it again where I had not red is ambergris trilogy until I was like halfway through Vermin, and then I read it and I’m like. This is also it’s very similar to this as well. So I could I would say that those those inspirations are definitely there, whether or not there are some of like osmose from the environment. So if anyone wants to come perdido street station, definitely and then the ambergris trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer as well just about these super weird city where just how it takes place all the time those are those ten to be like my favourite kinds of books.

[00:16:41.24] – Noémie

When I was describing the book to my husband. I was saying it’s basically Jeff vandermeer made China Miéville. It was like Oh so that’s exactly what you love the most. It was like Yes exactly the book. I was talking to him about this like the last few few days when I was reading it and I was trying to try to understand how it would meet in the middle basically. It was like that’s it. That’s the total opposite of what you’re saying and he was very beautiful, the conversation with absolutely nowhere and it was beautiful, but I’m happy to see that it was the inspiration that I kind of guests. Thank you so much for that I want I want the one. Thank you.

[00:17:24.08] – John Knych

Noemi. How do culture step into us right ? That’s it.

[00:17:28.19] – Hiron Ennes

Yeah yeah. And I would say that is inspired by the thing. Even though. I had seen the thing because I feel like just the idea of it is through so many different like other piece of art that by the time. You get back to like the age which I guess itself is a remake of something, which is best of who is there ? So it’s you know. They’re all floating out. There are not and culture. Culture is our minds and always that we don’t necessarily. We’re not necessarily aware of.

[00:18:06.13] – John Knych

All of you and before moving on the brand. I’m happy that you said to Christo was the inspiration because spoilers for anyone listening. I’m gonna say the end, but ending on the boat. I was like you. This is because you sprinkle little French. There’s little french fries and there’s two and so I hear that was happy I enjoyed.

[00:18:24.22] – Hiron Ennes

Et I want I wanted the running off on the boat think I’m like, ok ? That’s coming straight from Dumas.

[00:18:32.17] – John Knych

It’s timeless until brandon.

[00:18:38.03] – Brandon

I thought the relationship between down and guy was really interesting. There’s this kind of unrequited love going on down seems infatuation would be kind of in the toxique way. I can you took a little bit about how you came up with that.

[00:18:55.16] – Hiron Ennes

I think I think just saying. I guess like some of my personal experience going into this novel inspired that things that I’ve seen between like close friends or not to go into any of details about that, but it’s like it’s kind of a very common experiment experience to I’d like by someone or close friendship where you’re not like quite sure if it’s gonna sort of another into something else if both partie are involved, there were Are saying that happen to different people and evolve and sometimes very interesting and sometimes kind of tragique ways. Automatically I think I wanted a really fucking weird love triangle cause the. This book is basically just like a huge piece of baroque theater of spread over for Android pages and so I took some like obviously like you know it’s very theatrical and a lot of things are lifted from you know classique opera and I love triangle is pretty much and necessity, but I wanted I love trying all that wasn’t between that wasn’t necessarily romantic and wasn’t between like usually it’s between two men and women. The love triangle I guess in between a dude his bunk might and his sister and day and it’s not necessarily romantic love between the three of them.

[00:20:45.03] – Hiron Ennes

But the way that they interact with each other and they are a-changin or not necessarily. Recommended and their needs are not necessarily might and I think that was a fun and interesting thing to explore. And I think that’s that is the source of the the sort of unrequited love between guys and down.

[00:21:11.09] – Brandon

Thank you. I think I read a lot of science-fiction mostly so I don’t see that very often. So that was interesting. Thank you.

[00:21:20.24] – John Knych

Thank you. Brandon. Moving on to if you have a question.

[00:21:25.15] – Jenn

I am so I watch and interview you did about leech and the interview or this question and I’m stealing. It was there is there something you wanted to fit into this book that it didn’t make it and you want readers to know or just something that you really love that just couldn’t fit.

[00:21:45.11] – Hiron Ennes

So many things so many tiny things are used to be a lot more manual entry and they would have like a little footnote for each of them and there were like so many weird bugs that did weird things there was like and and that by you that would make you seen. There was there were just like so many little box that couldn’t quite make it in, but that still leave in your us. And then this one almost well, it’s sort of his halfway there, but headcannon is that the magical girl actually survived ten different apocalypse and it’s a very popular author. Joanna. Now with it stuck around in the form of a little orphan of the details of which I don’t actually go into you, but it’s a magical girl enemy opera and I wish I could have gone into that a little more.

[00:22:59.19] – Jenn

Oh, that’s awesome. Thank you.

[00:23:04.05] – John Knych

Before you got the Brian was that removed the hand that makes you seen. What was the editor’s reason.

[00:23:10.07] – Hiron Ennes

That was that was on me. It was. It was okay, okay. There’s a lot of that are that are derived from these creatures in this world. And I think it was it ended up being when aster and Mallory, and elspeth are in that sort of a Aix-en-Provence nightclub and they’re doing they’re doing the third eye that it was originally seen it like this, but I thought that there might be too many drugs in this world. Cause we already have like that we already have like regular cocaïne, we already have. A lot of different stuff and I’m like there are just too many drugs. I’m gonna narrow this down. Just the third eye that so the sun and sorry man. You got booted. You got it in favour of the mouth.

[00:24:18.09] – John Knych

Thank you on the Brian.

[00:24:22.21] – Brian

A all right so my next one is about the role of violence and the story violence and also potentially that some overlap there. So we have talked about how the story of the very hard heavy world. There’s a lot of you know. There’s a lot of painting. There’s sculpture. There’s the performing is like you know another art form as well. And it seems like the way the people view violence in this world is through almost one hundred pour 100 artistique perspective like they discuss constantly. How beautiful is where you know the persons or even the dead body and things like that. And I was all about that. And then this can be kind of a follow-up or maybe I said I don’t know, but the dictator that they’re extracted from the new the new blog to me. It really seems like that one thing was like that, it was the symbol of like the violence in the world itself with the way, the shape, the shape, the city changed really everything I came in the contact with the left scare it like changed how they were the people who did all of different things and I guess what it was that perfectly just commentary on the role of violence play and society or something like that.

[00:25:52.02] – Hiron Ennes

Yeah so. Yeah about this question of linked together. I think that the. The role of violence, the role of violence. Play in your head is a hundred person spot on it like everything in this world is viewed from the artistic art esthétique land. And I don’t think I don’t think that is too far removed from our own world, because I think that I mean. Not to not to go. So she has to say this. This world is literally about the theatre of war and optics are a thing. And we can also see the beauty in violence sport like Mama Marshall are boxing. There is a strange elegance to really well fought fight and I wanted to sort of extra-plate that this about that we have already have. But don’t aknowledge that a lot of a lot of violence in our our world is esthétique. It is performative. It is like not to go into detail, but what we’re seeing right now the brutality and violence in the United States, right ? Right now that is being perpetual and the city is is it is performed.

[00:27:44.07] – Hiron Ennes

It is a message. It’s not it’s not to any purpose. Besides cruelty itself and to send a message and so that that aspect of violence as an esthétique as a message as something that is performed already exists in our world. But we. When I want it like when I was making the world of Vermin. I wanted it to be acknowledged like here like we the people we lives. WE think about optic sometimes but in you are when you kill people and you are always thinking about optic and how how this ? This action that has very real consequences for human life is sort of secondary of how it looks like. For instance like chanceler gosselin tells his marshals to you no kill a few of that he thinks are you but like don’t don’t be heavy handed about it. I don’t want my rain associated with tastes like that was very useful and I just wanted to see how violence would be Acknowledged and reacted to in a world that that value over material condition or not saying that we don’t value in this world over material condition, but.

[00:29:38.14] – Hiron Ennes

It was sort of like just taking to like the rococo extreme. You know and I think to that and yeah, that’s the way it change people the way it leaves scars the way it is used as essentially explosives and a fumigant and and all these different all these different aspects of what could arguably be Chemical Warfare. Yeah ! I think that exotoxine is very very indicative of like that the distillation of violence itself in this world that makes any sense sorry that was a kind of a rambling answers.

[00:30:21.01] – Brian

Great. Thank you.

[00:30:23.02] – John Knych

Thank you very good question. The. Question is what you want to ask before in relation to the Peter was before I say that this just piggy back off of Brian and your response. It’s a very bleak view of the world. Maybe if we keep stacking society for hundreds of years violence. We’ll just be like that is in your book, right ? Where it’s it’s it’s glorified And it’s not only. That’s not where we’re going.

[00:30:57.10] – Hiron Ennes

To end up somewhere better. I don’t have a lot of hope that we will be and you know that will end up somewhere weird her. I think that however, our society and it’s gonna be weird and stupid that’s all I want to say.

[00:31:12.19] – John Knych

Yes, it’s speaking of weird. So you’re your style hearing. Head Peter Watts its his voice is is like no other. This is very bizarre. There is no cliché and was the same experience with with you. And that there is no cliché that like the first thing I wrote in my notes was that every sentence just feels out of him out of someplace new and there there are a lot of this next to the brand said about like Syfy like a lot of sci-fi novels. Just you see the same same things and I thought you’re still remind me a bit of Emile Zola, except that was Emile Zola like Noemie probably talk more about this. She is actually read him in French like it’s like a suffocating atmosphere years was extravagant like there is this twisted dark right things are grappling and knowing and and it’s and it’s just there’s no clichés so much to you is when your Formulate sentences because with a lot of creators that are in this group and that will hopefully watch this when you creating sentences. Are you consciously crafting each sentence to be cliché or is it a natural unintended process where you you have this world, You have this vision and this sentence just come out unique.

[00:32:39.06] – Hiron Ennes

Oh my god, I wish now it’s it’s very deliberate process. I can spend the entire day on the single sentence. It’s actually quite frustrating. You all I can say is like sometimes all right and look at it and say now I’ve heard that sentences before. But it becomes a balancing act between like not being cliché and not being completely incomprehensible. Cause I think there are a lot of sentences that I’ve never been said. But most of them are junk. And yeah, it’s it’s a process for sure and it’s very very pretty agonizing on my part. So I don’t know if I would recommend it, but it is how you get up and at the end of the day.

[00:33:34.09] – John Knych

So you can’t because something we have something we’ve had some authors that they don’t really revise like I just you know, but you always.

[00:33:46.12] – Hiron Ennes

Pathological in fact. I have a type writer now so that I can not revise well, I’m writing a first draft I. I got it for practical purposes. So I can like actually get through something before I decide I hate it and I want to change and in the end I still do the thing where I write a book and the person of it, but at least having like having the strength of physical piece of paper that like I got to get through it before I go back later with the pen and make things up has been immensely helpful in helping me get something out to begin with because on the computer. I’m just two tempted to write a paragraph and then read it over a thousand times. Delete. Delete. Delete and then we write it from scratch. Meanwhile, it’s been at work day. I have three hundred words on my word document so at least with the writer, I get something out and then I can do that light in the editing process.

[00:35:07.12] – John Knych

The sound of painful. Thank you and.

[00:35:09.01] – Hiron Ennes

It’s all.

[00:35:11.04] – John Knych

I want to take you to write burning.

[00:35:13.24] – Hiron Ennes

Oh God, I’m so about a year and. I’m trying to think of how many hours. It would have taken me to write. Oh God, I wrote at least for for hours a day every day for a year and I’m not going to my head, but that’s it. That’s a lot of time. I hear your story about people like writing. Writing a book and five weeks or whatever and I’m like. Oh my god, I wish I’m so you.

[00:35:52.09] – John Knych

Think you back to me if you have a question.

[00:35:56.01] – Orateur 2

Yes, how does the process of.

[00:35:58.07] – Noémie

Writing a second book compared to the process writing. The first one did you have some sound of pressure because the first one was pretty successful. I guess like people did like it because it was awesome. But it was you know a book that really changed a lot of things I guess for science When you came out and did you have some of pressure or where you like people like the first one ? So I’m good to go. I can be a bit weird and I can do something about something. I wouldn’t have necessarily done in the first book. Did you have things like that going through your head and just going through it again ?

[00:36:32.06] – Hiron Ennes

I wish that I wish that I did. But what was going through my head was performance anxiety and you no fear of the sophomore syndrome where whatever it comes next. It’s invariably worse than what can before. If people hated each than they wouldn’t read my second one, which was bad have people loved which I was afraid they would like this one, which is also bad. So whatever it was, it was bad. I actually so when I signed on It was for two big deal and the second book that he was like a high fantasy sort of music by magic and astrology. Best giant creature fever, dream of high fantasy and I. Wish that I tried to write that during my research year in school and it was an other failure. It was so it was. I don’t think it was bad. But it just wasn’t the right time to write this. It’s like epic fantasy that was running me as I was trying to keep up with it. And I was that this was before the typewriter too.

[00:37:59.22] – Hiron Ennes

So this was me spending that our own words just kind of like. It was a really heartfelt book, Broke it and my soul, I gave part of it to my editor at the end of the year. And he’s like no, we can’t really run with this, So I put that one away I read more about a week and then I started German, and I think at that point having having failed something before it even came out made things a little better when it came to Vermin because I’m like you know what it can’t be worse than the last one. So it was like it was kind of a rollercoaster of like performance anxiety and some sort of like writing with the thought of thought of like. What would say about this like what he like this or like with this section need to sensitivity reader, blablabla. And you know it wasn’t really cool to Writing well and I said that you actually get something done and writing well and since that your writing something that you want to write regardless of what you might comes in the future, you know.

[00:39:20.03] – Hiron Ennes

So it was it was involved process for sure.

[00:39:24.23] – Noémie

Okay, alright. Thank you. I hope that we get to have the music best high fantasy with a fever dream into it. I mean it because it sounds very awesome. So I get it. I guess that’s sometimes we will have this. But thank you so interesting.

[00:39:38.24] – Hiron Ennes

I hope when they see the light of day, but we’ll see.

[00:39:45.02] – John Knych

If you know I’m back to brandon if you have a question.

[00:39:49.01] – Brandon

Yes, this might be a little bit of you not but when I was doing this. It wasn’t about to me that the structure right two different timeperiod that the first is that by design. There was I just not paying attention.

[00:40:07.02] – Hiron Ennes

Now it was by design, it was by design. I used to be a dancer and a lot more opaque.

[00:40:15.21] – Brandon

I just.

[00:40:19.10] – Hiron Ennes

Not know it’s it. It’s hidden.

[00:40:23.09] – Brandon

I love you. So I guess my my question about that is how I feel like they are kind of things and more. So as you go along. Did you write like an outline before the kind of pieces all these together and come as you are the things are revealed. Did you have to outline ? That are you just that’s just how you write it.

[00:40:54.09] – Hiron Ennes

It’s a bit of both like you and this is how I’ve been answering. Every question is like intergrated with each other, but I wrote and I started writing the book I delighted that outline, I wrote a different outline. I wrote a little bit more in the book, I changed that outline. So I feel like I’m learning about this about myself and real time is that everything that I write things to be of my goal was like to have people arrived at that conclusion at different point in the narrative, so I would sprinkle things here and there and make some of my early readers took a long like friends and family. They all read my stuff one of my readers who clearly we share your mind figure it out like with and like the first to chapter and I make like what ? And then like my sister didn’t figure it out and like way down so clearly there are like there are different Different time at which people arrived at that revelations and I kind of wanted to keep that because I think it’s it’s kind of cool to see like you figure it out when and whenever I got the text message.

[00:42:18.24] – Hiron Ennes

I’d be like what part of the book ? Are you And that be like I’m about you know this person of the way through and I’m like. OK ? That’s a good. That’s a good spot. I can I want to build like like a diagram of it like a history of the time. I wish people figure it out I think.

[00:42:34.18] – Brandon

I think I was about half way through it. That’s it. I feel like this will be a good book to read. So I’m sure, there’s a lot of him and there that would you could catch on a second, second Read.

[00:42:50.09] – Hiron Ennes

Here I wanted to write something that had readvalue because I encountered so few of those books like just in everyday life that I don’t know I find that meaning a book that you finish and you’re like how I am going to read. This is kind of and special thing for me. So I was hoping that.

[00:43:08.18] – Brandon

I think.

[00:43:10.12] – Hiron Ennes

Thank you.

[00:43:12.01] – Brandon

Thank you.

[00:43:13.17] – John Knych

Yes, may be here in the point. I wish people discover what’s going on is the litmus test for how they know you. Maybe you know. Yes.

[00:43:22.21] – Hiron Ennes

Yes, They are like how I know you’re all I know all the things I know what they are up to you.

[00:43:30.01] – John Knych

And I don’t share this with Brandon and everyone else, but I went dark and social media for like the last two days to make sure that I finished the book and what make me go there was I opened the good show and I saw Brandon just write the reveals and I immediately I push to the side. I was like that I was cause I could since I could since there was going on, but I think about sixty-five person take two third yeah, but not at me just jumping in alright. Thank you Brandon back to change if you have to have a question.

[00:44:02.15] – Orateur 8

I don’t have a question.

[00:44:03.11] – Jenn

But I just wanted to add to that that. I finished the book and I immediately thought I need to read this again just because I wanted to pick up those things that were sprinkle old through before I realized what was going on and I was just that was a really great feeling. So you think you think.

[00:44:24.17] – John Knych

And we’re quick before he moved to Brian head you encounter in this world for one watching this, but had you encountered this parallel type thing before is that your own construction.

[00:44:40.06] – Hiron Ennes

I have it might be a thing situation where where I’ve seen it before I wasn’t really. It doesn’t really jump out in my mind as something that I’ve seen like. I mean I’m sure, I have someone is doing it. There are a lot of different narratives or they are like to know that meet in the middle of two that meet at the end or something like that. But time is nothing.

[00:45:22.20] – John Knych

I’ve never think pretty and that’s good. But I never seen it done in the way that you did it. I’m just.

[00:45:30.15] – Hiron Ennes

A cool. I’m I’m sure it’s there. But it might just be one of those things you know.

[00:45:40.02] – John Knych

I don’t do you, Brian, if you have a question.

[00:45:45.14] – Brian

Yeah, That’s where I would say that that it felt even if it was something else like the combination of the different elements differently get it felt like something to me. I have a kind of I guess what kind of specific questions in the use of the manual. So we have the manual of this kind of us like it was like bedtime stories to extend and we have no memorizing the manual of all the different entry and how they have been new entry in a while, but then we get all of a sudden. I just a bunch of the story starts picking up. WE first get the one like you knew that they’re like using the produces all these weapons and all these things. But then the outcome of from that is that they have all of these other entry and some of them felt like they were actually potentially kind of Vermin, They were other things that seemed to fit in with what was already in the manual that we knew about, but then other words are like people infected by this people affected by this other product of this other people who worked for this specific company and the manual kind of turned into almost a form of like, I’m going to write a list of my political opponents and put them into this.

[00:47:07.12] – Brian

And now we’re going for him. I guess it’s kind of someone what you thought about you, but was this so more social commentary.

[00:47:17.00] – Hiron Ennes

Yes, it was. It was very deliberate and. Not to settle, but in a city where like extermination and funding of giants. Big things to be like in every day. One way of you know essentially the amazing and eradicate political thought that you don’t like this to just add the people who have those into the manual. So like I think at the end, they had like newspapers like something Certaines. Printing house to the manual and they just add anyone to the manual that they want to run away with so. No.

[00:48:09.05] – Orateur 9

No paroles in the world.

[00:48:11.12] – Brian

Or.

[00:48:12.05] – Hiron Ennes

Not at all.

[00:48:15.20] – John Knych

Thank you Brian before my last question. I’m. Back on the the the parallel structure. You did that we all have considered unique. I think it is presented so so well for for me. Brandon mentioned the group that you’re revealed are almost like nonchalant right ? It’s like you know like it’s like a very soul like. Yep. Yep. Here’s the Here’s what is going on. But the the way that it’s mixed with the society. That’s not only collapsed and his collapsing and it’s built on top of each other. And there are these fantastic elements, right ? These chemicals that change people it just it fits fait de make it felt very plausible for the world that that you built which I think that’s not always true with that type of parallel structures that you got almost feels like a cheesy. It can feel like a cheesy moment if the world doesn’t doesn’t work for it, but alright my my last question. We’ve had a question of authors before which is you just mentioned this talk your research here and I saw online that you.

[00:49:25.14] – John Knych

I don’t have this is true. This could just be a lie online, but that you have you to research with disease or medical stuff. Could you talk about your work outside of writing and if it inform your writing at all you so.

[00:49:39.17] – Hiron Ennes

I am I’m a doctor Now, I wrote like in the the period between underground and medical school. I took that research year, I did actually research on Covid vaccination and development of antibodies after vaccination and all levels of antibodies change over time and like between demographic. And during that research here was when I wrote the the big fantasy that never saw the light of day, and then vermin I wrote during the last year of medical school and my first year of residency, which I would not recommend. I woke up it for every morning to do it. I am now a pathologie residents, so I am. I have one more year of residency and then I’m going into forensic pathology fellowship and then I’ll be a real friends before just after that so two years, Then I’ll be a real doctor. Who will.

[00:51:01.23] – Orateur 2

Not ?

[00:51:07.05] – Hiron Ennes

Be enough. I feel like the stuff that is my writing from my work is more on the story of art lab science side rather than like the death investigation and crime side. But we see that changes in the future is like a sort of shift from you know a research in hospital work and two medical examiners work. So we’ll see where it goes very interesting.

[00:51:36.06] – John Knych

Thank you. And I go out one more person who we had on this group and was also a tort author of Djèli Clark. And you know.

[00:51:45.24] – Hiron Ennes

Everything.

[00:51:47.01] – John Knych

Yes, we actually discover the master of Giants As a group but I bring them up because he works at the historian as a he has a PhD in the history with us that like none of his colleagues are students know that he published scifi. So the question is who you do your other doctors or colleagues know that you have this other life or do you keep it secret ?

[00:52:15.03] – Hiron Ennes

I keep it on the day by day. So I used to be totally secret when I thought I was gonna go into clinical medicine and like my patient can read this. They can’t be like Oh my doctor came up with that there and saying. Hum, but now that I am more in the pathologie. The sort of assumption is that you are in saying if you’re in pathologie, so it’s more socially acceptable to do right weird stuff and pathologie, so a couple of me now and a couple of my Generally like it’s not really conversation piece. Cause it’s usually not to what whatever I’m talking about with them. But if there like what would you do on your holiday ? I say well, I was my book tour. So if they ask I’ll bring it up.

[00:53:13.13] – John Knych0

Thank you.

[00:53:14.05] – John Knych

That was my last question. So any final any final question.

[00:53:20.21] – Brandon

After the recording.

[00:53:23.13] – John Knych

Okay.

[00:53:26.05] – Brandon

Okay.

[00:53:27.20] – John Knych

Noemi. Jeanne. Brian. Any any final. Question. Alright. Well, thank you very much. I’m gonna end the recording in a couple sequence. It was a pleasure hearing you talk about your your process the book. Thank you so much.

[00:53:45.05] – Hiron Ennes

Thank you so much. It’s really fun.

 

[00:00:01.13] – John Knych

Hello, everyone. This is Ness Brown. Thank you for being here, Ness Brown. Ness is an astrophysicist and also a science fiction writer. And today, we’ll be talking about her debut, The Scourge Between Stars. So my first question for you, Ness. It’s a two-parter. Number one, can you share with us the origin of the book, the idea, how you came to the idea for the story? And then number two, can you share with us a little bit about the publication path? Because I read in the Acknowledgments that you wrote it in a month. And I’m curious to know whether you did that on a deadline with an editor that said, you need to write this fast, or you wrote it and then found a publisher.

[00:00:43.12] – Ness Brown

Thank you so much for the question. I first remember considering this idea all the way back, I believe, at the beginning of my undergrad experience. I was home for the summer, and my father is a huge sci-fi horror nerd. I come by it honestly. And we were rolling through our usual roster of pitch black, Doom, revisiting all of the highlights from my childhood. The worse it performed critically, the better. And I remember briefly flirting with the idea of some scenario, where you have your usual enclosed in a spaceship, something else is on board, the very familiar sci-fi horror scenario. I was curious about adding the element of the hint of cosmic horror, something greater than what we know, something far beyond ourselves, and then the uberhuman element of horror, where we also have just the run-of-the-mill evils, that still, sadly, plague society, and just a story where all of these horrors are competing with each other. And that leads handily into your second question. Excuse me. I did nothing with the idea at the time. I just put it to the side for many years. And then in June of 2020, I found out about an event that Tor Nightfire, the horror imprint, was holding, where they were looking for submissions from Black Indigenous Writers of Colour who did not have representation.

[00:02:40.07] – Ness Brown

So if you didn’t have an agent, you were free to send in any manuscript that you had, and then they would consider it, which is a pretty special opportunity. And the deadline was July of 2020. So I was absolutely staring down the barrel of a really crazy deadline, and I had no book. I just knew I really wanted to try to take advantage of this opportunity. So for four weeks, I essentially wrote for 16 hours a day, just to see if I could meet the deadline, see if I could turn something in. I submitted the story at 3:00 AM, the day that it was due. I just made it. And even though I suspect there are…I think there’s evidence of the fact that it was written in such a short amount of time, but I still dearly, dearly love the book, and I’m so grateful for everything that Scourge has opened, the further doors that it opened up to me. It was a true delight to write.

[00:03:44.24] – John Knych

Wonderful, thank you. Well, there’s definitely an urgency in the story that the reader feels, that when I read the that you read in a month, I was like, oh, yeah, you feel that pull. Thank you. So the format for this Ness is we do just a round table. We go around to each, every one. And if people don’t have questions, I have six questions here, so everyone’s welcome to pass. But we’ll go to Brandon, since you’ve been part of these talks, we’ll go to you for your next question.

[00:04:18.24] – Brandon

Thank you, Jack, for putting together these talks, as always. And thank you, Ness, for being here today. Yeah, I didn’t realize it only took you a month to write. So, you were saying that it seems like you wrote it quickly. I thought there was a lot of world building and backstory, like we don’t see beyond the story. There’s this failed colony, there’s these unknown attacks on the ship. I feel like there’s a lot more world building to it, but maybe there wasn’t. So I guess my question to you is, how much world building did you put into this story? And Is there a lot to it that we don’t see in the story? Or is it just you wrote this as quick as you can, and what we see is what all it is?

[00:05:11.13] – Ness Brown

Thank you very much for this question. This is something that I love to talk about, because I mentioned writing this in four weeks, and I would say that the first week was actually me doing all these calculations to make sure that I got the distances, the speeds, the timing right from here to all à Alpha Centauri. I created names for 300 ships because I was envisioning the original colony effort that went over to Alpha Centauri, was something like 6,000 ships strong, and I wanted to get their structure. I wanted to understand the full detail. I’m not an exoplanetary scientist, specifically, but I did a lot of looking at what have we found out about the surface of Alpha Centauri so far. I would say that there’s definitely a ton of things that I looked at originally. And there were some other elements that had been present in the original draft, such as a little more information about the attempted coup on the ship, and so on and so forth. But part of the publishing process is making sure that on the publishing end, the book fits nicely into not just existing genres, but also existing format, so novella versus novel.

[00:06:33.14] – Ness Brown

I think the original draft was straddling the line between the two, and the publisher was like, Why don’t you slim this down, and we’ll package it that way? I think about 10,000 words got cut in the end, and not everything that I thought about for this world was able to make it on the page.

[00:06:57.08] – Brandon

Thank you.

[00:06:58.24] – John Knych

Thank you, We’ll keep going around the horn. Josh, next question.

[00:07:05.18] – Josh

Hi. Thanks Ness, for joining. It’s really cool. I am equally partial to the failed colony efforts of the futures. So that grabbed me quite quickly in the book. You mentioned about with your dad watching a lot of the… Did you say? The worse it performed, the worse the box office, the better. The three things that came to mind when I was reading was the military-civilian conflict from Stargate Universe, the cosmic horror of Event Horizon, and then a little bit of the colony efforts of Pandora, which I don’t think many people have seen. What were you thinking? Which influences were you drawing on when you were writing this and planning this?

[00:08:08.19] – Ness Brown

First of all, those are great films. I think Pandora is one of my dad’s favorites. One that was really big for me is not a film, but the video game Dead Space.

[00:08:21.06] – Brandon

Oh.

[00:08:22.03] – Ness Brown

Yeah, specifically the original. I love what the remake did, but something about the original really hits I don’t necessarily flatter myself to think I succeeded, but I really was interested in just capturing the feeling of even just walking the corridors is goosebumps-worthy. When I was younger and first starting to play Dead Space, I couldn’t get through 15 minutes playing because my heart was beating really fast. And I guess I the idea of the scenario being so nerve-inducing that… Or I guess what I’m trying to say is, I really like the atmosphere, where nothing necessarily needs to be happening immediately, but you’re in that heightened state. So that was a big influence for me. If I could recapture that feeling in a book, that would be a big milestone as a writer for me. I can’t wait to try again. Were there others? I’m trying to think. Certainly, the generic template of Alien, it’s just so classic and so pervasive, and spaceship horror that you can’t help but elicid the comparison, which is intensely flattering. That’s a great question. I’m certain that there’s a lot floating around there for me. I think the atmosphere of dead space, I think I could feel it in parts with the banging on the wall, and particularly with that bulkhead being where everything comes from and hiding in the walls.

[00:10:18.16] – Josh

So, yeah, I think that worked.

[00:10:20.17] – Ness Brown

Thank you so much. I think on the action side of things, I was also thinking a lot about, in more games, but like Mass Effect. I really love not only Sci-Fi action, but Sci-Fi horror. So I wanted to have a bit of shoot them up in there as well.

[00:10:42.12] – Josh

Good choices.

[00:10:43.03] – Jenn

Hi. Thanks for being here. So you are an astrophysicist, which I think is very cool. How did that inform your writing? It feels very realistic.

[00:11:03.06] – Ness Brown

Did you try to fit in as much scientific accuracy as possible, or did you feel extra pressure if something wasn’t right? Or was it just fun to be able to explore this world with your background ? Definitely a mix of the two, I would say. Thankfully, I had a lot of support in the astro community, from my peers, from professors, from senior scientists, that I knew. And knowing that they would read it, that they meant to support me, was extremely nerve-wracking. But I didn’t necessarily hold myself too stringently, to the need, I guess, to be perfectly scientifically accurate or to represent everything that I know on the page, in part because I’m not always a hard sci-fi fan. Sometimes I really like it. Sometimes I want the former rocket scientist to walk me through the construction of the ship in the story. Sometimes I really want it to be more of what we were speaking of previously, the atmospheric sense. I would say that I don’t think anything that I wrote in the book is anything that a non-scientist, but just really good writer and researcher could write. I think anyone could, but I do think that my expertise helped me do it faster.

[00:12:38.07] – Ness Brown

I think I was able to create this story on the timeline that I did, just because I do have the background. So that was an enormous boom. There were definitely things I was nervous about, on the robotic side, talking technology. I don’t feel the most comfortable in that sense, especially because I’m not even necessarily a theoretical or computational astrophysicist. I’m an observational astrophysicist. So I was dipping my toes in other sub-fields, which ended up being really fun, and I hope to do more of. Cool. Thanks.

[00:13:15.19] – John Knych

Thank you, Jen. We had a… Jen has her child right next to her that just asked a question. Yeah, a baby question. Net, so all right, back to the top. So my question tries to combine all three of Jen, Josh, and Brandon’s comments. We talk a lot about world building with this science fiction reading group, just because sci-fi is just known for it. So you mentioned that in the four weeks of you writing this, the first week was pretty heavy world building. And Josh mentioned that what grabbed him for the book is failed colony effort. For me, it’s arch-ship. I love reading about archips. So what grabbed me for your book was not only the cover, I like novellas, but I just love thinking about how King Mandi could survive on an Ark ship. And I thought you did a great job with sticking with… Not doing too much with details. There’s a line I love, which is, despite ventilation’s best efforts, even though every surface was practically ooozing heat sink paste, it was oppressively hot. I never heard of heat sink paste. My question to you is, in that whirlwind first week of world building, how much did you do of Arc ship research ?

[00:14:43.01] – John Knych

Because I’ve tried it, and it’s like an abyss, right? So many things interact with each other, like the ventilation system, the heat, all that, radiation. You just have so many issues. So how much did you do? How much do we not read? And then, do you plan on doing more ARC type books in the future?

[00:15:05.11] – Ness Brown

Wonderful question. I would say that beyond a critical look at the logistics of this, such as… For example, when I was thinking of these ships, I started looking up the schematics of crew-ships, just trying to see what do we have presently, what mass transportation vehicles do we have presently, and what are the considerations there? Because I feel like… I don’t like cruises. So to me, it feels very similar to being enclosed in a space with very limited resources that you’re very aware of all the time. So I would say that I put more effort in on the logistics, trying to understand the numbers, trying to understand the organization. And then, when it came time to write the generational environment, I deliberately wanted to focus more on the psychological social aspects, since that was something that I was more familiar with. At the time, I was teaching an introductory astrobiologie course at University of New York System. One of the things I talked about with my students was the the inherent issues with generation ship travel, a lot of which, beyond just the logistics of food, air, waste, etc, are intensely psychological and social. There just is not a lot of evidence right now that human psychology and human social patterns can withstand our ship travel.

[00:16:52.05] – Ness Brown

And so I wanted to play into that because something that happens on the way to the colony is, everything works à grève. Our jump tech, our work tech, our Hyperspace tech is working fine. We get there in a minimum number of years. It’s within a human lifetime, I think. But then on the way back, is when everything starts to degrade, and we have to confront the reality of this choice, and it’s not looking good. Everything falls apart. I’m sorry if I didn’t answer all of the questions.

[00:17:29.21] – John Knych

I just realized I forgot the second aspect. No, you did. You touched on this in the book, how do you get future generations to care about the mission that their ancestors started? I thought your choice of, like, rebellion, yeah, it’s going to happen. People are going to say, I don’t… And then, tough decisions have to be made. But, yeah, the one part of the question, though… So, when you were more thinking about how will people get stir-crazy rather than how will this event interact with this processor or whatever, that the social issues concerned you more than the actual functioning ?

[00:18:19.13] – Ness Brown

Yeah, I would say so. And I think the times when I do include a little bit of info about actual ship function, like when we look into the techie space or when we go down to engineering and we’re taking a look at the core or things like that, my main concern with those sceNess was, one, communicating, at least what I know of in my life, of the sense of what those spaces really feel like. So, for example, one thing that many people don’t always know about astrophysics and astronomy, is that it’s a lot of typing stuff up, letting it go, and then waiting for hours, and hoping that it works, and that it provides results that are actually worth analysis. And, while you’re doing that, you can be loaded in un office, with a ton of other grads, or you can be shut in in a space that is really hot, because the Supercomputer Cluster is doing this, or even in engineering. I certainly have not been in a spaceship engineering space, but I have definitely been to mirror labs, which are these really, really vast laboratoires, où les différents scientifiques sont créant les murs pour ces grands télescopes, les Next Generation, les étoiles de base de télescopes que nous mettons.

[00:19:40.21] – Ness Brown

À U of University of Arizona, they have a mirror lab underneath their stadium, and I was able to go there. And it was really fascinating just to see that set up. So as maybe lazy or lacking in scientific integrity as it may be, I think my primary concern was the vibes, so to speak.

[00:20:06.21] – John Knych

Thank you. Yes, in a novella, you bog the reader down with a tangent on too much of the mechanics of it. Thank you. Moving on to Brandon.

[00:20:20.19] – Brandon

Yeah, this is a little bit out there. It doesn’t have anything to do with the book, but just since you’re an astrophysicist, and I’m guessing science fiction fan as well. Do you think, and realistically, that a human being will ever leave the solar system, knowing that space travel is as hard as it is ? We’re not really going anywhere with space right now. So do you think we’ll actually ever leave the solar system ? Yeah, it’s an out there question, but…

[00:20:56.24] – Ness Brown

No, I like it. My intuitive answer is no, for a couple of reasons. One, the power draw of interstellar travel is orders of magnitude higher than interplanetary travel. Interplanetary as it is already difficult for us as it is, prohibitively expensive. So we would have to make a genuinely insane leap in technological ability to get beyond the solar system. I’m assuming, in this question that we’re actually trying to get somewhere and we’re not just going to the heliopause and being like, Oh, we touched outside, let’s go back home. If we really had the destination, the technological advancement would have to be vast. The other issue is that, usually, when we conceive of interstellar travel, it’s purely about increasing our speed, to make it to the next star system before our bodies, before our technology fails. You have to do it quickly. But I don’t know… And I guess my caveat would be, I’m not a space scientist or a rocket scientist, but I don’t know if we have really good ideas for shielding when it comes to rocket design. So once you start going at certain percentages, the speed of light, any collision with anything, even if it’s a really, really tiny meteorite or space dust or whatever, to my understanding, that’s going to punch holes in your ship, which is one of the biggest problems of space travel, any breach at all.

[00:22:39.06] – Ness Brown

I think the technological and the design aspects are too tough, and then add on to some of the psychological social aspects that we talked about before. Maybe that’s too negative, but I guess with my 2025 understanding of where we’re at and where we can go, I think it’s for me.

[00:23:01.08] – Brandon

Thank you for that. I have the same feelings that you do. So thank you.

[00:23:10.01] – John Knych

Thank you, Brandon. Moving on to Josh, or you can pass it off.

[00:23:15.07] – Josh

Between two questions, I think I’ll go with… I might be getting the name wrong. Is it Watson is the Android ? It was Watson. Watson is interesting in that he, she, it… Almost comes across as gaining sentience. Is that part of the point where you were like, I’m a little bit uncomfortable with this, or Was there more research into that ? Because it seemed like he was limited to his own computing power. And given what we’re seeing with AI or LLMs and stuff at the moment, going back to that vast amount of power required, I wondered where that fell on the hard, soft, sci-fi scale.

[00:24:27.12] – Ness Brown

This is another great question. I definitely wanted Watson to continue the underlying conversation in the book about resources. The entire reason we’re heading to Alpha Centauri is because extremely inefficient stratified and corrupt use of resources here on Earth. The cosmic punishment for that is getting to Alpha Centauri and having the situation flipped, where now we’re in a world unlike Earth, which has abundant resources. This is a planet that is nearly ressourceless. Coming from the decadence and the abundance of Earth. We’re completely unsuited, we can’t survive. Watson, I think, to me, was an extension of this conversation on how do we utilize these resources and how does the corruption that we had in resource use on Earth continue to manifest. I didn’t consider Watson as fully sentient because I personally don’t understand what an actual artificial intelligence, a sentient artificial intelligence would look like. I’m only familiar with the most basic entry-level, like neural network, version of artificial intelligence, which I don’t think it necessarily counts. But I did want to showcase a machine whose capabilities are so robust that it does look like sentience, and have that be a really uncomfortable sticking point for the other characters in the novella.

[00:26:14.00] – Ness Brown

I had Watson’s owner, Otto, literally abusing those resources. And in Jack’s case, Watson representing a reconciliation with the idea of resources. So I think maybe similar to the ARC design, I didn’t want to stress necessarily over the technology aspect, because I think we have a lot of projections and predictions about where AI will take us, or what it could look like. And that’s super hairy, and I didn’t want to get caught in the mess. So I definitely wanted to keep it down so I could explore, maybe, more of the philosophical implications of Watson’s presence on board.

[00:27:08.09] – Josh

That makes sense. That’s interesting. I hadn’t thought of it in that term of resources. Yeah, interesting. Thank you.

[00:27:20.06] – John Knych

Thank you, Josh. Moving on to Jen, if you have a question.

[00:27:25.02] – Ness Brown

No, I’m just going to pass it along.

[00:27:30.06] – John Knych

Thank you, because I just had one that popped in my head. This is question/comment in that… And that’s another reason why I’m grateful that you’re here, and that I reached out, is we’ve had a lot of old-school sci-fi authors already on this chat, and I wanted us to talk with someone who’s like, It’s your début, right ? And we could talk about this in the last 10 minutes, but I’m sure you’re working on and dreaming of other projects. But what you just said there, and Jos’ question about knowing your limitation of knowledge with AI and with our chips, and trying to respect that, it’s very different. We talked with Peter Watts and Alastair Reynolds, and both of them came from a time, like the beginning of the Internet, where they could read all the sci-fi books that were available and really get a taste of all the different science. Now, C’est impossible. As a sci-fi auteur, you have to really… Because we progress so much in the last 20 years, if you try to step too far, your ignorance vous apportera. Donc, comment vous… Il me semble que vous avez a conscious effort of being like, I don’t know a lot about that.

[00:28:48.11] – John Knych

I know a little bit. I’m going to not go too far down the sentient conscience. That was just a me ranting comment. But my question to you, this is going down different path, creative process. In the beginning, I wrote down, Father, sister, mother, not present for the protagonist. We don’t see the father until near the end. Did you know, right in the beginning, that you wanted Jack, to just be alone, in a sense? Or did you work on the story and realize, yeah, he has nobody? That decision to not have her family members, how did that play out in your creation of the story?

[00:29:35.20] – Ness Brown

For me, that was deliberate for two reasons. The first was that I definitely wanted the to feel haunted in the sense of there are many ghosts here. And that’s because, just inherently, the idea of trying to establish an exo-colony, it means leaving countless people behind. I definitely wanted the Calypso and the entire Exo Colony fleet to feel haunted by everyone left behind. In my opinion, people who are in Jack’s position, where you understand exactly where the mission is, and it’s not looking hot, I wanted those people to be plagued by this knowledge that they were chosen They were among the privileged few who got to go on this journey. Obviously, they weren’t the oNess literally flying off Earth, but they’re the chosen privileged few on this journey, and they’ve mucked it up, patently, profoundly. Jack, experiencing all of her closest relationships in memory, to me, I really wanted that to evoke this sense of That’s just where everyone is now. Everyone’s a memory. And what you do now has to be for them or in spite of them. And I wanted Jack’s journey from feeling incredibly insecure and feeling incredibly haunted, to feeling like her own person, and like she’s brushed off the ghosts a little bit.

[00:31:22.07] – Ness Brown

That’s the feeling that I wanted to evoke.

[00:31:27.08] – John Knych

Thank you. Thank you. Now, that’s what I’d say. I was wondering how your motivations for just… To me, I just thought like, yeah, it’s a ghost town. It’s a ghost town, emotionally and surrounding. Thank you. On to Brandon. Back to Brandon, if you have a question.

[00:31:45.18] – Brandon

Yeah, sure. You said you wrote this in four weeks and then you submitted it. Can you tell us about your experience from the time you submitted it to when it got published? What was the experience like of actually getting the book published? Did you have to do edits? Was there drafts? How did the cover artwork get done? What was your whole experience of all of that process?

[00:32:14.18] – Ness Brown

Yeah, I love talking about this because it was so magical. I definitely feel incredibly lucky to have been chosen for an opportunity like this. I don’t know how many people also submitted their manuscripts, but it felt amazing to be selected and experience everything that’s happened since. So the deadline for the submission de la lettre de la lettre de mai 2020, je l’ai entendu en septembre 2020. I heard back, December 20. So it’s not a… Well, maybe for some people, that was a very quick timeline. But for me, who had never done anything in publishing before, it was quite a wait, and I was very nervous. But they reached out to me, December of the same year, and then I spent the next something week, some number of weeks, looking for representation. And that was much easier for me than I know it is for other début authors, because when you don’t have representation, you have to shop your book around. For some people, that process will take years. But fortunately, because I already had the book deal in hand, I definitely had more people interested in representing me, and it wasn’t as much of an uphill slog as I’ve heard that it can be.

[00:33:35.23] – Ness Brown

So I was extremely privileged in that sense. The next two years were a combination, first of editing. So what happens is I accepted, had my representation, I signed all these contracts, and then I ended up working with an editor. My editor is Kristen Temple at TOR, Kristen is an amazing human being, definitely go read, essentially, any other person represented by Kristen. She finds incredible talent, and they do amazing things together. For me, I was told that my original manuscript was quite clean, especially for being written in a short period of time, so I didn’t have back and forth edits. It was one big chop, essentially, and then I was mostly good to go from there. Once the draft is ready, that’s when we start bringing in the other specialists, like typesetters. We bring in people. Speaking of the cover, that was one of the most magical parts of the process, because I was asked, do I have anything in mind ? I sent over some pictures, and then I found out that they had gotten Chris McGrath to do the cover, which was insane because I’ve since moved, but I used to have my office where all my books were behind me.

[00:34:57.03] – Ness Brown

And you could see five or six books just right behind in my head that he had done covers for that were in my library. Chris is just a phenomenal artist, incredible at what he does. And that was a highlight for me, for sure. I was definitely fanning out a bit. And then, yeah, leading up to the actual publication, I had someone at TOR, essentially… The word’s coming out of my head. Marketing ?

[00:35:30.00] – John Knych

Publicis, maybe.

[00:35:30.22] – Ness Brown

Publicis. Oh, goodNess. Thank you. I’m a writer, I swear. Yeah, so the Publicis took over and was able to set up exactly events like these, where I had the immense honor and pleasure of talking to other book clubs, talking to podcasters, talking to magaziNess. It was awesome. It was really, really great. And then publication was incredible. They essentially asked me, Are there local bookstores that I like ? I told them the bookstores that I patronize, and one of them, Historia Books in Queens. Since I was living in NYC at the time, they hosted my début. So it was incredible. And now that I actually have other projects that are on the timeline to being published, I’m really excited to do the circuit again.

[00:36:25.17] – John Knych

Thank you so much. C’est awesome.

[00:36:26.24] – Brandon

Yeah. Thank you.

[00:36:28.12] – John Knych

The publishing industry is opaque, hearing you describe that whole process, I’ve never heard that before. So thank you. That was great. Josh, I have a couple questions, but we got to respect the roundtable. On to you.

[00:36:44.22] – Josh

I just have a quick follow up then to that last point about the… Particularly with the marketing. My understanding from other people in the industry been basically that once they got the book out the door, that was it, you’re on your own. So it sounds like they actually gave you quite a lot of support in terms of marketing and publicity. I don’t know that you’d necessarily have anything to compare it with, but is that, in your experience, standard ? Or was it because of this competition or open submission period, that you’d that they were doing that ? Was it related to that, that they were pushing it, or was it just standard, I guess ? If you were able to answer that, I don’t know.

[00:37:42.14] – Ness Brown

I think the things that immediately pop into my mind are that, one, I was getting published, ultimately, under the umbrella of Tor, which is such a huge publisher. They have incredible resources. I think they could afford to do that. I think that people that are getting published at maybe smaller houses, it might look very different, which was something I was aware of at the time, because my thought process, not to be self-déplicating or anything, but my thought process was… This is a lot of attention. I don’t think the book… Yes, I’m really proud of what I did, and I love Scourge, and I’m so grateful for everything it did for me, but I don’t think it’s… It’s not revolutionary. I think it was part and parcel of just being with a bigger publishing house. Then, two, to my understanding, the Imprint Nightfire was relatively new at the time that I was joining them. I think that they were interested in just getting the word out, letting people know that this horror imprint was really taking off. And at the time, if I remember, there was one other space horror book. So I think, jointly, we were two of the books that were coming out, that they were using to represent, here’s our space here’s our folk horror.

[00:39:01.12] – Ness Brown

We ended up being représentatives of that push. I can’t say, maybe, for certain. I don’t have a strong answer to your question, but I think those were factors.

[00:39:13.06] – Josh

That makes a little sense. Yeah, that’s cool.

[00:39:17.15] – John Knych

Thank you, Josh. Ken, you want to pass it off ? Got a question ?

[00:39:26.22] – Ness Brown

It’s all you.

[00:39:27.23] – John Knych

Thanks, Jen. To continue down this path of pretty interesting publishing path for this book, Ness, I know there are a couple readers who aren’t here today that are striving to publish in sci-fi, so I’ll tell them about this talk and that they should listen to this part. But you mentioned that, and this is true, to get an agent using an uphill battle. But for you, it was downhill. And my question is, to me, it seems like it should even be easier than a downhill, because you’re reaching out to agents and being like, I already have a publisher. That’s so rare. It’s basically saying, I want to give you money if you represent me. So my question is, wouldn’t the chips be on… Usually, you’re reaching out to an agent, Hey, I have this idea, but you have a publisher. Were you able to pick and choose your agent ? Or did they try and reach out to you and say, No, look, I’ll do this for you, I’ll do this for you ? What was the agent conversations like ?

[00:40:39.12] – Ness Brown

Yeah, it wasn’t quite a pick and choose situation, largely because agents are also limited resources. I did come across people who, I think, were interested in my project and very, very interested in the fact that it had sold itself. But they already had a lot of clients. Their client list was full, or they were currently representing a sci-fi horreur, and they were like, I am not in a position to double-dip at this time. And that happened to me with an agent that I really wanted to work with because, again, I had so many of her clients’ work on my book shelf, but she was really swamped, obviously. She was a very prolific agent, but she ended up me off to a junior agent at the same agency. And ultimately, it came down between this junior agent at this agency, whose clientèle list included a ton of the people I read, versus a really well-established agent at a super famous agency, lots of big names, like R. A. Salvatore and everything. And I actually ended up going with the junior agent à l’agence plus parce que je sentais que j’avais tellement de choses à l’agence, le travail de ma vie en personne.

[00:42:05.01] – Ness Brown

C’était la chose que j’aime. On a eu une bonne conversation, l’agent et moi. Et j’ai fini par rester à l’agence depuis plusieurs ans. Donc, It was the stuff I really liked. We had a good conversation, the agent and I, and I ended up staying at that agency for several years. So ultimately, it was the right choice for me. But yeah, I would say that it was a little shocking that even after having all the… Everything in my pocket, it still was a little bit of a ordeal.

[00:42:31.04] – John Knych

Thank you. Brandon, back to you.

[00:42:35.15] – Brandon

So I’m a pretty big fan of sci-fi horror, but I feel like as far as books go, there aren’t… It’s been getting better recently, but there’s not a whole lot of sci-fi horror out there. And you mentioned you have a lot of movies you like. Are there any books out there, sci-fi horreur books, that you enjoy and can recommend ?

[00:43:02.09] – Ness Brown

Excuse me. I always give a shout-out to my former agency mate, SA BarNess.

[00:43:11.07] – Brandon

I’ve read hers. Yeah, she’s good.

[00:43:13.22] – Ness Brown

Definitely a good time. I’m sorry, not agency mate, publishing me. Darcy Coates, very famous. I like Sue Burke, the Sémiosis trilogy. I love. Caitlin Starling, I like. Did you read The Luminous Dead ? I like that one because it combiNess space horror with cave horror. Cave horror is so much worse to me. So scary. So that was definitely a really nice space psychological horror. I’m trying to envision what’s on my book shelf right now because it’s not behind me anymore. Definitely those names. I’m also thinking of Casey JoNess, Another publishing mate of mine, I think his debut was Black Tide, which I think is about… It’s Earth-based, but it’s an alien invasion, if I am remembering that correctly. Those are the things that come up right now. I would have to do a little book search.

[00:44:18.17] – Brandon

Thank you. Yeah, I was glad to see that your book came out, and I really enjoyed it. So it was a solid addition to the sci-fi horror genre..

[00:44:32.01] – John Knych

Thank you, Rant. Thank you. And shout out to Sue Burke. She was one of the first speakers we’ve had for this group. She was super kind and interesting. And she told us all about how she came, the origin of the Plant of Simeosis. She saw her plant in her apartment, like attacking another plant, and that was the seed, no pun intended, of the idea.

[00:44:56.20] – Ness Brown

Amazing.

[00:44:57.22] – John Knych

Yeah, she’s a great book. Josh, on to you.

[00:45:03.05] – Josh

I’ll pass. I don’t have anything else on my question list, so go ahead.

[00:45:08.24] – John Knych

All right. I assume, Jen, you’re passing again, unless you… All right, good. You mentioned earlier in this talk, and we’ll wrap it up in the next 5, 5, 10 minutes, you mentioned that your dad is a big sci-fi fan, and that he… I guess I’ll pass that on to you. My two questions: one, did he read your book, and what did he think about it ? And two, did he comment on the fact that your protagonist has this pretty conflicted… Well, so spoiler alert, if anybody is watching, I mean, it’s… Yeah, it’s a rough father-daughter relationship. So can you comment on your dad’s opinion of this, if you read it, and your decision in the book to have what happened ?

[00:45:58.08] – Ness Brown

Yeah, I am I’m really lucky that both of my parents were so supportive. They were with me with every step. As soon as I messaged my dad, we got on FaceTime. He gathered all my siblings and my stepmom, we got on FaceTime, and we talked about the entire process. And then, even my mom, she started handing out the manuscripts just to anyone that came through her office. But you’re right, I was a little nervous to have my dad read it because I didn’t want him assume anything. But I don’t even think he waited for the official draft. I think he was like, Can you just send it to me ? So I sent him my word doc, and he printed it out. He sent me pictures of himself reading through it. And the one time he referenced the Jack and Noah dynamic, he was like, Does this mean anything ? I was like, No, of course not. And then we just proceeded to talk about the story, and he gave me his thoughts, which were invaluable. It was really, really lovely to talk through it with him.

[00:47:05.23] – John Knych

And does he read sci-fi horror as much as you, or is he all sci-fi ? What’s his reading taste, I guess ?

[00:47:21.00] – Ness Brown

I read way more than him, just period. He’s more of a movies guy, 100 pour cent, but he loves all horror. It happens to be that space horror is his favorite. So he was delighted and astonished when I was able to come to him with the news. But I have found that really helpful because I, especially once I went to grad school, was not in a position to really be keeping up with all of the sci-fi horror, or even juste horror en général, that I used to when I was much younger. And my dad periodically texting me, being like, You should watch this. You should check this out. That has really helped me keep pace with the genre, which has been invaluable for storywriting.

[00:48:10.09] – John Knych

Excellent. Thank you. Why am I final wrap question. Anyone else ? Brandon, Josh, Jen, anything else you want to ask Ness ?

[00:48:23.11] – Brandon

Yeah, I mean, I guess I would ask what you’re working on next. I saw you have a fantasy novel coming out ?

[00:48:33.07] – Ness Brown

I do.

[00:48:33.22] – Brandon

Are you making a shift to fantasy or are you going to go back to sci-fi ? What are your future plans ?

[00:48:42.09] – Ness Brown

Yeah, thank you. So in the first place, I am also, simultaneously, one of the great delights of my life at this time, I have been able to write a few pieces for Warhammer 40,000. So very grim dark sci-fi. It’s been so awesome, because this is a franchise that, just being mindful of time, when I got published, I turned to my husband and I said, If I could write for these three franchises, Life Complete. And then a couple of months later, Warhammer reached out and they were like, Are you interested ? I was like, Yes. So certainly not done with sci-fi, or sci-fi horror, or sci-fi, anything grim-dark in that realm. And I have two sci-fi horreur projects on my laptop right now, so I’m definitely coming back. But certainly, I think in all of my projects, space will play some element, because even in the fantasy that’s coming out, hopefully next year, that is actually about an astrologer, which I know that sounds funny for an astrophysicist to be writing about, but an astrologer who works his very corrupt master, essentially, tries to sabotage his master, and ends up unleashing something onto their plane that has been chained away for a long time, and he has to figure out how to clean up his mess.

[00:50:14.10] – Ness Brown

So whatever I write, there will probably always be some element of stars in space there.

[00:50:20.18] – Brandon

Awesome.

[00:50:22.14] – John Knych

Thank you, Brandon. Is there a title yet for that book, or a date, or no ? Is it still too far in the distance for title or date ?

[00:50:32.07] – Ness Brown

The title is The Astrologer’s Demon. It was slated to come out fall 26, but those dates often get moved around. But probably in that area.

[00:50:49.03] – John Knych

Thank you. Brandon asked the what are you working on now question. But my last question to you, Ness, and this has already been touched upon in this talk a little bit, your work as an astrophysicist, is it… Do you get… Because obviously, if you’re in the sci-fi world, And it’s just so cool to have someone who’s a saffer writer and an astrophysicist. Do you get ideas from your work, or do you, in your mind, have a partition, where it’s like, here’s the scientific grind, here’s the imaginary, creativity ? Do you get ideas from your work, or do you really divide the two ?

[00:51:44.04] – Ness Brown

I get ideas all the time. And in fact, I was at my program, because I am getting my doctorate currently. I was at my program’s Friday Lunch seminar a couple of weeks ago, and I saw something in a presentation, and I ran up to the presenter afterwards, and I was like, Can you tell me Can you show me what papers there are about that ? And that was a really productive convo. And I immediately started adding it to one of the story ideas that I have buried pretty deep. So, yeah, I would say the overlap of art and science, and this is something I’m deeply passionate about putting forth in my outreach efforts and in my inclusion efforts, even at my school and through my grad work, the overlap between art and science is way more prominent than people think. And I I think that if we were able to spread that idea broadly, I think a lot of people would find that they have a lot of the scientists and the artists in themselves as well.

[00:52:42.17] – John Knych

That’s a great positive note to end on. You mentioned authors. So we often ask, who should we talk to next ? The authors you listed, like S. A. BarNess, Darcy. What was Darcy’s last name ? Hoots.

[00:53:00.21] – Ness Brown

Hoots.

[00:53:01.12] – John Knych

Would you recommend them as authors that should be getting more attention and be read more ? Who would you… Who would you recommend them as authors that.

[00:53:16.22] – Ness Brown

Definitely those two. Definitely, Caitlin Starling. I think, I mean, obviously, Delilah Dawson is not unknown by any means, but Delilah Dawson is awesome. If you like other types of horreur, Scott Leeds, also at Night Fire, is awesome. Really, really great people that I think you would have super stimulating convos with.

[00:53:41.01] – John Knych

Excellent. Well, thank you very much, Ness. It’s been a pleasure. Great, great meeting you. I’ll send you an email when the video has been uploaded, and I’ll share it with our group.

[00:53:53.06] – Ness Brown

Yeah, thank you so much for inviting me. Thank you so much for the time.

[00:53:57.06] – John Knych

And best of luck in your future projects, Je vous remercie. Je vous remercie. C’était un plaisir. Je vous remercie. C’était un plaisir. Je vous remercie. Je vous remercie. Merci beaucoup. Merci beaucoup. C’était un plaisir. Bon rendez-vous. Je vous envoie votre email quand le vidéo a été publiée et je le partagerai avec notre groupe. Merci beaucoup. Merci beaucoup d’inviter. Merci beaucoup pour votre temps. Bon courage et bon courage à vos projets, le horror, la fantaisie et l’astrophysique.

[00:54:03.18] – Ness Brown

Bye.

[00:54:04.23] – John Knych

Bye. Have a good afternoon.

[00:54:06.09] – Ness Brown

Bye. Thank you.

(Transcript below)

[00:00:00.00] – John Knych

Peter Watts, Canadian Sci-Fi writer, who has also worked as a marine-mammal biologist. His first novel was Starfish in 1999, which was part of the Rifters Trilogy. And then Blindsight, which we’ll be talking about today, was published in 2006. So first, Peter, can you share with us the origin of the story, which has influenced so many Sci-Fi authors? It’s considered pioneering in how we think about aliens. Can you talk with us about the origin of this book?

[00:00:29.10] – Peter Watts

Well, I was doing a post-doc in Guelf, about an hour north of here. I was reading a book of Natural History essays, edited by Richard Dawkins, who I’m sure you guys all know about. I don’t even remember what the name of the volume was. It was kind of like a Robin’s egg blue, and it had a drawing of a wasp on it. I don’t remember any of the actual essays, but in the afterward, Dawkins was itemizing a list of the various mysteries, the great outstanding mysteries of biology. And one of the first things he mentioned was consciousness. He said: There’s absolutely no reason why you can’t imagine a meat robot that does all the things that we do, but is not aware of what it’s doing, because it’s all just computation. And so what is this? How does it work? What is it there for? I mean, I guess I’m pretty sure the philosophical zombie concept predated me reading Richard Dawkins, but it was indeed my introduction to it. And my reaction was: shit, that’s right. I’ve spent my whole life just taking this for granted.

[00:01:53.19] – Peter Watts

I’m supposed to be a scientist. Why haven’t I wondered about this myself? But I was like 30 years and five days old or something at that point. I had maybe two stories published in thick ass little journals that nobody had ever heard of. So I knew it was way out of my league to even address a question like that. But that’s when I first started thinking about it. And it bubbled away in the back of my mind while I wrote other, less consequential, scientific and science fiction works until, oh jeez, yeah, about 15 years later.

[00:02:32.17] – John Knych

Thank you. And also, Peter, the format for this discussion, we’ll just go around the table, and I’ve told people, if they don’t have a question, they can pass, and we’ll do a roundtable. So we’ll start with Brandon, Noémie, Jenn, Sean, Joe, then we’ll just keep going around. So Brandon, do you have a question for Peter?

[00:02:51.24] – Brandon

Yeah. Yeah, thanks for being here, Peter. Really appreciate that. So I did, I just finished reading Echopraxia.

[00:03:01.09] – Peter Watts

Okay.

[00:03:02.06] – Brandon

At the end of this, you have all these notes and references and everything. So I guess my question is, what is your writing process when you add the science to it? Do you do a bunch of research first and then write the book, or do you write the book, add in your scientific articles as you go, or how does that… What’s your process with adding the hard science part of it?

[00:03:27.06] – Peter Watts

Well, back then, I mean, pretty much from the days of Starfish. Starfish was based to some extent on information that already… I was working on my PhD in marine biology. So there was a lot of stuff I just picked up in the course of getting my degree that inspired Starfish. Subsequent to that, I had a subscription to Science [Magazine]. When the Internet became a thing, dating myself there, but I remember the Internet waking up, I just set up an RSS feed to various science outlets, and without necessarily any goal in mind, I just tried to keep abreast of cool stuff that was happening in science. It has since become impossible to do that. But at the time, I could hang on by my finger nails. And every time I read something in science that was cool, I I would put a little sticky note on it or bookmark it if I saw it online, and I would make a note. So I just, over time, regardless of my project, I was accumulating links and articles that, Hey, this is a really cool thing to stick in a story somewhere, or, This would make a really cool theme or a point of a story.

And, of course, 90% of it turns into just world-building ambiance.

[00:04:55.19] – Peter Watts

It’s like, Well, this is something I’m not going to write a story about, but I’m certainly going to mention it in a bit of throw-away dialogue, so that people think that I’m a great world building connoisseur. So that’s the way it started. When I actually developed a theme, that this is what I want to write, there’s basically two ways that goes down. The first is that I read something, as was in the case of that Dawkins thing, that lights a fire under my ass and makes me think, wow, that’s really cool. I should write something on that. Or, and this has become, sadly, increasingly common, I think, I want to write a story about this. Now, I’m going to try and find some science to justify it. And I start looking around and see… And I mean, don’t take this the wrong way. Science is kind of like the Bible, in that there are so many publications and so many variations out there, that you can pretty much find anything to justify, certainly in terms of a science-fiction story that doesn’t have to pass peer review. You can find stuff to back up what you’re going for.

[00:06:11.13] – Peter Watts

And I mean, There’s, I think, close to 100 different theories of how consciousness works. Oh, my God. Excuse me.

Bobo. [Moves towards cat off screen]

[00:06:22.24] – Peter Watts

Bobo is doing his thing with the cicada here. Could you let this guy go?

[00:06:29.07] – Peter Watts

There you go. Sorry.

[00:06:31.24] – Peter Watts

We were promised a swarm of biblical proportions, right? Like, they were supposed to be like the 11 and the 17 years were supposed to all come out at the same time, and we were supposed to be devoured alive by cicadas. And what we’ve got instead is this weird, splotchy cat who is terrified of cicadas, but will not let that fear hold him back. So he will attack every cicada he finds, even though he’s bleeding with fear every time he does it. And we have to rescue these cicadas, which are really benign and innocuous little guys. I mean, they’re huge. They’ve got…their fronts basically look like the grill on a Buick. Anyway, sorry, where was I?

[00:07:23.01] – John Knych

Science.

[00:07:24.00] – Peter Watts

Science, yeah. If you want to write a consciousness-based novel, you can go with the idea that consciousness is a fundamental property of all matter, like the charge of an electron. You could go with the idea that consciousness is an arena to mediate conflicting commands to the to the skeletal muscles. You can go with the idea that The United States, as a geopolitical entity, is literally conscious. And you will find… You can even go with the model that not all matter is conscious, but that all matter is consciousness, that consciousness is all there is, and that what we perceive as matter is basically the universe’s mother of all multiple personality disorder cases, that bounded metabolisms and so on are, in fact, manifestations of a consciousness that’s walling itself off from itself. You can come up with all these ideas, and you will find peer-reviewed papers that back you up. And that’s okay, because the point of the exercise is not to say this is the truth. The point of the exercise is to say, suppose this was the truth. Where do you go with that? What are the consequences of that? So you can start from any starting point.

[00:08:59.18] – Peter Watts

And in that sense, the 140 references that I stick, the peer-reviewed references I stick at the back of my books, is more like something to cover my ass against nitpickers, than it is… than it is proof against…than it is actual evidence of great insight, because you can find pretty much anything you want, you can work your story around it, and you can find something in a decent peer-reviewed journal that will back you up, and the ironic thing here is that I’m covering my ass against nitpickers because my formal background is in science. So I’m used to going to seminars where the grad students sitting in the back row are always trying to ask questions of the guy who’s giving the Wednesday afternoon seminar, not because they’re curious, but because they want to make that guy look like an idiot. And hopefully this will bring them to the attention of other supervisors and deans who will give them lots of scholarship money.

[00:10:02.09] – Peter Watts

And of course, the ironic thing is that people like that wouldn’t be caught dead reading science fiction anyway, because it’s like one step up from child porn. But yes that is a very long way…that’s almost as long as one of my bibliographies…that is the explanation for why I have a bibliography.

[00:10:22.17] – Brandon

Thank you. I think that’s interesting what you say about conscience. I think we talked with Joan Slonczewski.

[00:10:32.02] – Peter Watts

Oh, yeah.

[00:10:32.22] – Brandon

And she said… You have a cat!

[00:10:35.11] – Peter Watts

You have a cat, too! Lean to one side!

[00:10:38.05] – Brandon

It’s a dog.

[00:10:39.11] – Peter Watts

Oh, never mind. Okay.

[00:10:42.17] – Brandon

Joan Slonczewski was saying that perhaps stones have consciousness.

[00:10:48.01] – Peter Watts

It’s not a… I mean, you’d be kinda amazed at how not batshit that is, both in terms of some of the other theories out there, but also in terms of… There really is nothing in physics that has any room for consciousness. Thank you, Buck. Thank you so much, ahh. There’s like, and I would argue, and I’ve read a few…there’s a bunch of theories of consciousness out there that I haven’t gotten around to yet, they’re playing a shell game on us, they describe computation, they describe that, you know you’ve got, the global work space model, essentially, you’ve got this stage, and you’ve got a bunch of different voices in the brain, some processes, that are all yelling, the one that yells the loudest gets to be on the stage and be conscious. And I mean, computationally, that makes sense. Intelligence is easy to understand in terms of natural selection. You can understand how flexible problem solving and so on is a good thing and how natural selection would promote it. But there’s never a mechanism. Ok, so you’ve got all these different sub-processes competing for attention, and one of them gets to be center stage. You’re still just talking about electricity trickling through meat. So where does that meat wake up? How does electricity… you know hooking, one of my favorite analogies, you basically take a pair of jumper cables and hook it up to a steak, and the steak starts asking questions about consciousness. Physics does not handle that. Physics can handle all the neurocorrelates, but we do not have any physical explanation, as far as I know.

[00:12:39.23] – Peter Watts

And I’m reading an essay right now, or not an essay, a thesis, from a guy called Michael Bennet. I’m going to be going out for drinks with him in a couple of weeks because he’s passing through town. He’s a real up-and-comer in the whole consciousness idea. His background is in A.I., computer science, but he’s basically talking about building conscious machines. And he claims to have solved the hard problem of consciousness. And so far I don’t see how he’s done it. It’s basically, you know another variation of the…you know

If you could model, for a social species, you have to model what the other person is thinking, what the other mind thinking. And then you have to model back, recursively, what your reaction to their reaction is going to be.

[00:13:18.11] – Peter Watts

And having done some simulation coding in my time, it’s trivial to get any computer program that does that. I mean, for fuck’s sake, a thermostat, you can say, is something that’s interacting with its environment and responding to feedback. So all of these theories basically have this step, and then a miracle occurs in the middle of it. And then, coming out the other end, it’s conscious, but there’s still no reason for it to be… There’s no explanation for how that happens.

And so, one of the… It’s reasonable to suggest: Okay, we can’t really explain it…

[00:14:04.17] – Peter Watts

So maybe it’s just a fundamental property of all matter. And there’s a few… It’s called physical panpsychism. And there’s a few theories out there that kinda riff off of that. And when I first heard it, I thought, What a cop-out. It’s just a… You’re basically brushing it under the… You might as well say, magical elves are doing it. But at the same time, when somebody talks to me about the flavor of a quark as a fundamental property, I don’t say: that’s bullshit. I mean, we accept all sorts of things counterintuitively as fundamental properties of reality. So Slonczewski is not entirely… She’s not out in left field when she suggests that rocks might be conscious in a rudimentary sense. If consciousness is, in fact, a fundamental property of matter, and we have a greater level of consciousness than a rock because our matter happens to be arranged in a more complex and emergent way. I’m not going to call bullshit on that because I don’t have a better solution. I hope that’s not the case because I don’t like the idea that every time I kick a rock, I’m causing it pain or whatever. But really, who knows ?

[00:15:25.10] – Peter Watts

I mean, that’s what makes it such a cool thing to write about. Nobody can really say you’re wrong.

[00:15:32.14] – BrandoN

That’s very interesting. Thank you.

[00:15:34.15] – John Knych

Fascinating. Thank you, Peter. All right, moving on to Noémie.

[00:15:40.18] – Noémie

Yes. In both Blindsight and Echopraxia, so you have a range of different characters. Very different mindsets and origins. I just wanted to know, is the story influencing the characters? Or do you, when you start writing, have always like, this character is going to be in this book? What is your process of writing the characters and how they integrate into the story?

[00:16:03.07] – Peter Watts

Ok, well, there’s a couple of ways of doing that. First, you are very kind to not point out that character development is not one of my strongest suits. So thank you for that.

[00:16:16.08] – Noémie

It is. It absolutely is. It is what is so interesting in the story.

[00:16:20.08] – Peter Watts

But my character, I tend to come at these things in a puzzle-solving sense. I want to write a book about the dynamics of a civilization based on its outcast. I want to write a book about the possibility that consciousness is maladaptive. I want to write a book about the logistics of building the star gates, that we always conveniently go out and just discover that the ancients built them for us, so we don’t have to discover how to do it ourselves. And so, left to my own devices, I build characters essentially like chess pieces. They have to illustrate various aspects of the problem that I’m solving. And this was especially the case in Blindsight, because every character in Blindsight actually illustrates, embodies a different type of consciousness. But how I actually do it is: I’m writing a story about a linguist, or I’m writing a linguist as a character, and I realize I don’t know the first thing about linguistics. So I find a friend who happens to have a post-graduate degree in linguistics, and I sit her down and I buy her beers, and I get her drunk, and I poke to her about…

[00:17:50.14] – Peter Watts

It’s okay, so if you were confronted with an alien, what would you do? What would be your… Or how would you analyze the transmissions and so on? And I write everything down. Then, in exchange, I put her into the book as the linguist. I give her the same name, and I kill her horribly. In a lot of cases, What happens is… I mean, people tend to say that… People tend to knock me because I don’t have a great ethnic diversity of characters, although I try to get around that by giving people different surnames, and so on. But a lot of it is because many of my characters are actually friends of mine, whom I kill horribly in my books, because that’s just what happens to any character in any of my books. I tried to write a story once, where there was a happy ending, and the parents had their arms around each other, and they were looking at their sleeping child, and I just about vomited.

I was like, I developed diabetes from all the sugary-sweetness.

[00:18:56.18] – Peter Watts

I just can’t do that. It didn’t strike me. So, yeah, they all die. But if there is personality there, as opposed to a simple chess piece moving in a strategic way to illustrate a thematic point, it’s not because I’m any good at developing characters, it’s because I have interesting friends, and I just shamelessly steal personality traits from people that I know. And so if you do like my characters, you’d get along great with my buddies. Isaac Spindell, from Blindsight, he’s an actual dude. I haven’t actually heard from him in years. But yeah, we called him Buckeroo Bonsai because he was a practicing neurosurgeon. He was a martial arts expert, and he was a writer. He was a cool guy. I wish I knew what happened to him. There was a serious illness in the family last I heard, and he kind of dropped off the grid. But yeah, you can… You know, Rob Cunningham is an actual guy from a video game company. I actually think he’s a bit of a sociopath, but the physical characteristics, the emotional attributes, these are things that I just observe in other people and port into my books as though I am capable of character development.

[00:20:24.02] – Peter Watts

Of course, the problem now is that I no longer do science. I work at home. I’m running out of friends. And so basically, I’m at the point now where I’ve run out of people whose personalities I can steal. And I expect that my character development is going to asymptotically decline over time as more people that I know just die of old age. Hopefully, society will collapse before that happens, and so I can escape that particular fate. We’ve got till, what, 2040, 2050, before the studies say that we’re going to have a global societal collapse. So if I can just hang in there for another couple of decades, I should be okay.

[00:21:15.20] – John Knych

Thank you, Peter. I’ll make sure before I share this with the readers who couldn’t make it today, that there’s a spoiler alert, all your characters die.

[00:21:25.07] – Noémie

Don’t get too attached to anyone.

[00:21:28.08] – Peter Watts

They don’t all… I mean, In fairness, they don’t all die. Some of them spend the rest of their lives in perpetual misery and emotional torture.

[00:21:40.14] – John Knych

Excellent. Moving on to Jenn. Jen, do you have a question, or do you want to pass ?

[00:21:46.03] – Jenn

Yes, I do.

[00:21:47.14] – jenn

I thought it was interesting that you included vampire. I thought their origin was interesting. What made you include a vampire in a science fiction story ? How did that come about ?

[00:22:02.00] – Peter Watts

The answer to that is something that… Everybody out there in thumbnail land, put up your hands if you have heard this story before, how I got the vampire. Nobody else seems to. Brandon, you can go get a coffee. Everybody else. I was a guest at a Con in Edmonton. This was way to help back around the turn of the millennium, maybe just like 2001, 2002, thereabouts. And I had one novel out and one collection of short stories. I had Starfish was out. So I was like, and I was… And Starfish, it had… It was a New York Times Notable Book, and it had a collection of references at the end. Nothing like the bloated bibliographies I went for later, but it had a few pages of reference at the end. I was like, Mr. Hard SF. I had a PhD in science, and I was really cool. They stuck me on a panel about vampires. I didn’t know the first thing about vampires. When did Buffy come out ? There were people talking about Buffy, so this had to happen while Buffy was still on the air, so maybe it wasn’t 2001. Anyway, sorry ?

[00:23:30.15] – John Knych

Late ’90s was Buffy ?

[00:23:33.08] – Peter Watts

Ok, maybe it was. I’m sitting there, and everybody’s talking about various vampires. There was a cheap-ass Canadian vampire police procedural called Night Something or Something Night. They also have the word night in there. Maybe it was Night Night, with the second night being Kniget/Knight, like the thing in the armor. Anyway, I’m just sitting. And I have absolutely nothing to say about vampires, but I start to think, okay, vampires are really dumb. They make no sense biologically. What if I can come up ? Can I maybe cobble together some sort of a half-ass biological reason for some of the things that characterize vampires ?

[00:24:23.19] – Peter Watts

And I’d been reading a book at the time called The Cerebral Symphony by William Calvin, out of Woodshole. And I had learned from that about various aspects of the mammalian visual processing system, Mexican hat waves. It turns out that there are receptor arrays in our visual system that respond only to certain geometrical primitives. They’re a set of neurons that will only fire when they see horizontal lines, or vertical lines, or lines of particular angles, right? And we integrate these arrays that only fire when they see various little things, right? And we take all those various little pieces, and we integrate them further up the visual system into an actual image. But it starts off with us only responding to very, very basic shapes. And this light went on in my head. Supposing that vampire suffer from this mutation, where, when the receptors that respond to vertical lines, and the receptors respond to horizontal lines, when they fire at the same time, this causes some kind of a neurological overload and results in a grand-mal seizure. I guess they call them chronic seizures these days. That would explain the aversion to crosses. It’s not a religious thing at all.

[00:25:45.21] – Peter Watts

It’s a geometric glitch in their visual system. And I blurt this out. And I talk about Mexican hat waves, and I cite William Calvin. And I guess I go on maybe a little too long. It’s maybe 90 seconds for me to lay the whole thing out and explain it. And there’s crickets for about 30 seconds. And then the person next to me says, Yeah, well, I think that Spike would be a better boyfriend for Buffy than Angel because at least Spike’s honest about who he is. And so they never invited me back, and just as fucking well. Oh, look at this. I’ve just got a pop-up reminding me that I have a virtual book club meeting from 10:00 to 11:00. Wait a minute. I even got that wrong. I even set my alarm for the wrong time. Anyway. So, yeah, at that point, it was like, okay, this is kind of challenge, right ? There’s so many dumb things about vampires. But if I can come up with a neurological explanation that’s even semi-plausible for the crucifix glitch, another dog, doesn’t anybody here have cats? Then what else can I explain? My ultimate goal was to… I wanted to…

[00:27:15.20] – Peter Watts

Does anybody remember, back in the ’80s, there was this big coffee table book on gnomes? It was like a natural history of gnomes. It was like you had little line, drawings, and diagrams, and it talked about gnome life cycles and stuff. I thought, I can do this for vampires. I could do the proceedings of the second Biennial conference on the evolution and biology of vampires.

[00:27:39.05] – Orateur 7

And we can make a big coffee table book. And it can be… And my agent hated it. My publisher hated it. Everybody thought it was the worst idea ever. Nobody was going to buy a coffee table book on the biology of vampires. So I just kinda sat there. And then I was writing Blindsight.

[00:27:56.10] – Peter Watts

And as I may have mentioned, characters in Blindsight each illustrate a different aspect of consciousness. And… One thing I was playing around with was the idea how when you… When you are asleep and dreaming, you could say that you’re conscious. Because you’re aware of the dream. But also, when you’re dreaming, you don’t have your critical faculties. So if you see your girlfriend in a dream, and she’s just got one giant hair sticking out of the side of her head, as thick as a tree branch. That doesn’t strike you as at all odd. You’re living this weird… And also, you don’t have a lot of volition. You tend to watch yourself doing things, or you experience yourself doing things, but more as an observer than as a proactive participant. You’re not making these decisions. It’s essentially you’re watching a movie from the first-person perspective. And I thought, OK, that’s an interesting idea, because if consciousness really is a spandrel, if it doesn’t serve any useful function, if it’s just a side effect, then, effectively, dreaming is an illustration of that. You can be conscious of something, but the rest of your brain, the non-conscious part of your brain, is doing the heavy lifting.

[00:29:25.17] – Orateur 7

So you’re sitting there like a parasite, watching yourself behave. It’s a lot like a dream. And I didn’t have anybody in the book that did that. And I thought, you know, a vampire might fit there. You can talk about vampires with parallel processes. They’re essentially like meaty [?] parallel processes. So they can run multiple cognitive thread simultaneously. I mean, in a sense, you could say that every vampire brain contains multitudes because you’d have a different perspective for each. But at the same time, they don’t have any conscious control over any. You have these multiple consciousnesses that are in a constant dream state. Apparently, it’s a little similar to the Indigenous Australians talk of a dream walking.

[00:30:15.18] – Peter Watts

So I thought, OK, nobody wants my vampires. I’m going to stuff my vampires down their throats, whether they like it or not. And so I decided to… And it was… I mean, it was also a joke. I mean, remarkably, there are people out there who think I believe this stuff. I did a PowerPoint presentation from the point of view of a sociopathic pharmaceutical scientist for Big Pharma, who had accidentally stumbled on how to reactivate the genes for vamporism while they were trying to cure certain types of autism. And they were now trying to market vamporism as a product. And I got a I got an email from somebody actually working in the pharmaceutical industry saying: What company do you work for? You are obviously deeply embedded in the pharmaceutical industry because you absolutely nailed their attitude. But yeah, it was like… I had the pre-existing biological template for how vampires might work biologically. I had a vacant niche in the book into which vampires could fit. And there was also just something wonderfully absurd about… I’m going to write a hard science-fiction novel that’s crammed up to the wazoo with hard SF, like with peer-reviewed scientific references, and I’m going to stick a fucking vampire in it.

[00:31:45.19] – Peter Watts

What are people are going to make of that. And in that sense it was just a joke. There were readers who said: ‘Yeah I really liked Blindsight, but boy the vampires just ruined it for me. I could really do without the vampires.’ And then there were others who jumped to my defense: ‘No, no, the vampire is an integral part. Thematically, the book doesn’t work without them.’ Then, of course, there’s other people who say, Blindsight is just crap from one page to the next. But that was it. It was like there were about three or four different reasons for sticking them in. One was just a big middle finger to people who took hard science fiction too seriously.

[00:32:22.21] – Jenn

It’s really interesting. Thanks.

[00:32:25.11] – Peter Watts

Sorry, Brandon. I know you’ve heard it before.

[00:32:30.20] – John Knych

Thank you, Peter. Moving on to Sean.

[00:32:35.20] – Sean

Yeah, thanks. So full disclosure, I’m still a little bit away from the finish of Blindsight, so I can’t ask about endings or any spoilers, but I’ll probably hear a few anyways. I got enough of the way through to have some thoughts, but the main thing that’s coming to mind for me, and this might be a boring question, but you essentially, it seems like, wrote a book where one of the primary characters, plot elements, is essentially like an LLM in some ways. And now, there’s… I mean, obviously, LLMs were out for quite a long time, but now, they’re very much in the public. They’re the zeitgeist, I guess you could say. So I’m curious about how closely have you been following and reading and learning about the latest version of LLM, GPT, and these others ? How much have you, like, reflected on what you wrote in 2006, and like the research that I went into it at the time? And, I’m just curious if you have any… If it’s been top of mind for you, or are you sort of….you’re not interested in that connection or what?

[00:33:48.07] – Peter Watts

Well, the… The research that I’ve done has basically consisted of sitting back and everyday ego surfing on Reddit, And rubbing my hands with glee as people say, Peter Watts was writing about LLMs back like 20 years ago. I’m thinking, yeah, I nailed it. But in fact, the first LLM thing I wrote was in Starfish, which came out in 1999. In Starfish, I had these things called headcheeses, which are basically cultured neurones on a slab. And the rationale for headcheeses in the Riftors Trilogy was that the Internet had become so infested with self-evolving bots and malware, that it was virtually unusable. And so people were sticking these headcheeses as gatekeeper nodes into the Internet at large, because the thing about a neuron culture is it’s constantly rewiring itself. So it’s very difficult for malware that is programmed to hack certain security protocols. It’s difficult for that malware to get a target lock on a headcheese because it’s constantly in motion. And I had…And of course, these headcheeses, because they are basically like human brains, their internal logic is opaque. They learn by operant conditioning. And this turned out to be an absolutely major…

[00:35:26.12] – Peter Watts

A lynchpin of the book, the fact that you’re conditioned headcheeses to do certain things, but that they had internalized the wrong… They had internalized the wrong lesson. Because you thought you were teaching them one thing, but as it turned out, something else always happened in conjunction with this thing you were trying to teach them. And it focused on the wrong thing. The example I used was, there was a headcheese that was running the London underground. And it had basically learned to turn up the ventilators whenever a train pulled into the station and people got out so the people would not suffocate. But what it had actually been keying on was not the sight of people coming out of the tube, but it had been keying on a digital clock on the wall, which happened to coincide with the arrival of the trains. When vandals smashed the clock, it no longer had that triggering stimulus, so it stopped turning on the ventilators and a bunch of people suffocated. That was just one off-hand example that I used. That wasn’t the main thrust of the story. But you had somebody actually talking to this headcheese, and it responded, in hindsight, it responded very much like an LLM would today, right down to the point that it would make certain hallucinations.

[00:36:53.00] – Orateur 7

It would make cute little turns of phrase that didn’t make a lot of sense, but did, if you didn’t think about it too hard. I put a fair bit of thought into that. And that actually seems to have worn, seems to have aged really well, to the point where you actually have headcheeses now, there’s actually a company called Cortical Labs, which has created a mishmash of human and rat neurons in a box, which they are leasing out. They’re actually selling them for commercial applications now. I’m actually in touch with them. I’ve got them on my roller deck because they were actually inspired. They read a paper I did recently in The Atlantic. That’s super cool. I feel super vindicated about that. But yeah, we didn’t… I mean, as you pointed out, we’ve had the large language model template since the ’80s. Nothing’s really changed since then since then, except Moore’s law has allowed us to invest so much more massively, orders of magnitude, more compute in the same old model, so that it just becomes brute force, more powerful, as opposed to a more elegant process…

[00:38:17.14] – Sean

Has anything, a quick follow-up on that. Has anything about this surprised you? Or is there anything about current GPT that you, having done a ton of research and written about it and studied it, is there something new to this that you wouldn’t have expected?

[00:38:33.24] – Orateur 7

I mean, not really. Again, it’s not a… I wasn’t thinking in terms of large language models when I wrote Roarshock [?]. I was thinking about the Chinese room, which was pretty explicitly. It turns out that those are very convergent models. The stuff that’s happened, I mean, it’s weird. I gave a keynote address at a weird AI symposium in Madrid a couple of years ago. And I don’t know anything in A.I.. My formal background is in marine-biology. My PHD thesis was on the biophysical-ecology of harbor seals. the But…you know… One of Geoffrey Hinton’s colleagues gives me drugs. Apparently, I’m quite popular in A.I. circles. This Michael Bennett character I mentioned earlier says that one of his colleagues describes me as his favorite science fiction author who he hopes is wrong. I seem to have… I seem to have thrown a dart over my shoulder and hit a bullseye, or at least hit the board, with no formal expertise whatsoever.

[00:39:57.15] – Peter Watts

I did coding back in the day, because it was just that you had to write your own programs for your doctorate. But I never knew anything about computer science. I was like, the whole…

[00:40:13.01] – Peter Watts

Even my whole AI consciousness thing didn’t even occur to me until I was out of university. It’s weird that I write a series of books set in the deep sea, and while you have people saying, Oh, yeah, You can really tell he’s a marine biologist. He really knows the marine biology. Nobody has been actually inspired, as far as I know, to go into marine biology as a result of reading Starfish. But there’s shitloads of people who have gone into computer science because of the digital ecosystems I described in Maelstrom. There’s people who’ve gone into AI because of what they’ve read in Blindsight. It’s amazing how… It’s almost like the more ignorant I am about something, the more influential I become? I’ve got this theory that, when you are an expert in a specific field of science, you become encrusted with the state-of-the-art dogma of that particular field. Somebody pointed out that Isaac Asimov very rarely wrote stories in which biochemistry played a major role, because his background was in biochemistry, and every time he would come up with a cool idea about biochemistry, his formal training would kick in with all the reasons why it wouldn’t work.

[00:41:41.02] – Peter Watts

And so I think that to some extent, when you actually write a story based on your field of expertise, your imagination becomes strait-jacqueted because your own expertise keeps you from looking beyond the state of the art today and recognizing that there will be a different state of the art tomorrow.

[00:42:01.19] – Peter Watts

But if you have formal training in science, generally, you respect the scientific process.

[00:42:08.04] – Peter Watts

You are capable of more rigorously interrogating assumptions and tropes and things, then you would be if you had no scientific background. So I’m thinking maybe what happens is, by moving from one field of science in which I had expertise, into another field of science in which I had no expertise, but which still respected the same principles of scientific methodology, I could look at things that were more batshit in a particular field, while at the same time, being relatively rigorous in my interpretation of it, making sure that things didn’t actually turn into magic. And so I think there might be an interdisciplinary flexibility in that, maybe, that has allowed me to be more inspirational in neuroscience and AI. I mean, hell, it’s weird. I came out with a story in Lightspeed. It came up just a couple of months ago, but I’d written it years ago. It’s a long story. Et it got some real back stream buzz years before it came out. The co-founder of Neuralink loved it, wanted to take me out for coffee. The founder of Midjourney loved it. And what they didn’t seem to realize was that I was actually writing about all the things I thought were going to go wrong with Neuralink, catastrophically wrong with Neuralink, if it behaved exactly as advertised.

[00:43:45.00] – Peter Watts

The sense I got is that Elon Musk doesn’t have the first idea about how brains work. When he talks about removing the I/O constraints so that brains can talk to each other instantaneously, I think that’s going to result in a catastrophic implosion of identity. And so I’ve written these stories. And so I wrote this story, The 21 Second God, and it was basically about a hive mind gone wrong. And Shivon Zilis, wants to have coffee with me… Because she learned so much about the brain from my science fiction story, again, by a guy who studied harbour seals when he actually did science, which is disturbing in its own right. Haven’t really heard from her much since because I had to say, you do realize I’m writing about your company, right ? Holtzer ? Holz ? David Holz, the Midjourney guy, right ? Also loved 21 Second God, and his aspiration is to build a hive mind. It’s like the classic meme from 2021, where the tech company says, At long last, we have created the torment nexus from the classic sci-fi novel, Do not build the torment nexus. These are torment nexus-adjacent experiences I’m having. On the one hand, it’s super cool to be recognized and appreciated by people who are experts in fields that I have no expertise in, and who I’m just noodling around with my science fiction stories.

[00:45:24.09] – Peter Watts

But on the other hand, it’s a bit disturbing that they seem to be taking the wrong message from my… I’m writing cautionnary tales, and they seem to be taking them as aspirational. I try to keep up with what’s going on with LLMs, and neuromorphic models, and the various hybrids, and so on, I’m certainly no expert. But at this point, I know experts, so I can ask them, and I can make sure I don’t make any egregious boners in my subsequent stories because I just have this vast stable now of actual experts I can ask. But the thing that… Other than the sheer glee of vindication I get from the fact that I do seem to have hit a bullseye with some of my completely speculative and uninformed predictions, the thing that really sticks with me now is how people seem to be taking the wrong take home message from it.

[00:46:26.11] – John Knych

Fascinating. Thank you, Peter. Yeah, Yeah Sean asked the same question I had because…on page 117, you write, But pattern matching doesn’t equal comprehension. And you read all these articles now like, Oh, large language models, are they conscious? And you were way ahead of the game.

[00:46:44.24] – Peter Watts

Yeah, but again, I mean, maybe pattern matching does equal comprehension, because we don’t know what comprehension is, right ?

[00:46:50.09] – Orateur 7

Pattern matching certainly equals computation of a sort. And babies, young mammals, neonates of all species, learn by experience, by pattern matching, at some point, maybe past some critical threshold and something clicks.

[00:47:08.05] – Peter Watts

I mean, the general consensus, Geoffrey Hinton is basically saying at this point, that it’s possible that current LLMs are, to some extent, already conscious. And the consensus, apparently, amongst his colleagues is Hinton is a very smart guy, but he may have jumped the shark with that. But on the other hand, he makes the point that transformer models are essentially neural nets. Neural nets are based, at least loosely, on how brains work. And we don’t know how consciousness arises. So I’m not willing… I mean, the dude won a Nobel Prize for his work on artificial intelligence, so I would not write him off just from that, or just on that basis. But beyond that, people saying, This is not comprehension, this cannot be conscious, this isn’t like us, strikes me as awfully defensive and awfully ill-informed. And it’s not the thing you can say until you can describe what makes us us, why we are conscious, how consciousness works in us. Until you figure out how consciousness works, you can’t, as has been said in this very conversation, for all we know, rocks are conscious to a rudimentary extent.

[00:48:33.23] – Peter Watts

So who fucking knows ? I can’t write anything off. And it’s true that pattern matching does not equal compréhension, but we don’t know what comprehension equals. So, yeah. I just don’t see what good, from an evolutionary point of view, what good comprehension, conscious comprehension, is when non-conscious computation can do all the same heavy lifting. I mean, we had a case here in Toronto, where somebody basically drove across town, stabbed his mother-in-law to death, cleaned up the mess, went back, got caught. He was asleep the whole time. Jury let him off because he was asleep. He did not do those things. Something else in him did those things. It’s called homicidal somnibalisme. There are a few cases of it now. There are people who go out, pick up sex partners, take them home. wake up and say: who the fuck is this strange person in my bed? Because they were asleep the whole time they did it. There’s a guy in Europe who can draw incredibly detailed pencil drawings of entire cityscapes, right down to individual windows, like almost photographic, except they’re done in pencils. But he can only do that when he’s asleep.

[00:50:02.03] – Peter Watts

He can barely scratch his name in the dirt when he’s awake. We tend to cite these things as weird Ripley’s believe it or not stuff. But when you realize that you do the same stuff yourself every day. That most people driving home from work aren’t driving consciously, they are thinking of other things. They are not thinking about the stop signs and the turn signals and stuff, that they’re doing all of this automatically. And when you factor in the fact that neurologically, the computation that makes the decision seems to precede the conscious decision being made. It just seems a lot more parsimonious to say, OK, the decision is made non-consciously, and then somebody sends a memo upstairs to the conscious self, which then reads that memo and thinks that it made the decision, as opposed to simply being informed of the decision. We’ve got pretty compelling neurological evidence that decision making happens anywhere from 7 to 10 seconds before the self becomes aware of making the decision. And so, given that, nobody denies that consciousness is a thing, whether consciousness actually has a function? As far as I’m concerned, the jury is out on it.

[00:51:37.24] – Peter Watts

I think I’m in the minority on this. A lot of other people have reasons for consciousness, but every time I look at possible reasons for consciousness, the question I ask is, OK, maybe, but can you imagine a non-conscious system performing the same operations? And so far, for me, the answer has always been: yes. So even if we do use consciousness for something, consciousness does not seem to be necessary for any operation I’ve encountered so far, other than aesthetic appreciation. And you could make a really strong argument that aesthetic appreciation is maladaptive because we think with our dicks, we get swamped on the glory of the Universe, and a tiger eats us because we’re distracted. Again, I know it’s long-winded and I’m going on and probably not being very focused in my response, but yes, pattern matching is not comprehension, but in response, what good is comprehension ? Do we know?

[00:52:40.16] – John Knych

Thank you. Before moving on to Joe’s question, for the sake of my sanity, I have to believe that aesthetics has some value that’s…

[00:52:48.15] – Peter Watts

This is one of the things that people think that I’m being so grim and so on and nihilistic. But to me, the people who think… I guess I would put you in that category. The people who think that this is an unpleasant interpretation or something that you find unpalatable, you’re not thinking of yourself in the right sense, right ? You think that I am this thing for which consciousness is a waste of time. But you’re not the system. You’re the tape worm living inside the system, okay ? If consciousness is, in fact, some parasitical spandrel, and that doesn’t serve any purpose, then, by definition, it’s a parasite. It’s true that most hosts would be better off without the tape worm in their gut. But at the same time, no tape worm in the long, venerable histories of tape worms has looked around said: You know, I think I’m going to flush myself out the anus because I think my host would be better off without me. I like being a tapeworm. I’m probably too pathological about it now, but at least once an hour, I look around and say, “Wow, it’s amazing to be conscious.”

[00:54:09.09] – Peter Watts

I am perceiving that plant. I am perceiving this cat, shredding my arm because it’s 8:01, and I was supposed to feed them at 8: 0. I am constantly gobsmacked by how amazing it is to just consciously perceive things. And I’m the tape worm. Fine. I’m not going to flush out of the system, even though that probably would make the system itself more survivable. In fact, I’ve started giving talks. I’m going to be giving one next month, arguing that, in fact, the best way to ensure our survival is to stop caring about whether we do survive, because all the things that are responsible for a destruction of the environment are a result of cognitive biases, the inability to internalize future consequences. Cognitive biases, like hyperbolic discounting, kin-selection, cascade effects, all these things that allow us to destroy the environment and realize cognitively, yeah, we should probably stop destroying the environment because it’s what keeps us alive, but we don’t internalize that in the gut.

[00:55:13.22] – Peter Watts

We think about it in the same way that we think about sapient raccoons with gun fetishes in Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. It’s a cool thing to think about, but we don’t believe it down in the gut, the way you would believe you were in danger if a grizzly bear started charging at you from across the field. That is something you would react to, right ? We don’t respond to actual threats because we’re not wired for that. And we’re not wired for that because our brains are designed for survival in a world in which there are short term local problems. And if you don’t solve the local short term problems, you don’t live to the long term. So we have very, very short perspectives. And so, everything we perceive is biased. The line I like to use is that you can either see the world as it is or you can care whether you live or die. You cannot optimize along both axes simultaneously because caring whether you live or die results in all these cognitive biases which result in environmenal destruction.

[00:56:19.10] – Peter Watts

Honestly, if you want to stop destroying the environment, if you want to maintain a healthy environment, you have to do away with all these survival biases that kept us alive back on the Pleistocene, but which are now threatening the planet. You have to stop caring about whether you live or die, and then maybe you will live. I mean, it’s counterintuitive, and I’m probably the only person in the world who believes it, but it also makes for an interesting bomb to drop into conversations like this. I bet you never thought of that before.

[00:56:55.23] – John Knych

Thank you. I’d love to hear a politician say that.

You can see the world how it is or care if you live or die!

[00:57:02.24] – Peter Watts

Yeah, I mean, really, you can do it. There are some indications of how we can do this. There are certain types of brain damage and things that we consider pathologies, which are actually just things that eliminate one or another bias. But what you basically got to do is say, OK, we’re going to save humanity by rewiring human nature into something else. Now, give me a research grant.

[00:57:30.00] – John Knych

Thank you. All right. I keep interrupting. I’m sorry, Joe, if you have a question. Joe, last question let’s hear it..

[00:57:37.07] – JP

No, no, no. Thank you. No, thank you, Peter, for being here. You’re talking a little bit about the flow state, where the climber exits the flow state and thinks about what they’re doing, and then they fall, because they’re no longer back in that fluid system, where everything comes naturally. Their objectivity gets in the way of success, and they fall and die. It’s really interesting. Just think about it. I’m a huge fan. I’ve read your Rifter series. I’ve read your short story, Malak, Malak. Malak, yeah. Yeah, it was a really good read. I wonder if you’re dive certified, is actually my first question. The Rifter series has me wondering if with your biology degree, if you’re dive certified.

[00:58:47.08] – Peter Watts

Yeah, I actually got my C card. I got my Naui card when I was grade 10, I think.

[00:58:53.03] – JP

Okay.

[00:58:53.24] – Peter Watts

And I did some diving in nuclear discharges for a local power utility back when they pretended to care about the environment, and they didn’t. There were some pretty hairy experiences there. These were like the gales of November. You would jump off the boat. You would have to swim for the bottom as fast as you possibly could because the boat was rolling so much that the trim tabs would give you a concussion. You grab a rock on the bottom, and even when you grab the rock on the bottom, the surge is so great that you get picked up and bounced along the bottom.

[00:59:30.20] – Peter Watts

But I have not dived…Shit, I probably haven’t dived since 2000, 2001, and that was just a recreational stuff. In Hawaii. Yeah, I’m way out of practice.

[00:59:51.24] – Peter Watts

Do I even still have my card?

[00:59:53.15] – OJP

I just got to say…

[00:59:58.02] – Peter Watts

There it is! Here’s my Naui card.

[01:00:01.19] – Orateur 2

You’ve got it. Okay. That’s pretty cool.

[01:00:06.15] – Peter Watts

Yeah.

I mean, there were scenes, I don’t know if you remember the scene in Starfish, where they’re just swimming on the bottom, and all of a sudden, this row of teeth just resolves out of the murk directly in front of them. That’s… When you’re diving, especially up in temperate waters. I don’t know where you’re located, but the water is hardly… Off the coast of BC, the water tends to be murky, right ? And there’s killer whales out there, and there are sharks out there, and you’re swimming along, and all of a sudden, everything just goes dark, like something is blocking out the sun from overhead. And it is scary as shit. I have an imagination, and I know the kind of things that are in the water, and you’re swimming along, and all of a sudden, this giant shadow from overhead drops on you. And of course, what it is, it’s a cloud blocking the sun. But there’s that brain stem. Holy shit, there’s like a killer whale coming down. And because the water is so murky, you just have this vision that this is going to be the last thing you see. You’re going to see a shadow in front of you, and then you’ll see these teeth, and they’ll come out almost like a grainy starlight amplification, tactical goggles, that resolution.

[01:01:51.03] – Peter Watts

It’s just a recurring… I won’t call it a nightmare, because I don’t know if I’ve ever dreamed of it. It’s like a waking. And yeah, that’s what I based that particular scene on.

[01:02:03.11] – Orateur 2

No, I’ve never dived. I live in Oregon. The ocean here is scary, but it was very visceral. I’ve taken to watching diving posts and underwater stuff a lot more since reading that series, and I’m just like, wow, that must have got to be on some level. The weird concept that the bottom is the safest. We just don’t have that in 3D non-aquatic life. We don’t think of the bottom as safe. We don’t think of the above as dangerous. It was really interesting to me. But, yeah, that was fascinating. And a tiny little thing about the headcheese – I wanted to go back to was, in Star Trek – Voyager – You’re right. Yes, Voyager, there are neural packs that gets infected by cheese. It was very real. It was very real because if you’re using neural substrate, infection is literally possible.

[01:03:21.22] – Peter Watts

Yup, I stopped watching. Voyager was the first Star Trek series I stopped watching after maybe the first half season because it was just… I mean, give me a fucking break. I thought, okay, hey, they’re basically on the other side of the galaxy now, right ? Finally, we can get away from aliens with wrinkly foreheads. Finally, we can get away with: We can actually deal with something that’s actually alien because it’s way the hell over there, the progenitors or whatever it is that explains why everybody’s humanoid in this part of the galaxy doesn’t necessarily have to matter in the Delta Quadrant or wherever it is. But yeah, it was the same old shit. And the very first episode, you have the weird guy with the funny sideburns and the creepy affection for Kess, and asking if they have water to barter. It’s like, Are you fucking kidding me ? I mean, you’re in space. There are comets, right ? There is more water in an Oort cloud than there is on any given planet. Don’t you guys know anything about science? And I just gave up on it at that point. It lasted seven years, though. I do remember the infected, literally, head cheese.

[01:04:40.24] – JP

I guess in that vein. Okay, so my question is, given that you’re talking about how you’re that far away, it shouldn’t really apply anymore. This is a bit abstract, super abstract, maybe not. But what do you think would happen to the entire field of science fiction? Let’s say a microbe is discovered, let’s say a life-form is discovered, what’s the survivability of the franchise of science fiction if some extraterrestrial facet is provable, is discovered. I mean, how much does it cut the weeds back on what we consider the field of sci-fi? Or do you think there’s, like we’ve been discussing, some underlying undiscoverability that informs this topic that supersede that? Or do you think it would get overwhelmed, I guess? That’s a complex question.

[01:05:42.15] – JP

That’s a really interesting question. I don’t think anyone has asked me that before. And as a result, anything I say now comes with a disclaimer that I’m just pulling it out of my ass on the spur of the moment. So I could be completely wrong. My sense is that there’d be a sweet spot. I think if we discover microbes on Mars, or pond scum on Europa, I think that would boost interest in science fiction. Because, holy shit, there is life out there. It’s pond scum, it’s a microbe, but we now know there’s life out there. What else could there be? It provides an indication that science fiction is not… I mean, it’s a cliché. We got past the science fiction of spaceships and ray guns shit. That’s like the ’60s, ’70s stuff. But you still find it in English departments, I guess. But it’s a vindication of… It’s a vindication of the genre without being a usurper of the genre. There’s an ecosystem under the ice in Europa. That is so cool. What else could be out there ? Now, basically, everything’s back on the table because now we know that extraterrestrial life is a thing.

[01:07:10.05] – Peter Watts

What forms might extraterrestrial life take? On the other hand, if a bunch of intelligent elephants land on the lawn of the White House and vaporize Trump in his cabinet, after the cheering dies down, and after Marjorie Taylor-Green finishes blaming the Jews for it, at that point, I think maybe science fiction would wither away. Because all of a sudden, it’s not a question of, wow, we know there’s life out there, what else could there be? Now, all of a sudden, it’s, oh, We know what’s out there, and it’s mean, and it looks like a giant 20-foot elephant, and it can kick our asses. And at that point, reality becomes a standard science fiction trope. There’s no need to have to speculate about things. Nobody cares anymore, because you now have aliens walking up and down our streets. So I think we’re looking at a narrow curve with a peak. And it’s great as soon as you find some evidence of life. But the more science-fiction reality becomes, the less relevant science-fiction will have. Although, if that was the case, you’d think that we wouldn’t be paying much attention to science fiction now because… We are certainly in an era now where people are now arguing about whether or not our software is conscious.

[01:08:49.01] – Peter Watts

The whole idea of AI has traditionally been a purely science-fictional thing, and now we’re talking about… People can actually talk about personality uploading without being laughed out of the room. So as I say, maybe I’m completely wrong, but that’s my first cut at an answer, and I will probably think about it a little more. Maybe we’ll come into a talk somewhere down the road.

[01:09:12.18] – JP

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. I’ve got to leave this conversation, but I appreciate you so much for joining us today. You didn’t miss a minute. You weren’t even late. So thank you. I appreciate you being here. Jack, thank you, guys.

[01:09:25.23] – Peter Watts

I was kind of late. It was my pleasure.

[01:09:29.19] – John Knych

Thank Thank you. Yeah, thank you. I got to wrap things up, too, because I have a wife and kid who are running around. But I loved, I really enjoy this conversation. Are there are any final, burning questions, I guess someone can throw them out? But it’s been fascinating. I can’t wait to read over the transcript, to be honest.

[01:09:52.12] – Peter Watts

Ok, awesome. I’m glad. I’m glad that I made up for my initial tardiness.

[01:09:57.22] – Brandon

What are you working on next?

[01:10:30.00] – John Knych

Yes. Thank you, Brandon. Two minor things. What are you working on next? Also, do you have any recommendations of living Sci-Fi authors? Because we’ll quick, I need to shout out Adrian Tchaikovsky because he shouted you out.

[01:10:31.08] – Peter Watts

I would shoutout Adrian Tchaikovsky. I would also shoutout Hiron Ennes. I would shout out, it’s kind of like an Edgar Allen Poe-y David Kronengbourg-ian. He wrote a really interesting novel called Leech, which is basically, it’s about a parasitic hive mind, told from the point of view of the parasitic hive mind, infesting people and encounters another parasitic hive mind, also infesting people.

[01:10:46.12] – Peter Watts

It’s like, Shit, I have competition. It’s a really interesting idea. [Who is it?] Hiron. H-i-r-o-n, space, E-N-N-E-S or I-S ? I don’t remember. But the book is called Leech. Seth Dickinson, Xordia, is really good. It’s a big fucking doorstop of a book. It’s been out for a couple of years now. It has passages that viscerally turn to my stomach, but also, really, really interesting conceptually. I think, like the first two chapters, he came up with an argument for free will that I had never encountered before. And my current favorite is Rachel Rosen, who you will never heard of. It’s not science fiction, it’s more like an urban fantasy with biting political overtones about rising authoritarianism in Canada after environmental collapse has presaged the emergence of a magical environment. So you basically have civil servants plotting each other’s… It’s almost like a Charlie Strauss thing, where you have magic being used for the most mundane, grubby political ends. But it’s produced by a micro publisher in Ottawa called Humble Puppy Press, which you can be forgiven for never having heard of before. It’s probably very difficult to get because it’s a small press, it’s a small book.

[01:12:17.14] – Peter Watts

But yeah, she’s written two books in a trilogy called The Sleep of Reason, which I would strongly recommend. But the ones that you will be able to get really easily are the ones by Hiron Ennis and Seth Dickenson, and, of course, Adrian Tchiakovsky. I’ve only read a couple of Adrian Tchaikovsky books, and I thought that Children of Ruin was good. I thought the ideas were really good. I thought that some of the spider cognition was a little too human. But his latest book, Shroud, it’s probably not his latest book. He comes up with a book every two months. But the latest book of his that I read was Shroud, which a hell of a first contact story and has a really, really inventive alien ecosystem. [I love Shroud.] Alien biology, I’ve never seen anything like it.

[01:13:09.04] – Brandon

Shroud is good.

[01:13:10.07] – John Knych

Yeah, he mentioned your influence in his writing of that book.

[01:13:13.06] – Peter Watts

Yeah, well, he hasn’t been sending me any royalty or commission checks, so talk is cheap, Adrian.

[01:13:21.13] – John Knych

Thank you. Then, as Brandon said, what are you working on now ?

[01:13:24.10] – Peter Watts

Oh, right.

[01:13:25.15] – Peter Watts

Okay, well, I’m a bunch of things.

[01:13:28.06] – Peter Watts

I’m doing some video game work I’m doing some stuff I can’t actually talk about because of NDAs.

[01:13:37.18] – Peter Watts

I’m writing another novella in the Sunflower sequence, a sequel to the Free Stream Revolution. I’m working on a screenplay with this hotshot Black cinematographer installation artist called Arthur Jaffe [?], who is basically a science fiction allegory about the Black experience in America involving an AI who identifies as Black and who presents itself as Mickey Mouse. He writes very different stuff than I do. He’s worked with all sorts of people. He’s worked with Stanley Kubrick and Kanye West and Spike Lee. The Kanye West thing hasn’t aged well I guess. I’m working on that. Neil Blomkamp has optioned the Blindsight-Echopraxia stuff. He’s presumably going to be working on something that takes my vampire biology but sticks it into a different context. He’s basically describing it as secaria [?] with vampires. He’s presumably going to be working on that. He’s going to be filming that after he finishes the Starship Troopers Reboot, so that’ll be next year. I’ve just finished a series treatment for Blindsight, which he has also optioned. I don’t know if anything’s going to come à that, but if it does, I will be working on that. And yeah, there’s always omniscience being pushed ever further into the distance because all this other stuff has deadlines and pays better.

[01:15:22.06] – Peter Watts

But yeah, I’m doing a lot, and I’m feeling a little bit overwhelmed. Honestly, I’m afraid that I’m going to produce a lot of crap because it all has to be done by Tuesday. It has to be handed in by Tuesday, not when it’s actually ready to hand in. So we’ll see how it goes. Remember me if… My subsequent work is crap. Remember me as I am now, not as I am about to become.

[01:15:47.18] – John Knych

Well, despite all the projects, we’re grateful for your time and for talking with us. Yeah.

[01:15:54.01] – Peter Watts

No, it was fun.

[01:15:55.04] – Peter Watts

And again, I hang my head in shame about the whole forgetting entirely about you guys thing.

[01:16:00.18] – John Knych

If anything, it’s… I’m always nervous in the beginning, but we were able to just talk about your work and science fiction. So it was a nice introduction, just waiting. So it was fine. No problem.

[01:16:15.06] – Peter Watts

Ok, well, everybody go off and live your lives in the short period of time that we have left to live our lives. I hope when you’re fighting each other over the last tin of spam in the rubble, spare some kind thoughts for me and think, Hey, he saw this coming. He tried to warn us.

[01:16:35.06] – John Knych

He threw the dart. He threw the dart behind.

[01:16:38.19] – Peter Watts

Thank you, Peter. Ok, well, goodbye. Thank you. Bye, everyone. Thank you for having me.

[01:16:42.21] – John Knych

Bye, bye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all for being here. Enjoyed it. I really got a run. Au revoir.

[01:16:49.10] – Brandon

Thank you, Jack.

[01:16:50.16] – Noémie

See you guys.

“I’m afraid we’ve left today’s youth with circumstances where there’s little room for hope.”

Interview with American writer Sigrid Nunez, published in the Slovenian Newspaper: sobotna priloga-Delo.

By Katarina Gomboc Čeh

In the winter of 2021, while browsing the library, I came across a book with a simple title, The Friend, and a Great Dane on the cover. I had never heard of the American author Sigrid Nunez before, but the blurb promised a “perfectly pitched novel.” The Friend, which was later adapted into a film of the same name starring Naomi Watts and Bill Murray, tells the story of a woman who adopts her deceased friend’s dog. Beyond the bond between human and dog, the novel delves into themes of writing, grief, abuse, and friendship. The New York Times included this extraordinary book on its list of the 100 best books published since 2000.

Following The Friend (translated into Slovenian by Petra Anžlovar and published in 2021 by Aktivni mediji), came its follow-up, What Are You Going Through—this time with a cat on the cover—which was published in Slovenian in 2023. A harrowing tale of two friends, one of whom is dying of cancer while the other accompanies her through it, was adapted into the 2024 film The Room Next Door by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar. With the novel The Vulnerables (translated into Slovenian this year), the author concludes her unofficial trilogy about an unnamed woman. In this last book, she finds herself quarantined in a stranger’s New York apartment with a parrot she must care for and a younger man from Generation Z.

The author’s last three novels have been translated into Slovenian, but she has written nine in total. Her first, A Feather on the Breath of God (1995), is closest to autofiction and tells the story of her childhood and parents. Born in New York in 1951 to a Chinese-Panamanian father and a German mother, she grew up in a low-income neighborhood in Staten Island with her parents and two older sisters. Her later novels explore Vietnam, loss, family relationships, friendship, social issues, even a marmoset from Bloomsbury and a fictional flu pandemic.

In 2011, she published the memoir Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag, which is unique because Nunez knew Sontag personally—she dated her son and lived with them for a time.

I met Sigrid Nunez in New York, where she has lived her whole life. She chose a quiet lobby of a concert hall in the Upper West Side—her favorite neighborhood for concerts, film premieres, ballet, and opera—for our conversation.

You’ve lived in New York your whole life. How has the city changed before your eyes?

It’s changed a lot. When I went to college—first Barnard and then Columbia—the city was much more dangerous than it is today. There was a lot of crime, especially in the neighborhoods I lived in, like the Upper West Side and the Lower East Side.

But at the same time, the city was more interesting than it is now. In the 1970s and early 1980s, it was very bohemian. Although New York has always been a place for the wealthy, things were still affordable back then. I always loved its vibrancy and unconventionality.

Then, in the 1980s, the city started changing. There was less crime in the neighborhoods, which of course is a good thing, but many corporations moved in, and a lot of neighborhoods lost their character—real estate was taken over by banks and big chains like CVS and Duane Reade. That’s why I have a special affection for the place where we met. It has remained almost the same, even though prices have gone up significantly.

Do you think New York is more superficial today, more shallow?

To some extent, yes. It’s a less interesting, less unconventional, more mainstream city.

There used to be this very important idea about New York —that you could come here from anywhere, with no money, no connections, and live your true self. If you were talented —like Andy Warhol, for example—you could become a great artist. You didn’t need money or influence, whereas elsewhere you wouldn’t have had a chance. The same goes for director Robert Wilson. Many people like him, who were gay, came from places where they couldn’t be themselves, let alone develop their creativity.

Today, that’s no longer the case, mainly because young people especially can no longer afford to come here and live like artists once did. Even Brooklyn, which used to be considered affordable, isn’t anymore.

Freedom and opportunity—that’s what made New York so special. And most of that is now gone.

Is the neighborhood where you live undergoing gentrification?

Oh yes, absolutely. Gentrification started in the 1980s, continued through the 1990s, and is still happening everywhere in Manhattan. I live in the West Village now, where part of the original spirit has been preserved. But the East Village, which was once considered a bohemian area, has completely changed. It’s become highly gentrified, with outrageously high rents. Much of the world that Patti Smith wrote about when she and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe were young is gone.

In The Vulnerables, you include a passage about 1968 as “the year that shattered America,” and how Joan Didion experienced that time—so intensely she sought psychiatric help. The psychiatrist’s report said she had a “fundamentally pessimistic, fatalistic, and depressive view of the world around her.” In the novel, you write: “This would describe, more or less, the current view of most Americans I know. Though I would add: an overwhelming sense of shame.”

The year 1968 was hugely significant for Americans. It was a time of massive protests, many of them related to the Vietnam War. Protesters opposed the horrific actions of U.S. foreign policy. They were part of student movements, civil rights movements… And then there were the assassinations—John Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. Despite all that, there was still hope, because the movements were strong. People opposing the government felt they had power to stop it.

Now, many people feel the same way. The Vulnerables was written before Donald Trump’s second election, so it reflects feelings already present after his first term.

Trump is now, in 2025, serving a second term. What is it like to be an American citizen in 2025?

It depends who you ask. Trump wasn’t an unknown figure last year. He was very open, especially in the final days of the campaign. Everyone could see it. Information wasn’t withheld. We knew about “Project 2025,” a conservative plan to overhaul the American government. We knew his intentions, his grandiosity, narcissism, even his talk about being “a dictator from day one.” And people still bought into it.

In some ways, I experience it as a betrayal. If it had been a coup, it would be easier to bear. Less painful than the fact that people voted for this man, and that many didn’t vote at all. Even people of color, young people, women—many chose the right wing, despite Trump and JD Vance having said horrific things about immigrants, about migrants…

Trump didn’t pretend to be anyone else. I think that’s something people like about him: that he is largely what he appears to be. Not that he doesn’t lie—but with him, people feel they know what they’re getting.

So no, I don’t understand how anyone doesn’t feel ashamed. It’s your country, even if you voted for someone else. Still, we as a nation allowed this to happen. People often say Germans should be ashamed that Hitler came to power. There’s even a term, “Good Germans,” referring to those who didn’t actively support him but didn’t do anything to stop him either. They just allowed it. I feel similarly about the current situation in the U.S.

After his first term, people tried to console themselves with thoughts like, “It could be worse.” They said, “At least he doesn’t meddle in foreign affairs,” “At least he believes in America First,” “He’s not a warmonger and doesn’t seem to have imperial ambitions.” But on the day he started his second term—and this is how narcissism works—he became so grandiose he started talking about annexing Greenland, Canada, and Panama. So much for not being an imperialist. Now Trump poses an ever-growing threat—not just to America, but to the whole world.

The shame also comes from the fact that this isn’t just about us. Everything the U.S. does affects the entire world. Even those who couldn’t vote will feel the consequences —especially from Trump’s decisions on climate and health care.

Obviously, I didn’t vote for him. But it’s still my country. These are still my fellow citizens.

As a writer, how do you cope with the current political situation? Does it affect your writing?

After finishing The Vulnerables, I was thinking about what to do next. For a long time, I wasn’t satisfied with my short stories. But last spring—before the election—I wrote a few that I actually liked. That led to compiling a short story collection, which my agent loved. The collection has twelve or thirteen stories and is expected to be published in summer 2026.

While working on that, one story started growing into a novel. It’s quite different from my last three books. The Friend, What Are You Going Through, and The Vulnerables ended up forming an unofficial trilogy, narrated in first person by an unnamed writer who teaches creative writing. At the end of the third book, I felt like I had reached a conclusion —I no longer wanted to continue in that voice or structure. At one point I even thought: maybe I’ll never write another novel. Maybe I’ll just stick to short stories or criticism.

But then this new work started taking shape. It’s written in third person, the characters have names, and none of them are writers—which feels like a significant shift. I can’t say exactly where it’s heading yet, but that’s what I’m exploring now. And inevitably, the story reflects our current societal moment. I don’t think it will be overtly political, but you can’t write about the present without the texture of the time seeping into the narrative. Would you say that this trilogy is your most personal work?

Not exactly. My first book, A Feather on the Breath of God, was the most personal for me it’s at least half, if not more, practically autobiographical. There are also personal elements in For Rouenna and The Last of Her Kind, but I’d say the last three novels are more intimate.

In my earlier books, I didn’t write about what I actually do —that is, writing itself, being a writer. All my novels contain autobiographical elements, but there’s more fiction than non fiction in them, so I don’t consider them autobiographical novels. They may sound like autofiction, but they’re not.

I remember when I first came across The Friend —the cover with the dog drew me in instantly. A novel about a dog and writing? The perfect book for me. And it really was.

So I’m curious—how do animals inspire your writing? The Friend and its sequels aren’t your only books that feature animals. You also wrote Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury. What led you to start writing about animals?

Most writers who write for adults don’t write about animals. I think many are afraid that animal stories might come across as too sentimental or shallow.

The Mitz novel began rather unexpectedly. I’ve long been a huge admirer of Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group. In the 1990s, after two of my books had already been published, a children’s book editor asked me if I’d ever considered writing for childre n—she thought I might be good at it, based on my writing. At first, I turned her down because I didn’t have any ideas. Then I remembered Mitz, the little marmoset that Leonard and Virginia Woolf had kept.

I’d come across Mitz in their letters and diaries —she appeared now and then in tiny, but charming anecdotes. So I thought: maybe I could write a children’s book about the Woolfs’ monkey. I even wrote three chapters in the style of books for young readers. But when I sent them to the editor, she flatly rejected them, saying that children’s literature must include children—which isn’t true at all! So I gave up on the idea.

But then my agent mentioned it to another editor, who liked the concept but wanted it to be “a book for children and adults.” I thought that sounded absurd and didn’t know how to go about it. Then I remembered Virginia Woolf’s Flush—a wonderful fake biography she wrote about Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel. That book isn’t written from the dog’s perspective, but it’s very tender. So I thought maybe I could write Mitz in that style. I pulled some things from the Bloomsbury archives, and it turned into a short work—but I truly enjoyed writing it. Writing about that little monkey—and later about the dog in The Friend—was a pure pleasure.

At first, I didn’t even plan to write about a dog in The Friend. I just began writing, and the story led me to the idea that the narrator inherits her friend’s dog. I wrote the scene where the friend’s wife, now a widow, calls her to meet—and I needed a twist in the story. Then I thought: What if she gives her the husband’s dog?

Then came the question: What kind of dog? I love Great Danes. They’re visually stunning, especially harlequin-colored ones. I imagined this enormous dog and thought about how the narrator lives in a tiny apartment like mine, where you can’t have such a big dog. That’s when I realized: this is my story. The same thing happened with What Are You Going Through —I didn’t plan to include an animal there either. Then I came to a part where the narrator is staying in an Airbnb, and I imagined her lying in bed reading. Suddenly, there was a cat.

People in the novel share stories, so I thought I’d add another one—a slightly magical one. I didn’t want the cat to talk—talking animals aren’t really my thing. But I found a way for the cat to have a voice: the cat talks all night, and in the morning, the narrator remembers just one story. So maybe it was only a dream.

That scene is only eight pages long and not directly connected to anything else in the book. I thought my editor would ask me to cut it or shorten it. But no—the first thing she said was: “I love that part with the cat.” After publication, readers started calling it “the book about cat.” They didn’t want to believe it was just a dream. They insisted the talking cat was real.

By the time I began writing the next book, I already knew there’d be another animal. And like the cat, the parrot doesn’t appear that often—but still, one UK review called the book “the book about the parrot”.

It’s amazing how animals win readers’ hearts. I wish more writers wrote about them. As for myself, I feel like I’ve closed the chapter on that with this last book —I can’t imagine writing about a hamster or a mouse.

Both The Friend and What Are You Going Through were adapted into films. Would you say that’s a dream come true for a writer?

Yes, I’d say it is. Hollywood is an important part of American culture. So many great films have come from there—some of the most beautiful ever made. Around the world, Hollywood is associated with postwar American dreams.

But the truth is, most writers end up disappointed by the film adaptations of their books. They often make the mistake of wanting to be involved in the filmmaking process —which almost never works out well.

I always hoped that my books would be made into films, though I knew it could turn out to be a bad experience. But even a bad adaptation doesn’t mean the book itself is bad.

I was lucky—not disappointed by either adaptation. I never expected the films to be exact mirrors of the books. With The Friend, I knew they’d focus on the dog’s story and leave out a lot of other things.

When I met with Almodóvar, it was clear from our conversation that he was mostly interested in the friendship between the two women—other themes in the novel mattered less to him. Interestingly, both directors added a character that doesn’t exist in the no vel: a daughter. In the book The Friend, the daughter is briefly mentioned—in the film, she becomes central. In What Are You Going Through, she’s also only briefly mentioned, but in The Room Next Door, she plays a significant role. The filmmakers of The Friend decided that the story needed this character. They told me they needed what they call a “triangle.” I don’t know much about films or screenwriting, but I understood their desire for a third character to balance the narrative.

My friend Vivian Gornick, who wasn’t impressed by The Room Next Door, asked me, “Do you really think this film represents your novel well?” But for me, that was never the question. I didn’t expect the film to be a mirror image of the novel.

When I found out that Almodóvar—one of my favorite directors—wanted to adapt What Are You Going Through, I immediately understood why. First, because of the female friendship. And second, because Spain legalized assisted dying in 2021. That’s a topic that means a lot to him; in recent years, he’s been dealing with questions of mortality. His movie Pain and Glory, which also explores aging, came out in 2019.

I have a friend whose books have been adapted multiple times, and he hasn’t been happy with any of the films. He’s afraid that if someone doesn’t read the book and only sees the film—and the film is bad—they’ll assume the book is bad too. Still, I’ve never met a writer who didn’t want a film adaptation. And I was quite lucky. All the actors —especially Naomi Watts in The Friend and Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, who play the two friends in The Room Next Door—were extraordinary.

Themes of aging and dying are also strongly present in your last three novels translated into Slovenian. How do you grapple with these issues through your writing?

When I was younger, I couldn’t imagine ever writing about aging. Why would I? Aging didn’t seem at all interesting to me at the time. You just get old, this or that happens. Nothing special. Only now that I’m older do I realize how wrong I was. Aging really isn’t boring. It’s incredibly interesting. In fact, I wish it were less interesting.

For many writers—take J. M. Coetzee, whom I also quote in The Vulnerables —this is the period when you begin to seriously engage with the big themes, like death, impermanence, loss. That’s completely natural. You write about what’s occupying your mind. For me, that became suicide, because my friends also began to think about it at a time when suicide rates were rising in the U.S. and probably elsewhere.

I knew people who were thinking of that as the way they’d leave this world. And one of them actually did. He jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, at just fifty-seven years old. That marked me. I began writing about someone who dies by suicide even before I i ncluded the dog in the story.

This stage of life also brings a sense of loss. I know people older than me who have buried all their friends, who have outlived their partners. When I think about it, I realize: those are my people, my generation. I too will bury my friends.

These realizations sneak into life in strange ways. In Vermont, I heard a story about a woman who went to a shelter to adopt a kitten, and they told her she was too old. She was 75 —just one year older than me. They said she could adopt a five-year-old cat or older, because—what if she dies before the kitten grows up? When I heard that story, I said to myself: “I’ll use this in my next novel.” Isn’t that both funny and sad at the same time? That’s what aging is —you suddenly start experiencing things you’d never thought about before.

In The Vulnerables, the older, unnamed first-person narrator ends up in a vacant New York apartment during quarantine with a younger man from Generation Z. How do you perceive this generation?

I think it couldn’t be harder for them. It seems to me this generation has only one big advantage—youth and the resilience that comes with it. Everything else… it’s like the world has turned against them. Of course, science has progressed. Many things th at used to cause terrible suffering can now be solved by medicine. But what I really can’t imagine is how they deal with such a flood of stimuli, with this overload of information. If I had been born later, I’d probably be using social media too, because I wasn’t a nonconformist in my youth. If my friends were doing something, I did it too. So I’m grateful that a lot of this was spared me.

When I think about these generations, what worries me most are climate change and the future they’re facing. How will leaders tackle these issues?

In 1968, we experienced what was called a Youthquake. The world turned toward the youth. It was most desirable to be under thirty. The market, the media, politics —everything revolved around young people and their ideas. Today, I feel like the world mostly exploits young people—to sell them something, to persuade them of something.

I really wish Generation Z would create a movement similar to the one from the sixties. We can laugh at the hippies—yes, some really did look ridiculous—but they had a philosophy: care for the environment, brotherhood, anti-racism, support for social equality. At parties, millionaires and workers mingled. The class divide we feel today wasn’t so pronounced back then.

It would be beautiful if young people today came together again around those same values not MAGA and consumerist values—but around ideas like community, peace, cooperation. If you look at the songs from that time, Get Together, Imagine—they all spoke about the possibility of a better world. They were anti-war, they promoted peace. What happened to those ideas?

Of course, there was also a dark side—drugs did a lot of harm—but the philosophy was right. I fear we’ve left today’s youth with conditions where there’s little room for hope. And we should be ashamed of that. It seems we care more about profit than their well-being. In the U.S., for example, education has become exorbitantly expensive. Students finish college with enormous debt. My generation didn’t have that. Universities have become corporations; instead of being scholars, students have become consumers. That was already beginning in my time, but now it’s out of control and is one of the greatest injustices young people face.

I read that you don’t consider yourself an optimistic person. And yet The Vulnerables is also a novel about hope. Where do you find hope?

It’s true—I’m not an optimist. I inherited my pessimism from my mother, who was German. She grew up during Nazism and the war. She had a wonderful sense of humor, but also a very dark view of humanity—she was aware of what people are capable of and how much horror they can inflict on each other.

And yet, I still manage to find hope. For example, during the pandemic. At that time, death was very close, and they said it would take six years to develop a proper vaccine. But in the end, they developed it in just a few months, saving so many lives, and the pandemic is now behind us.

So I say: people really are incredible. What they can achieve in art, science, technology is astonishing—and that gives me hope. They can cause a bad situation to suddenly turn around. That’s why I put the most hope in science—I must admit, more than in art.

That’s why what’s happening in the U.S. right now affects me so deeply. We survived a pandemic—together—and now… now we have to live in this nightmare. People had a choice. These elections were literally existential. Between life and death. And America cho se death. That’s how I see it. And yes—it hit me hard. I even feel a kind of betrayal. As if Americans blindly walked into a catastrophe.

Then there’s writing. As I wrote in The Vulnerables, Flannery O’Connor believed that people without hope don’t write novels. Sometimes I think: if I’m still writing, then there must be some trace of hope in me. Writing, for me, is proof that hope still exists—despite everything.

[00:00:02.17] – John Knych

Hello, Joan. Thank you for being here to discuss A Door into Ocean. First, we’ll jump right in. Can you share with us the origin of this book, your idea for it, how it came to be? And we’ll just start with how you came up with this book.

[00:00:20.17] – Joan Slonczewski

Well, that’s a great question. So I would say that the origin of this book, it’s like a tree with many roots. So it wasn’t just one origin, but different aspects grew together. So I think I would have to say, going back to reading science fiction, I read science fiction for many years. When I was growing up, I thought that the worlds of Robert Heinlein and Ursula Le Guin had more to do with my consciousness than the real world I lived in. And in particular, Ursula Le Guin, when I read her books in college, somehow I thought, Well, you know, that’s something I could write. I just had this feeling, and I wanted to have a dialog with her worlds, especially The Word for World is Forest. I was very taken by that book, the idea of the forest people and their conflict with the more destructive civilization. And yet I was disappointed at the ending. I thought, well, it seemed to me that the forest people had to become as bad as the invaders in order to repel them. And I thought, well, it doesn’t have to be that way. So at the time, I had accidentally ended up at a Quaker College.

[00:01:47.19] – Joan Slonczewski

I attended Bryn Mawr College for the science. And then the boys school associated with Bryn Mawr was Haverford, which was a Quaker College. And so I learned about Quakers and Quaker ways of dealing with things. And I thought, well, what if the forest people had dealt with things the way the Quakers did? And I was also very interested in Herbert’s Dune and the idea of the ocean, excuse me, the desert planet. But I had a contention with Dune because as a biologist, I knew that that wasn’t possible to have a planet that was dry and that water would poison things. It would not be possible to have the whole ecosystem work like that. So I thought of devising a water world, the water world of Shora. So there were many different things that came together.

[00:02:44.07] – John Knych

Wonderful. Thank you. We’ll move on to Brandon next. And before you arrived, Joan actually mentioned to Brandon, I said, I wonder if Dune had been a slight influence, and Brandon thought your ecology was better than what was done. So interesting to hear that you had a problem with the plausibility of the planet while reading it. But Brandon, onto you.

[00:03:12.16] – Brandon

Yeah. Thanks so much for joining us today. We really appreciate that. So you came up with this whole climate for Shora, and everything’s…The Sharers have a balance with everything on the planet, or I guess it’s a moon, right? But there’s this balance of this ecosystem, and they live within it, and they don’t want to disturb it or anything, which is very much in contrast to our world today. I’m just wondering, were you writing that with a theme in mind of: We don’t treat our planet properly today – so you wanted to show a way to treat an ecosystem?

[00:04:07.18] – Joan Slonczewski

Well, there were some seeds to that, Brandon. But first, let me say I’m really impressed seeing your bookcase, the range of really interesting stuff you have there. I can tell you’re a very thoughtful person. You have a lot of different things. So yes, in a sense, I I was very concerned with… I was aware of how the planet was getting trashed back then, and it’s not too much better now, although people are more aware of things now. Some things are better, others are worse. That’s a big topic. But I also presented, this was not really so much a utopia. The shareers leave hints about how their planet got to be the way it is. I did present a balanced ecosystem, but there are hints that it’s not a perfect balance. And this gets developed a little more in the next novel in the universe, The Daughter of Elysium, Where you find out that actually the planet Shora had started out, being…having a lot more ecology than it does. And much of their ecosystem got lost before The Sharers learned how to maintain the balance. So although it’s a balanced ecosystem, it’s in part because the shareholders manage it.

[00:05:37.02] – Joan Slonczewski

It’s not just an unmanaged ecosystem. And I think today, ecologists do not understand how ecosystems remain in balance, or even if there really is a balance. Okay, because over the history of the Earth, we’ve seen how ecosystems change. The biggest poison event on our planet was the emergence of oxygen from oxygen emitting phototrophs. And so over periods of millions of years or hundreds of millions of years, an ecosystem may seem balanced, but how is that possible? Is that real? Perhaps a steady-state is the best way to think about it. But The sharers do act as managers. So when they see that certain things are overgrowing, they They release the finger snails to feed on the plants. And so it’s a mixed thing. But I think the shares show a consistent respect for their ecosystem. And I think the concept of respect for nature is an important one that if you have respect, at least you’re working at it.

[00:06:55.00] – Brandon

Thank you. Yeah, I think that’s definitely something we could learn from today, that respect for the ecosystem.

[00:07:04.17] – Joan Slonczewski

So it’s paradoxal, isn’t it? That you respect things that you think are precious or in short supply. We respect babies, infants as being important and worthy of care. But if babies rain from the sky, then it would just be a nuisance like the rainfall. It’s hard to imagine. But Anything that we respect is precious. It’s because of the possibility of losing it. That’s a philosophical paradox.

[00:07:39.00] – Brandon

All right.

[00:07:40.16] – Brandon

Thank you.

[00:07:42.15] – John Knych

Thank you, Joan. On to Fab?

[00:07:45.14] – Fabri

Yeah. So I have a lot of questions, but new ones keep popping up as I hear you speak, Joan. So I want to thank you again for being here and for giving us this opportunity. And in relation of what What you just mentioned about managing the ecology, right? I think it’s really interesting that it gets in the way of this polar opposite. So do we manage the ecosystem with artificial clouds or we just let Mother Nature be, right? So I think you are touching on something that is in between those positions. And that’s something I haven’t thought of until I read your book. And on that, and you also mentioned Ursula K. Le Guin as someone that inspired you to write this book, or you are very much writing in her tradition. It also reminded me of her book, Always Coming Home, that I don’t know if you read, but she does talk about a communal society and how they managed to live in the Earth and sort of managing in a way. And I with different buildings and using some parts of the technology that they inherited from previous generations. So, yeah, I wanted to hear a bit more about this and your position or your thoughts on how do we deal with the climate disaster that we’re facing right now, not in a passive way, but also not in a very exploitative and active predatory way, right? So I wanted to pick your brain a bit about that.

[00:09:12.05] – Joan Slonczewski

Yes. Thanks, Fabri. So I did read Always Coming Home. I think that’s a good example in a way where she’s looking at cultures that are inspired by the Native American cultures and have respect for the environment as well as the more exploitative cultures. And so I think that In some ways, I went beyond that in developing a society that was very highly advanced technologically. So in always coming home, you don’t really have advanced technology. There are some mystical elements, but it’s There’s not advanced genetic engineering or advanced building or nanotechnology. So in my science fiction, you always assume that this is far in the future and there is advanced technology, but what kinds of technology? So the shareers have technology where everything is derived from genetic engineering. And so in a sense, they’ve chosen to live a certain way, but they’ve They’ve also, in their past history, they’ve experienced other choices. And the way they manage their ecosystem is by genetic engineering. They have avoided technologies based on on Silicon-based technologies in that book. And I think in a distant way, that was also similar to Herbert’s Dune. So it’s not often mentioned that in Herbert’s Dune, he assumes that people gave up on computing technology at some distant past.

[00:11:06.04] – Joan Slonczewski

And that’s really bizarre. It’s even more bizarre today. I’m surprised more people don’t point it out. How would that be possible? But in the case of a door to ocean, this is an open conflict. So the shares have rejected Silicon and use life technology. And so by the end of the book, though, they confront this other technology and they come to terms with it. And I think that since I wrote that book, it’s become much more clear that really there is no distinction. There’s life technology and silicon and metal technology. It’s all part of the same thing. So in my more recent books, I’m interested in the idea of AIs and constructs out of computing technology that have agency, just like creatures from life technology could have agency. So that was an interesting idea at the time, inorganic versus organic technologies. Today, I think it’s much more come together. We don’t think of it that way.

[00:12:21.14] – Fabri

Thank you.

[00:12:23.10] – John Knych

Thank you, Joan. I’m super embarrassed that I don’t have books behind me now. I’ve never doing that again. Yes, I have a kid who’s downstairs who’s staying home from school, so that’s why I’m in my bedroom. But I tried to wear an Ocean type theme shirt to make up for a lack of books. Well, I’m just glad that I got a computer to work today.

[00:12:48.19] – Joan Slonczewski

Well, I’m just glad that I got a computer to work today. I love my computers, and our home is full of computers. And it’s like if one doesn’t work, then another works.

[00:12:57.18] – John Knych

Yes. Joan. Before you wrote A Door in the Ocean, you received your PhD in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale in 1982. And then you did post-doc work at UPenn studying calcium, flux, and lucite chemotaxis. And then during this- “White blood cells.”-Joan Yes. During this time, were you working on A Door in the Ocean? Was it a long process? And then also, this is something we often talk about in these groups, did you world-build first? Like create Shora, the social fabric, the technology, and then write the narrative, or was it simultaneous, or narrative first?

[00:13:47.24] – Joan Slonczewski

I would say it was all at once. I was developing the background and the characters all at once, and ideas would come, and then I would write things down. Like, if I was in the middle of the lab, I would write things on little straps of paper. Okay. “So- How did you do that all at once?”-John Knych

[00:14:05.24] – Joan Slonczewski

Because getting working in a lab and write, it’s not easy to.

[00:14:12.24] – Joan Slonczewski

When you’re in the lab, there are lots of times when you’re just waiting for things to happen. And so other students would kick their feet up and read a newspaper, and I would be jotting things down, ideas that would come about. And then I would come home and I write in the evening. I tended to write more in the evenings. Sometimes I may have been less efficient than other grad students. I think other grad students got experiments done quicker. But by the time I wrote my thesis, I had already published my first book, so my thesis was written in record time. I had no trouble writing a PhD thesis because I’d already published a science fiction novel. My first published novel was actually a novel about a Quaker planet, and that one’s gone out of print. I felt like I didn’t I don’t really know how to write when I was writing it, but it did get some good reviews, and that was about a planet colonized by Quakers, like the United States colonized by colonists, except that they discovered there were alien creatures there. And so that was the plot of that book. So that book got published, but it didn’t get much attention outside Quakers.

[00:15:28.01] – Joan Slonczewski

So after that, though, I began to think about other ideas related to the Quakers, but also related to the science I was doing. I think the biggest motivator in keeping me writing was concern about the world, the ecology, and the nuclear arms race. At that time, we were just 10 minutes away from Armageddon. And so I got involved with Quaker movements to save the planet, basically. I helped organize a demonstration in Manhattan in 1982 It drew a million people to New York City, and I helped organize that. And so that was actually one of the things that made Reagan start negotiating with the Russians. So I thought, well, if this thing is possible, then I can combine that concept with things I saw in the lab. So for instance, one day in the lab, I had fellow workers who were looking at purple bacteria that use a purple pigment to pick up light. And then the pigment bleaches when that happens, and then it pumps a proton to generate energy, actually a proton current. And so someone showed me this and said, look at this, look at this. And they had this purple tube and then flash light on it and it bleached clear.

[00:16:54.23] – Joan Slonczewski

And it was just so amazing that they had purified this protein from these bacteria. So So I got the idea from the purple bacteria that what if The Sharers had bacteria in their skin that would bleach, but they would bleach when they lost oxygen. So that became white trans. So that was something where I had the idea of the Quaker-like Sharers, but the idea of what happened to the breath microbes came from something I saw in the lab. So that shows how things would come from different places. So then when I was imagining how The Sharers would interact, I started to wonder, well, what clothes would they wear on a planet covered entirely by ocean, where you live on an island and so on. At that time, there was no internet. It’s hard for you to understand today what it’s like to try to research a book without the internet. But I was at Yale at time and had Sterling Library, one of the greatest libraries. And so I started thinking, I thought, well, maybe they wouldn’t wear any clothes. And I knew one person who had been to nudist colonies in our writing group.

[00:18:15.02] – Joan Slonczewski

I did have a writer’s workshop that I met with. So I actually looked this up in Yale, Sterling Library, the library, looked up nudism, and a Yale student had done a thesis on nudist colonies and nudism. So I found that book in a library. And the funny thing is all the pictures had been ripped out of it. And so I brought it to the library and said, this is a damaged book, but I didn’t damage it. And they said, well, books like that, that’s what happens. Because without the Internet, Where do you find pictures of naked people? You ripped them out of books. There was a picture, the label was a Nudist Wedding, and that picture was ripped out. So I got the idea that this This might be interesting. It was two ways. First, I thought, Well, this might help me sell the book because my last book hadn’t sold very well. So I thought, Well, if I write a book about nude people, Maybe that’ll sell better. At the same time, what I read in the student’s thesis was that he eventually concluded that nudists act just like everybody else. It doesn’t matter whether you wear clothes or not.

[00:19:27.23] – Joan Slonczewski

You would behave the the same way, that there were not unique characteristics to people that live without clothes. So I thought, Well, that makes it easy. So I just wrote the book. And for most of the part, it doesn’t matter if they wear clothes or not, except that you’re aware of it. And there are key plot points where the people from the other civilization are aware of the nudity, but not the people in it. So that shows how different things came together and also different life experiences. The experience of searching out a book in a library can lead to something interesting. Those are some examples.

[00:20:09.04] – John Knych

Thank you, Joan. Yes, you answered my next question, which I was curious about, which was how your science background informed your writing and whether you discovered things in the lab that then you applied to the narrative. Thank you for that. Brandon, back to you.

[00:20:24.20] – Brandon

Yeah. So I really enjoyed the organic technology aspect. I really liked the idea of the click-fight webs coming up. You could create molecular models off of that. And the click-flies can do all these different things. How did you come up with the idea that clickfies So the click flies, I have to think back on that.

[00:20:55.24] – Joan Slonczewski

I think actually one of the inspirations for the shape of the click-fly guys, was my mother was a violin teacher. She was actually a very well known Suzuki violin teacher. And we grew up with classical music and violins all over the house. I thought of the clickfly with the mandibles as looking like the way you play a violin, and you do pitzucato, the bow hits the strings. I think that was where I got the idea for what the click flies would do. In addition, there were all kinds of ideas about machines that could communicate. Although at that time, the thinking at that time was that machines would never be able to reproduce the human voice or understand what humans said. Now, my father was a physicist at IBM, a Nobel nominated physicist. So at that time, I managed to get a job one summer working in the laboratory there. And I overheard the conversations of the physicists. And IBM was at the forefront of voice recognition technology and things like that. So it’s hard to believe today. But back then, they were very discouraged. They said, well, we’re doing this. We’re getting paid to do this research, but we have no idea what we’re doing.

[00:22:31.03] – Joan Slonczewski

It will never come to anything. They were very discouraged. They said, we’re 10 years away from being able to recognize a human voice. Well, I guess that was back in around 1980, so a couple more decades, and now we take this for granted. But the idea of machine… I had the idea that, well, instead of a machine, it would be a living thing that looked machine-like. And there was more awareness among biologists that animals could understand what humans did and imitate, like parrots, imitate human letters. Today, we actually think that parrots and octupuses and so on are a lot more intelligent than we realize that actually have perhaps approaching human level intelligence. But at least at that time, there was more idea of communication by animals.

[00:23:28.00] – Brandon

So would you consider Were the click flies having been genetically engineered or were they a natural organism on the planet or on the moon?

[00:23:39.17] – Joan Slonczewski

They would definitely have been genetically engineered from a natural stock. I think what was hinted at and later said a little more in later books is that The Sharers actually are the the current level of many stages of development of technology. And so, yes, at some point in their ancient history, they would have life-shaped the click flies and just about everything, even the sea swalters, just about every organism in their ecosystem has been touched by their life-shaping. And so, of course, that was then. So today we know that every part of the planet is touched by human technology and the human engineering. So although we did not engineer grasses to become corn, it’s clear that human breeding of grass has led to corn and wheat, and the same thing with animals, dogs and sheep and cattle. So I think that it’s just a little bit more that the shares would have, at some point, genetically engineered everything. So whether they engineered the flesh borers or not, that’s less clear. There’s also a certain amount of disagreements. So the shares, they aim for consensus about things. But that consensus is about groups that have all kinds of disagreements from different islands, different raft colonies.

[00:25:26.15] – Joan Slonczewski

And the character dynamics were very much based on things that I saw going on in the Quaker meetings. I was a member of a friends meeting at that time. And so the character dynamics, I saw a lot of that. I saw how people disagreed and yet reached consensus.

[00:25:45.22] – Brandon

That’s really interesting. Thank you.

[00:25:52.16] – Fabri

Yeah, I’ll go ahead. So, Joan, my next question was going to be about how was it to write in a political context where neoliberalism was on its peak and a lot of progressive politics were scrapped. And you already mentioned that you helped organize a demonstration against Schwiegman. So maybe you can talk a bit more about How was it to write about a topic that was much against the powers that were ruling at that moment? And if you found any opposition from other Sci-Fi writers or from the industry or even political pressures, or how was that received maybe in your university or in the Sci-Fi circles? So I was just curious about that.

[00:26:38.01] – Joan Slonczewski

Yeah, that’s very interesting. So in terms of political opposition, since I was with a friend meeting, it was pretty obvious. In terms of the outright politics of the day, it was clear that there was Reagan politics, and then there were were liberals, and then there were the Quakers. I would say I saw three groups. They were the Reagan Conservatives. And this was shocking to me, actually, because I grew up in a Republican voting household in New York. In New York, Republicans are liberal Republicans. I thought that was Republicans, manage, balance the budget, and treat the poor. That That was so it came as a shock to me to see Conservatives that wanted to destroy everything. At the same time, the Yale that I was at, the research community, young scientists did not bother with that thing. They were so focused on their research that on the night that Reagan was elected, there were postdocs in my building that were not registered to vote. They were so disconnected. It struck me that everyone has these ideals of the university, but why didn’t they even vote? Don’t they understand the society they’re in? And then there were the Quakers, Quakers who seem very connected with society, and we have to do things to save the planet.

[00:28:21.02] – Joan Slonczewski

So when I saw that, I realized that the Quakers were really right, and that if we were going to survive, that was how we had to do things. And by that time, I was accustomed to opposition. At that time, there was a shipyard right outside Yale called the Electric Boat Shipyard that built the Trident submarine, which had 300 nuclear warheads on it. And when the time comes, they have to release all of them because otherwise the ship is detected. So it was just crazy. So we used to protest. I remember going with the Quakers to protest. Every time they launched one of these trident, I would go with them. And of course, I saw the police and so on. But the Quakers were very well disciplined. It was understood that Okay, that we go in silence and we have these rules. This is how we protest. The amazing thing is the shipyard respected that. It was hard to believe today this would not be possible. But the shipyard said, Okay, you can come right up to the fence and that’s fine. We know that you’re Quakers and you’ll be fine. So I had this experience of looking over the fence and looking way in the distance and seeing the ship.

[00:29:35.21] – Joan Slonczewski

It looked like an orange-colored sausage, very phallic. And then there were workers right across the fence, and we held our signs. And so I remember the one time I looked and there was an African-American gentleman who was working, and he looked at us and he said, You’re right. He said, I know you’re right. But of course, there were so few jobs then that made a big impression on me. I thought, well, we have to be here because people have to be working. They need jobs. Those kinds of experiences. That was how I saw the politics. I also saw how some of the Quakers, they were a little more forward. Some of them, there was a rule. If you wanted to get arrested, you crossed a line. You would spill blood on the steps because they would give their own blood, they would remove their own blood, and then spill that on the steps. Then you would get arrested. It was all very choreographed. That gave me a lot of ideas for how things would work. But also asking how I felt about opposition. Well, I pretty much experienced the opposition there would be. There was also a Ku Klux Klan rally in New Haven, Connecticut.

[00:31:00.20] – Joan Slonczewski

They had a Ku Klux Klan meeting. Go figure. We protested that, and I saw the violence that happened with that. There were other kinds of opposition. I did experience some sexism in the science fiction community. There were people who wrote off. They said, Oh, what you’re writing, you don’t know what you’re doing. That’s just for women. Also, they said, oh, that was the ’60s. It’s not like that. They discounted the whole pacifism idea that was considered, Well, that’s not real. That’s outmoded. And gay culture was in the ’60s. I heard some of that in the science fiction, and some of the reviews from science fiction writers were like that. But when my book came out, it was right around the time of the revolutions in in Europe, in particular Poland. So I knew about the Poland, Solidarność, movement because my father had ties to Poland and the Polish physicists. And so he knew all about that. And so when my book came out, I got letters from people. I got a letter from students in Czechoslovakia about how this was like their revolution. And nobody else, it was a surprise in America, how could there be a pacifist revolution?

[00:32:33.13] – Joan Slonczewski

So I got a big break when Isaac Asimov flashed my book on television. It was on McNeill Lair or News Hour, where Isaac Asimov said, Well, here are the most adult books in science fiction, and he listed seven books, and one of them was Adorn Ocean. He just flashed it on the screen. So I did get a big break with that. I think Asimov was a pacifist. Most people don’t know that.

[00:32:59.20] – Fabri

Yeah. Well, that’s fascinating. I didn’t know that.

[00:33:02.16] – Fabri

And also it’s good to see or it’s good to learn that a lot of your Quaker experience and your demonstration experience actually translates into the book, right? Because we see pacifism, we see communal organization. And also it’s good to pass that out to new generations as a good way to protest, right? When you get your message across, you don’t get arrested unless you want to, and you don’t antagonize the workers, right? Because sometimes, I don’t we go protest a farm, like an industrial farm or a coal mine opening, you don’t have to be against the workers at the place because they just need to put food on the table, right? So that’s something that I think is not quite clear or is not as spread today as it was from what you mentioned in the ’80s, at least in my country. So it’s really good to know and to pass that knowledge over. So, yeah, that’s really good.

[00:33:57.17] – Joan Slonczewski

I did also research. I read the works of Gene Sharp (The Methods of Nonviolent Action). Gene Sharp founded the How to Take Down Dictators. And so I read everything that Gene Sharp wrote, and that also came to the… The Arab Spring movements drew a lot on Gene Sharp. So there is a whole science to nonviolent action. And many of the plot elements in A Door to Ocean were based on that, both either based on my experience or on things that were in Gene Sharp’s writing. And I recommend Jean Sharp. It’s all on the Internet now to anyone interested in that.

[00:34:37.01] – Fabri

Yeah, I’m making a note because I didn’t know him. So, yeah, I’ll look him up.

[00:34:43.21] – John Knych

Thank you, Fabri. Thank you, Joan. Yes, Joan. I have a two-part question. First part, have you been surprised at the longevity of this book and the reprint? Right before you arrived, I said to Brandon, we were talking about how I discovered it. And I asked a close friend of mine, I said, what science fiction book is great that people don’t know about, that isn’t like Dune made into a movie? And immediately she said, A Door into Ocean. So first part of the question, are you surprised that this book has had its longevity? And then another part of the question, I love the ending of this book, and I love the character Lystra, and that she didn’t say anything. I was so happy that she just went away and Spinel swam after her. I thought it just was well done and satisfying. But in Chapter 17, also there’s this reflection on, is the fight over? Is the fight worth it? And hearing your political background and activism, do you look at this book and hope that it somewhat of a blueprint for people in the future to think, okay, even though it’s science fiction, we can passively fight without violence.

[00:36:13.03] – John Knych

Was that idea throughout the whole process? And do you hope in the future that people will take that from your book?

[00:36:24.07] – Joan Slonczewski

Yes, I think that certainly my hope is that people could take an inspiration from that. As I said, I heard from some people in Europe who had managed to get a hold of the book and found it inspiring. And I hope that other people can learn from it and perhaps go beyond it, just as I learned from Le Guin and then went beyond it. So that’s what I would hope. And I guess it’s really hard when you’re close to your own work. I’m a little surprised that it’s still seen as current today as it was back then, because I think it’s easy for what you write to become dated. But that particular book I think it still resonates with many people. I’ve seen bloggers start to pick it up again for whatever reason. There’ve been a couple of blog sites, the big thanks site listed it as one of five novels, including works by Asmael Then Sagan said, these are works, in particular, that are written by scientists. It just seems to me that this past year, I’ve seen a lot more attention to it again. So I’m glad that people are looking at that.

[00:37:52.04] – Joan Slonczewski

I think we live in a time when in this country, we feel political threats as well as global threats, and people need to have a blueprint for how to act. The biggest problem I see for activism in my community, where I’m coming from, is that people are afraid to speak up. At Kenyon College, 20 years ago, there used to be an informal course called Porch Sitting, which was led by a local farmer sociologist who who taught people how to sit on a porch and talk. And the idea was that before there was the Internet, it was normal to go next door and say hello to somebody and just talk on their porch. And today, we don’t do that anymore. We barely know who lives next door, and yet we know people on the Internet continent away. But people are actually afraid to go knock on a door of a stranger. So one of the things I’ve been trying to do in this community in rural Ohio, is train people how to do that, how to go out and talk with your neighbors and organize, find people that have your concerns.

[00:39:13.03] – John Knych

Thank you. And then a quick follow-up question that, Joan. Something that struck me right in the beginning was how you were able to balance this village, right? Simple trade, commercial atmosphere with space travel, an inhabited moon. Did you make a conscious effort to try to have your sci-fi be change-resistant? Did you think, “All right, many sci-fi books in the past are dated. I hope mine won’t be dated.” And by balancing this village atmosphere with space travel, it will be resistant to change. Or did you just think, I’m writing the book that I want to write that’s entertaining and just go ahead?

[00:40:01.11] – Joan Slonczewski

Well, at the time I was writing this book, it’s hard to say. First of all, my first book had been somewhat Earth-related, and I knew that that book hadn’t sold very well. It was on another planet, but then people came from Earth. So it was an Earth connected universe. I had a feeling that that wasn’t going to be what I would be I asked it. Since then, I’ve tried. And just for whatever reason, the books that I write that are Earth-centered are not as successful as the books in the world that I envision. So for whatever reason, the universe that I’ve envisioned, it speaks to people, and it’s somehow actually more convincing than the Earth-related world. That’s just what I’ve found. Although I do have a book, The Highest Frontier, about College on a Space Satellite, and that one did win the Campbell Award again. So I think for a certain audience, that was successful. But in general, I think that the world that I created because you don’t have to worry about whether the society would really act that way. And so you can just take the world for what it is without trying to connect it geographically.

[00:41:30.07] – Joan Slonczewski

In terms of thinking about a book that would last, I don’t know. I actually, I experienced disappointment early while I was writing Adorned Ocean. I sent an early version to the same publisher as my Quaker book, and they just rejected it offhand. They said, This sounds like a fairytale. I also knew that the editor was a bit homophobic. And so that was devastating at that time because I thought, well, maybe this book will never get published. So I would say that from my perspective, at that time, it was very hard to get things published. Either there was the New York scene, the publishers, or there was nothing, Vanity Press, it was called. Today, there’s a much wider range of publication opportunities. So at that time, over the years I was writing it, I really had no idea if it would ever get published at all. I just tried to write it as best I could. I did some workshopping with the New Haven Science Fiction Writers Workshop, but I didn’t know if it would get published at all, let alone how it would be read 40 years later. I was fortunate in that a later version of the book did reach an appropriate editor.

[00:42:51.23] – Joan Slonczewski

The early version was rejected by all the major publishers, but David Hartwell picked it up. David Hartwell is probably the best known editor of science fiction. So he picked it up and looked at it and made some suggestions, including for the ending, or he didn’t like the original ending that I had.

[00:43:18.18] – John Knych

Can I ask what the original ending was?

[00:43:23.14] – Joan Slonczewski

The original ending was more tragic, where Merwin dies. And then they have to deal with that. So I saw that as a Gandhian maneuver, and that so often the leaders of peace revolutions are seen as sacrificial. So often that occurs. But actually what David pointed out is that that works for male heroes, but it doesn’t work for females, because if the female dies, that’s seen as a passive sacrifice. And this is a problem I found in general in plotting novels is that what happens to male and female characters is viewed very differently. And this is still true today. We have a very gendered consciousness. It’s so paradoxical. Today, we have a whole spectrum of genders. I can assign a name to what the shareers were. They were pansexual. They were not lesbian. They were pansexual. But those words did not exist then. Today, my students will say, well, I’m 30% gay and 20% asexual. They’ll say all these different things. And it’s confusing. The ones that say they’re asexual feel more comfortable in the gay community than they do in the heterosexual community because they don’t get hit on. And yet the gender extremes are worse than ever, politically and so on.

[00:45:03.09] – Joan Slonczewski

So why is that? That’s an interesting question. So for me, I actually tried to avoid dealing with gender. I wanted to deal with politics and science and so on. But I felt that you have to write for the audience that there is. So that’s getting a little far away from what you first asked. I just wrote something that I hoped would be readable and entertaining at the same time presenting these very serious ideas. But getting it published was my first thought. It didn’t occur to me, well, how will it be 40 years later?

[00:45:46.16] – John Knych

Thank you. I’ll either back to Brandon or I saw Fabr9 had his hand up. But Brandon, I don’t know if you have a question in your pocket.

[00:45:55.03] – Brandon

I definitely agree that it still holds up today. And readers can for sure learn about the climate and the political issues. So I understand that you’re a microbiologist and a professor, is that right?

[00:46:14.07] – Joan Slonczewski

Yes.

[00:46:15.18] – Brandon

So do you have students ever come up and ask to sign your books?

[00:46:22.03] – Joan Slonczewski

Oh, yes. I’ve had students. Students are very aware that I write books. And So for most of my career at Kenyon, since the ’80s, I have run a major research lab with funding from the National Science Foundation. And I study how bacteria swim, how bacteria respond to acid and base at the molecular level. And I’ve been very aware of living organisms as molecular constructs. And all my research is done with many, many student researchers. In fact, that’s how I spend most of my grant funds is by hiring. I hire first year students or even before they get to Kenyon, I send out a call for any first year student that wants to work in a lab. So that’s how I’m known. It’s called Bacteria Lab. And I sometimes have In the past, I’ve had as many as 10 or 20 students in my research lab. This year, I’ve slowed down a bit because I’m moving into full-time writing after 40 years. But you can see on my website the generations of student lab groups that have worked with me. At the same time, I also taught a course called Biology and Science Fiction. And so many students took that for a science requirements.

[00:47:40.18] – Joan Slonczewski

So in that course, we read all kinds of literature, including some of my books. I had them read Adorned Ocean, but also Dune. And we saw films like Avatar and things like that. So students are definitely aware that I write. And I’m just now starting to teach a course on how to write science fiction.

[00:48:04.04] – Brandon

Yeah, I actually majored in microbiology as a bachelor. So it sounds like I would love to have you as a professor. Sounds great.

[00:48:14.16] – Joan Slonczewski

Oh, thanks. I appreciate that. But you have to like chemistry and physics, though, because from my Yale training, I always look at organisms in terms of the fundamental electrons and protons that they’re made of. And you hear a lot about that in my course.

[00:48:33.24] – Brandon

So do you consider yourself a scientist first or an author first or a scientist who writes? How do you.?

[00:48:43.07] – Joan Slonczewski

It’s all part of the same thing. In order to dream up new experiments, you have to use the same part of the brain as dreaming up new plots. And you have to tell a story. To get grant funding, you have to tell a story about your research. And so I think part of how I got grant funding for so many years was that I could write great grant stories since the fiction audience actually is a lot more exact and hard to please than the grand audience because they can pick up a book or not. They’re much pickier. So because I could tell a story in science fiction, I knew how to tell a good grant story. And also in writing your research articles about your research, you have to tell a story about it. So to me, it’s all part of the same brain.

[00:49:37.04] – John Knych

Thank you. Fabri?

[00:49:39.12] – Fabri

Yeah. So it’s really good news that you’re going back to writing. That’s really good news for everyone, because, again, I think the book is really interesting. It’s really current and entertaining as well. So that’s really good news. And you mentioned how hard it is maybe to make time to write. I was wondering if you have any time to read, if you’re reading any current sci-fi authors, if you had the chance of exploring how are they addressing the topics that you wrote in the ’80s and in the last decades. So if you have the time, and if you do, if you have the goal into the current sci-fi writing.

[00:50:20.16] – Joan Slonczewski

Yes. So I tend to read widely, not just science fiction. In terms of science fiction, in terms of science fiction I find interesting. I think Nadio Korafor’s Binti, I find very interesting. Some of the different cultural themes, I find that very interesting and relevant to the times we live in now. If you like graphic works, O’Korafor’s La Guardia about the where LaGuardia Airport is a major interplanetary port for aliens and all the different aliens that come in. And I really like the visual aspect of it. Also, I’m a big fan of the murderbot series by Martha Wells, which has now become amazingly an Apple series. So I encourage my students to read murderbot Because in a way, it’s very simple, but it’s a very simple portrayal of what an AI machine might be like that’s actually aware. It’s also an enslavement story. I’m very interested in science fiction as a way of depicting things without the reader being aware of what they’re seeing. So it’s one thing if you write a slave narrative like Kindred. Octavia Butler is also a favorite author of mine. But I think Kindred, it’s very obvious that’s a slave narrative.

[00:52:12.09] – Joan Slonczewski

But in Murderbot, it’s not obvious because it’s defined as a machine that uses the object pronoun. And so you really have to think about it to realize, well, this is what you’re reading. So people are just now starting to think about, well, what will happen when AIs wake up. And I think that’s the next justice theme that will come up.

[00:52:37.11] – Fabri

Well, that’s exciting. Yeah. Because also I was thinking about Octavia Butler’s Dawn that came out, I think, after your book. And she does also mention or works around the topic of a non-hierarchical world or how the hierarchy structures have been the downfall of Earth. But she’s quite explicit about that, right? And I think your book, you present this communal society in a way that’s just possible, but it’s also a given, right? So there’s not a lot of fuss or working towards that. It’s just this is a fact, this is how it works, and it actually works, right? So you’re presenting this alternative that is not very on the nose. And I think that’s really good of your book. I really enjoy that part. So, yeah, I just wanted to mention that.

[00:53:25.15] – Joan Slonczewski

Thanks. Yes. I really like Octavia Butler’s Dawn, and I’m very curious to see how that will be brought to the screen. I know Aver DuVernay is trying to do that. I’ve written some things. I’ve written some science fiction criticism or essays, and I have written essays about Octavia Butler, especially Dawn, and I’m very interested in the way she portrays the aliens and the humans in in Dawn, and actually both are hierarchical, although in different ways. And she shows it in a biological context. Butler’s work is very biological. I think she’s not been recognized as one of the most biological of science fiction writers. She gets it right in the biology. And so, yes, I’m definitely interested in Dawn.

[00:54:26.20] – John Knych

Thank you for having me. Thank you, Joan. All right, Joan, I want to make sure we don’t take up too much of your time. So I have my last question, and then Brandon or Fabri, if you want to ask a final question. This is a very left field question, but you, Joan, you have such a Knowledge in microbiology, physics, chemistry, science fiction writer for years, that I want to ask you about bio computing and what you think of it. The reason why is because I recently watched a video where They’ve been able to take brain cells and have the brain cells play Pong, to make decisions. And in this video, they said, we have a hunger… Humanity has a hunger for data, and semiconductors is a limit. I think the distance between transistors is seven atoms now. And in this video, it said, if we use cells that have a latest structure similar to how our neurons work, we can do things with data and store data like never before. Do you know anything about biocomputing? Can you share with us your thoughts on that next step for humanity?

[00:55:36.07] – Joan Slonczewski

Yeah, I’m interested in what you call biocomputing or cyborg on a microscopic level. So I’m interested in that as a current technology thing.

[00:55:58.06] – John Knych

Is it plausible to store data through bio-bacteria?

[00:56:03.19] – Joan Slonczewski

Yeah, it’s entirely plausible. But actually, the best long term storage is DNA. DNA is a pretty stable molecule. And there are people working on DNA and variants of DNA to store data, but it’s stored in a largely inaccessible state. There are also DNA computers where you can put DNA molecules in solution and they solve a problem. So in terms of cell connections, so I think it’s unlikely that you would get the highest density data storage that way. I think quantum computing is more likely to get there. I’m also familiar with developments in quantum computing. What I find, though, is the more I read up on these various kinds of data storage and data processing, in the end, it seems to me they all converge the same. I know when I started writing my current book, which is Minds in transit, which is coming out in July. So the original title was the Qubit Plague, because I had written about the… The Brain Plague was my book about bacteria in people’s brains, and the Qubit Plague was about quantum computers as coming alive and having sedience. But the more I researched and read, it’s very hard to understand for me, the quantum computing.

[00:57:37.14] – Joan Slonczewski

The more I read about it, the more I understood that it’s really no different. It’s just another computing architecture. And so I think it’s not going to matter that much. And this was clear also at the near the end of a door in the ocean, there’s a scene where where spinel and one of the soldiers are having a dialog about the hemoglobin molecule, about what is important about stone versus organic materials, because that’s a big theme throughout the book. And throughout the book, it’s seen as an opposition. Organic is good and stone is maybe bad, stone is dead and so on. And what they eventually reach is they reach an understanding that actually there are just as many organic, inorganic molecules in the human body. So hemoglobin has an iron, and there’s iron, there’s molybdenum, magnesium, zinc. There are all kinds of inorganic ions that are essential in the human body. So it’s really a false dichotomy that whatever data is stored and whether it’s organic or inorganic, that still data is data, and sentience could be sentience. You’re We’re probably familiar with it. There’s a philosophical tradition, particularly the Asian tradition of philosophy, that says that consciousness is a continuum from the most conscious things we know, the humans and whatever is superhuman, all the way down to the to the stones.

[00:59:22.01] – Joan Slonczewski

We saw this in the film, Everything, Every, Which, Way, But, Once. Everything, Everywhere, At, Once. There’s the scene where the two characters become stones, and they both have the eyes. And so I think that that’s actually an important idea in the science of consciousness. We can’t refute it. Is it possible that even an inert rock has a certain level of sedience and that it’s all gradation? We understand now that intelligence, as humans acknowledge it, has evolved multiple times. It’s evolved in insects, in octupuses, and in birds and humans. Okay, and so So I guess this is getting back to your question. Yes, I think it’s interesting that they’re connecting living cells with machines. But so what? We’ve had prosthetic devices for a long time. I don’t find that an intellectual advance, or maybe it’s just it would have been an advance 20 years ago. But right now, to me, it’s just another technology. So the book that was going to be Qubit plague, I renamed Minds in transit, and it’s more about all the different kinds of sentient minds that there are. So there are microbes, the microbes from brain plague. And then there are Androids that look human, not.

[01:01:05.09] – Joan Slonczewski

And then there are virtual things like the main AI transit consists entirely of code and is not fixed to anything made of silicon or metal. And then there are gigantic networks. So what is sentient or what is not? It could be anything. And so that’s the question that interests me now is, how would you know if something is sentient? Maybe that’s even the wrong question. Maybe if everything is sentient, the question is, what has the political ability to demand recognition as sentient? Maybe that’s the most important practical question, because if everything has the potential to be sentient, it, practically speaking, we’re not going to recognize something sentient unless it demands to be recognized. Okay, Which is a point that I also try to get across to my neighbors who don’t like what the government is doing. Say, well, if you don’t knock on a door of a stranger, your opinion won’t matter. It’s not whether you have a good opinion or not. If you can’t knock a door of a stranger, it doesn’t matter. What matters is if you stand up for your sentience, not whether you’re sentient or not. Okay, so it draws a lot from your question.

[01:02:30.12] – Joan Slonczewski

But yes, I’m interested in that biology, but in terms of where it’s going.

[01:02:41.04] – John Knych

And why wouldn’t DNA type storage be accessible? You mentioned that in the beginning, you said it’s not accessible, if we use- Okay, that’s just for practical reasons.

[01:02:51.02] – Joan Slonczewski

DNA has evolved to be a static molecule that can be compacted. To read the information, you need enzymes that pull it open, and then it’s not… Once you pull it open, then it’s not as stable anymore. Okay? So that’s entirely, practically speaking. But yes, that could be your next hard disk storage could be DNA.

[01:03:19.03] – John Knych

Thank you. Brandon, any last question?

[01:03:26.04] – Brandon

Yeah. Minds in Transit sounds really interesting, so I’m going to check that out. My question is, what’s the best way to support you as an author? I define this second-hand, a door to ocean. Do you have a website we can buy from, or do you just recommend going to Barnes & Noble, or what’s the best way to support you?

[01:03:51.05] – Joan Slonczewski

I think I would say wherever you buy my books is fine with me. I know that in general, for authors that depend on making For a living, obviously, it’s best to buy the first-hand copy. But I’m just happy to have everyone buy my books personally. But then I have the luxury of saying that because I have independent means from my professorship. I would say in general, for authors, if you want authors to keep writing, buy their books, both their new books and their backlist that come out. The sad thing is that Amazon was really a great thing. It has been a really great thing both for purchasers and for small presses. For many small presses, and even for self-publishers. The Amazon model was really the great thing. I should mention another author I really like is Cy Clarke, The Teepot series. Very humorous fluff, but also with imagination about how different aliens might interact, how different kinds of intelligence might be. And she’s everything. She lives in London. She publishes, edits, and everything, her own books and markets her own books. And it’s possible to do that now. It wasn’t possible back then. So the Amazon model was always was really great, I thought.

[01:05:25.21] – Joan Slonczewski

But right now, I I’m avoiding promoting Amazon now because I think, unfortunately, that politically, they’ve gone in a very bad direction. However, there are so many online booksellers now. Barnes & Noble is great, but there’s also there’s There are others out there, Books for a Better Planet. There are ones that claim for every book you buy, they’ll donate a dollar to a library. So I would say whatever platform my book is sold books are sold on, that’s fine with me.

[01:06:05.07] – Brandon

Well, thanks again.

[01:06:07.12] – Fabri

I just wanted to mention, sorry, that I think Powell’s has an online store if you buy from the States, so that may be worth checking out. And my last question was, so first, I’m excited about your new book coming out in July. I actually be in the States in July, so hopefully I can get it from there because it’s quite hard to get I have the books here in Barcelona. But I just wanted to ask maybe more of a personal question about your writing schedule. Where do you find the time to write? Do you have any particular preference and also any advice that you can give us on finding a time to focus and to really get to work in the writing? That’d be appreciated.

[01:06:53.01] – Joan Slonczewski

That’s a big question. When I first wrote Adora and the Ocean, I wrote because I had to write because I felt so strongly about what I was experiencing in the world. I mostly wrote in the evenings, and I found that the bookwriting went best in the evenings, whereas during the day I was running my research And Adorned Ocean was written entirely in longhand in four looseleaf books of paper, and then it had to be typed on a semi-electric typewriter. And of course, today, most of my writing is on the computer. Until recently, it’s been mostly in the evenings. Now I’m just starting to write a little more in the daytime. I also write microbiology textbooks, and I’m always revising the textbooks. Microbiology is a field, as Brandon knows, that is as amazing as science fiction. The things really happening in microbiology. For about 10 years I couldn’t write science fiction because microbiology was more interesting and amazing. And it still is today. The gut-brain axis is what I envisioned in brain plague back in 2000. And so during the day, I do a lot of my writing of the textbooks. And then I think it’s still at night more that I write.

[01:08:25.23] – Joan Slonczewski

But I’ve also found that I found a writer’s group where we sit and write together. So for Minds in transit, I found that there were times when I actually wrote better, it’s called generative writing, when you just have other people writing on their projects with you. And I recommend trying that. That really works for some people, that writing is more fluent when you have fellow writers, even though they’re completely different what they’re writing about.

[01:08:51.13] – Fabri

But you’re sharing a focus, right? Like a writing time, all of you. Yeah, so that’s interesting. Thank you.

[01:08:59.23] – John Knych

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Joan, for being with us today and sharing your story and the process of this book. So I’m going to share this with the other readers in the group, and I’ll send you an email with the link to the video with the transcript. I’ve enjoyed this. Thank you.