ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Laurel Amberdine was raised by cats in the suburbs of Chicago. She’s good at naps, begging for food, and turning ordinary objects into toys. She recently moved to San Francisco with her husband, and is enjoying its vastly superior weather. Between naps she’s working on polishing up a few science fiction and fantasy novels, and hopes to send them out into the world soon.
Author Spotlight: Ian R. MacLeod
Kevin McNeil
“New Light on the Drake Equation” was first published in Sci Fiction (May 2001). Can you elaborate on the origins of this story?
For a long time—decades, in fact—I had this idea of a lonely guy living in a hut as he searched for extraterrestrial life. Then I read Paradigms Lost by John Casti, which has a good analysis of the Drake Equation, and kicked the story into gear.
Tom Kelly is searching for aliens, while lovers, family, and friends remain most alien to him. He watches the future pass him by, yet refuses to give up on his dream of making first contact with extraterrestrials. Did the writing of this story present you with any significant challenges?
Like many, if not most, kinds of writer, I tend to write about loners because I’m a bit of one myself. This feeling reflects an abiding dissatisfaction with the world as it is, and the desire to create something which is somehow “better.” So I could identify with Tom pretty easily. Also, his quest to find resolution and meaning in SETI rather reflect my own feelings about the lost chances within much of the genre of SF—how we once strove to wrestle with the universe, but now, rather like the flyers in the story, too often content ourselves with easy entertainments and gaudy distractions.
This story pays homage to science fiction’s past. Who are your influences in the genre?
Quite a few of them get a mention in the story. I started reading writers like Asimov, Clarke, and Wyndham in my early teens, but the real thing which drove me to want to write was discovering New Wave writers such as Aldiss Ballard and Keith Roberts in the UK, and Ellison, Delany, and Zelazny in the US. That, and then stepping into the wide world of literature which lies beyond the genre.
You write in a variety of genres—science fiction, horror, and fantasy. What attracts you to fantastic fiction?
I see them as, essentially, offshoots of one genre. I like elements of strangeness in my stories, and I also like to deal with ideas, and the dark and the light, and to be surprised and challenged, as well as moved and entertained. So, much as the “real world” never quite felt like enough, neither, much though I love reading it, did purely naturalistic fiction. That, and the fantastic is the oldest form of story telling. And you can simply make more stuff up when you’re writing it.
You’ve had success writing short stories and novel-length works. Do you have a preference for working in any particular form? Do you take a different approach to writing novels as opposed to short stories?
I do regard shorter fiction, especially in the longer length such as this story, as being a natural home for fantastic, ideas-based fiction. We’ve all read many shorter works which fail to explore an idea fully—or, all too often in SF, the mood and characters—and novels which end up saying too much about too little. But short stories are frail, whereas novels always offer new approaches. Personally, if it comes to writing now and then, I prefer shorter stuff. But if I can sit down regularly and immerse myself in something, I’d go for a novel.
Is there anything else you’d like to share about “New Light on the Drake Equation”? What’s next for you?
At the moment I’m working toward the end of a very large and very ambitious vampire novel covering many centuries. I really hate the things, which is what finally got me writing about them in what seems to have turned out to be an almost rational context. At the end of the day, and like a lot of my work, “New Light” included, it’s about the clash between superstition and logic, hope and reality.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kevin McNeil is a physical therapist, sports fanatic, and volunteer coach for the Special Olympics. He is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop and The Center for the Study of Science Fiction’s Intensive Novel Workshop, led by Kij Johnson. Kevin is a New Englander currently living in California. Find him on Twitter @kevinmcneil.
MISCELLANY
In the Next Issue of
Coming up in December, in Lightspeed …
We have original science fiction by Shale Nelson (“Pay Phobetor”) and Vandana Singh (“Wake-Rider”), along with SF reprints by Paul Park (“The Lost Sepulcher of Huascar Capec”) and N.K. Jemisin (“Valedictorian”). We also have a special bonus reprint from our Women Destroy Science Fiction! limited edition: “They Tell Me There Will Be No Pain” by Rachael Acks.
Plus, we have original fantasy by Nik Houser (“The Drawstring Detective”) and Damien Angelica Walters (“A Lie You Give, and Thus I Take”), and fantasy reprints by Delia Sherman (“The Faerie Cony-catcher”) and Nalo Hopkinson (“Soul Case”).
All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author and artist spotlights, along with a pair of feature interviews.
For our ebook readers, we also have an ebook-exclusive novella reprint from John Crowley (“The Girlhood of Shakespeare’s Heroines”) and a pair of novel excerpts.
It’s another great issue, so be sure to check it out.
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So be sure to keep an eye out for all this great new fiction in the months to come. And while you’re at it, tell a friend about Lightspeed.
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About the Editor
John Joseph Adams, in addition to serving as publisher and editor-in-chief of Lightspeed, is the series editor of Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He is also the bestselling editor of many other anthologies, such as The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, Armored, Brave New Worlds, Wastelands, and The Living Dead. New projects coming out in 2014 and 2015 include: Help Fund My Robot Army!!! & Other Improbable Crowdfunding Projects, Robot Uprisings, Dead Man’s Hand, Operation Arcana, Wastelands 2, and The Apocalypse Triptych: The End is Nigh, The End is Now, and The End Has Come. Called “the reigning king of the anthology world” by Barnes & Noble, John is a winner of the Hugo Award (for which he has been nominated eight times) and is a six-time World Fantasy Award finalist. John is also the editor and publisher of Nightmare Magazine and is a producer for Wired.com’s The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. Find him on Twitter @johnjosephadams.
Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 54 Page 30
