Lightspeed Magazine Issue 31

by Ted Chiang

  It … compacts down into a singularity? I am not the gravitational astrophysicist in the family, that’s my husband, but certainly, mythologizing aside, I don’t think that matter is coming back in any useful form.

  Finally, do you have any new projects you’d like to announce?

  I have a collection of short stories coming out in 2013, Conservation of Shadows. According to Prime Books’ website it’s due out around May, and it includes an original novella, “Iseul’s Lexicon,” which is about genocide and tactical linguistics.

  Caleb Jordan Schulz is a writer, illustrator, and nomad, currently finding himself in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His fiction can be found in Subversion, Scape, Crossed Genres Year Two anthology, Ray Gun Revival, and Innsmouth Free Press. In between his work for Lightspeed Magazine, he’s a freelance editor, and blogs occasionally at: theright2write.blogspot.com.

  Author Spotlight: D. Thomas Minton

  Kevin McNeil

  Can you tell us a little bit about your writing process and what inspired “Dreams in Dust?”

  “Dreams in Dust” was inspired by a regular feature at io9 called “Concept Art.” For this feature, a picture is posted as a writing prompt. Back in February of 2012, the prompt was a picture of a man with a camel in the desert, with the wreck of a submarine in the background. That wonderfully evocative picture led to a chain of ideas that resulted in this story.

  I don’t think my writing process is anything special: I write every day (often in the dark hours before the sun comes up). I don’t start writing until I have a complete story in my head, because I like to know where I’m going. Usually I finish a rough draft in a couple of writing sessions. After few days, in which I let it “simmer” untouched, I revise it, delving deeper into the characters and conflicts.

  The dystopian setting for this story is incredibly vivid. I found it particularly interesting that a marine biologist would choose to set a story in a desert world. What can you tell us about the creation of this world?

  I would have been a desert biologist if I hadn’t become a marine biologist. I find deserts incredibly beautiful, and have spent some time wandering the American Southwest. I can’t get enough of them. That said, Keraf’s world is fairly generic, but what makes it special to me is that Keraf feels like he is of this world, and not simply a modern-day man transplanted from suburbia into the sand. Everything Keraf does and thinks has been shaped by growing up and living in this world, and that is what I think sells it to readers. I hope that I have created a world that is deeper than the sand dunes.

  In “Dreams in Dust,” Earth has been dewatered by the Orbitals. The result is devastating and raises thoughts about our own environment and the climate change we are experiencing. Is this an issue you feel strongly about?

  As a marine ecologist, I see the impending impact of climate change every day. The places I love will be (and some would say already have been) irrevocably altered by our changing climate. It still amazes me that anyone can continue to deny something as obvious as the changes that are occurring.

  Your previous story in Lightspeed, “Thief of Futures” (September 2011), also dealt with the idea of a future in peril, although on a more personal level. Each story left me thinking about the need to protect the future for our children. Is this a theme you tend to revisit in your work?

  I’ve never thought about it, but this is a theme I tend to explore in my work. My daughter inspires me, and I think often about what her future will be like. One of my greatest fears is that I will leave behind a world that is a much worse place than when I grew up. She deserves more than that. Unfortunately, until we all start thinking about our children and their children and stop thinking about short-term gains, I don’t think much will change.

  Your story ends on a hopeful note, although Keraf still has a struggle ahead of him if he’s going to be successful in bringing water back into the world. Why did you choose to end the story at this point? Do you have more stories planned in this world?

  I chose to end this story where I did because I wanted to focus on Keraf’s immediate and very personal problem—his lack of water. Bringing water back to the Earth is such a large challenge, it transcends Keraf alone. He cares passionately about his greater mission, however, and I found it interesting to explore how he struggled with his immediate problem in order to continue on his quest to solve a larger global problem.

  I intentionally left many things vague in this story because they were larger stories than I wanted to tell. I’m working on a novel that will examine some of these things. Keraf’s world is complex and rich, and “Dreams in Dust” only touches the surface.

  Is there anything else you’d like to share about this piece? What’s next for you?

  I hope your readers enjoy my story. The next few months for me promise to be busy. There’s a big move potentially in the works (although nothing is certain yet) and a lot of stories to write.

  Kevin McNeil reads slush and helps out with a few other things for Lightspeed and Nightmare Magazines. He is a physical therapist, sports fanatic, and volunteer coach for the Special Olympics. He graduated from the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2012 and Kij Johnson’s Novel Writer’s Workshop in 2011. Kevin is a New Englander currently living in California. Find him on Twitter @kevinmcneil.

  Author Spotlight: Marta Randall

  Andrew Liptak

  Hi Marta, thank you for taking the time to speak with us. First off, how did your story, “Lázaro y Antonio” come to be?

  A number of impulses came together at the same time. I wanted to play with voice and place. After the first five or six pages, I had a mental image of the last scene, and I wrote toward that.

  Right off the bat, this story breaks out of many of the conventions that space opera has typically used. You’ve built a rich, multicultural world—how did your background influence this?

  I can’t lay claim to a strong multicultural background myself. I was born in Mexico City and we would return periodically to visit relatives, but from the age of four, our household was English-language only (my teachers thought that being multi-lingual would somehow retard my progress. As a result I lost my first language, but boy, did my mother become a pro with English!). More to the point, I grew up in Berkeley but spent much of my adult life in Oakland, perhaps the most culturally diverse city in the country. That diversity created a rich, ever-evolving stew of color, taste, accent, intention, and I wanted to think about a future where all of those things still live.

  Memory and cognitive functions are an important element to this story, and I got a real sense of déjà vu for the story “Flowers for Algernon.” Is there any connection?

  There’s probably a subconscious connection to the Keyes story, but the more immediate connection was to my father. He died of Alzheimer’s after a long, ugly, demeaning slide that eventually robbed him even of his voice. Could anything be worse than that? Well, possibly, yes. It’s no consolation, but there it is.

  Antonio and Lázaro have an uphill battle: They seem to be firmly kept in the lower rungs. Do you think that such stratification will exist if humanity moves off-world?

  Oh, yes, unless somehow the Flying Spaghetti Monster returns to Earth and purges us all of greed, intolerance, fear, xenophobia, envy, the whole ugly works. Power tends to corrupt, said Lord Acton. There are always people who will get ahead by stomping their way up the ladder of life, and the devil take the hindmost. I suppose we could think about colonizing a planet and refusing to let any of the Bad Guys in, but even so, who’s going to do the choosing? Absolute power, Acton went on, tends to corrupt absolutely.

  Lastly, what’s next for you?

  I don’t have anything in the works at the moment. I’m anticipating retirement next spring, so a lot of my time is spent planning for that. I teach online through Gotham Writers Workshop and that’s going to continue. Mark Twain, a personal hero, said that prophecy is very difficult, especially with respect to the future, so I think I’ll nod in his direction a
nd just take things as they come.

  Andrew Liptak is a freelance writer and historian from Vermont. He has written for such places as io9, Tor.com, SF Signal, Blastr, Kirkus and Armchair General and he can be found over at andrewliptak.wordpress.com and at @AndrewLiptak on Twitter.

  Author Spotlight: Brian Evenson

  Jennifer Koneiczny

  Your story “An Accounting” traces the accidental foundation of a new religion in the American Midwest. How did your own religious beliefs inform the story?

  I grew up Mormon in Utah, so I was part of a fairly intensive religion in a state where it was the dominant cultural influence. It thought of itself as a day-to-day religion more than a Sunday religion, and so infected a good part of one’s other activities. Now I’m an excommunicated Mormon and am fairly far outside of it, but am still fascinated not only with religion but with the ways community forms around religious belief. Mormonism purports to have started in a very unlikely way: with a revelation from God given to a 14-year-old boy. That a religion might spring up from the situation in “An Accounting” strikes me as just as likely … I like, too, the idea of the reluctant prophet, which is something that had a huge impact on me when I was a kid. Things like Michael Moorcock’s Behold the Man, to name the one that’s probably struck with me the most. (But also things like the Thomas Covenant series, which I haven’t reread recently.)

  Do you agree with the narrator’s statement that, “What takes place beyond the borders of the known world is not to be judged against the standards of this world”?

  Well, yes and no. I don’t think you can help but judge things according to your situation, and that that’s necessary if only to establish the grounds for the distance that needs to be crossed by empathy. Having said that, there’s also the implication in the story that the narrator has very specific, even selfish, reasons for saying what he does, that he has an audience he wants to convince, and may in fact be lying. How reliable he is or is not is a question the story revolves around.

  I very much enjoyed the dark humor in your story. “[Finger] tasted, I must reluctantly admit, not unlike chicken” was unexpected in the writings of an (admittedly accidental) savior. What do you think is the role of humor in religion? Is there a place for it?

  I think there’s a huge role for humor in fiction, even in dark and/or dramatic fiction—that it can give an interesting texture to what might otherwise be relentless. I see my own fiction as twining strands of darkness and humor that never quite blend into one another and that leave both the darkness and the humor in a position where they can occasionally shock or surprise the reader.

  In terms of the role of humor in religion, I think that religion tends generally to use humor pretty badly—to enforce a message or to reassert a hierarchical arrangement. It’s generally safe and sanitized. Very rarely (except for maybe in Buddhism) is humor allowed to move in a direction that’s anarchic or chaotic or really surprising—which is what I find delightful about humor. I do think that religion would be much richer as a cultural activity if humor was more actively a part of it.

  You said in an interview with raintaxi.com that, “Hopefully the reader’s relationship to [“An Accounting”] is very complicated by the end, his or her allegiances unsettled.” In your own reading, do you prefer stories that have that effect? If so, can you recommend your favorites?

  Yes, I genuinely do prefer stories that leave me unsettled, that keep me thinking long after they’re gone. There are lots of stories or novels that do this, but I’ll just mention two or three. In SF, probably my very favorite is Gene Wolfe’s The Fifth Head of Cerberus, in which each of the three novellas seems to partially erase what you think you learned from the novella that came before, so that by the end you’re left in a very interesting place. I’d say something similar about Brian Conn’s novel The Fixed Stars, which is also excellent, though that does it by weaving together different strands through the course of a whole novel rather than doing it consecutively. In (so-called literary) fiction my favorite is probably William Trevor’s story “Miss Smith,” which makes you have to switch your allegiances halfway through the story, and then leaves you at the end not sure what to think. It’s an intense experience, and one I’d like to try to replicate in my own work.

  What’s next for you?

  Good question. I’ve got an idea for a sequel to my novel Immobility and I might work on that. Or I might go back to a project I’ve been working on about a schizophrenic and the strange relationship he has with his uncle. I’m always working on stories as well …

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

  Author Spotlight: J.T. Petty

  Earnie Sotirokos

  “American Jackal” is the fifth part of the Family Teeth series you co-authored with your wife, Sarah Langan. Did you go into this piece of the collaboration knowing which direction you wanted to take it?

  We had ideas, and talked a lot about the mythology, but a big part of what I liked about the collaboration is the whole exquisite corpse of it all, working with somebody I can trust to get me off my own path and into more interesting places. And for the record—parts 5 and 6 are all we’ve written so far. Seemed like fun to start in the middle.

  For much of the story the supernatural elements take a back seat. Instead the focus is placed on David and Maribel’s growing relationship. Why did you steer the narrative in that direction?

  The culture of the coyotes feels a lot more interesting to me than dog-level violence or the mechanics of transformation. Especially in the way romance in America can blur the borders that insulate a subculture. Like the first time Sarah came to one of my Protestant family’s witch burnings.

  You’ve written for films and video games, in addition to also being a director. How does having such a wide variety of creative experiences affect your short fiction?

  If anything, I’d say visual and interactive mediums have made me mistrustful of too much description of thought. An omniscient and impartial narrator who sees every character’s every thought very quickly starts to feel inherently dishonest to me, putting too much faith in people’s consistency. I don’t really believe in reliable narrators.

  Do you feel you altered your normal style of writing because you were working exclusively with another person?

  I just told the story as it felt natural to tell it. We read each other’s pages while we were writing and revising, but I think we’re both cussed enough to be pretty stuck in our own voices.

  What can we expect from you in the future?

  More monsters.

  Earnie Sotirokos grew up in a household where Star Trek: The Next Generation marathons were only interrupted for baseball and football games. When he’s not writing copy for radio or reading slush, he enjoys penning fiction based on those influences. Follow him on Twitter @sotirokos.

  Author Spotlight: Kelly Link

  Erin Stocks

  Your story “Catskin” is a marvelously twisted sort of fairy tale, taking the reader in all sorts of unexpected directions. Will you tell us a little bit about the inspiration behind this story?

  Reading Angela Carter and Shelley Jackson, mostly. I wanted to have something new when I went on tour for Stranger Things Happen, (with Shelley Jackson, whose collection, The Melancholy of Anatomy, had just come out), and so I wrote “Catskin” very quickly.

  The story touches on themes found in many of your short stories: family, the awkwardness that accompanies adolescence, and unusual relationships. What draws you to themes like these?

  Family is great subject matter. So are, for that matter, adolescence and awkwardness. The working title for my next collection is Get in Trouble. Because that’s a type of story (and character) I’m eternally interested in.


  You have taught short story writing at Smith College, and have taught at a number of other institutions. What do you enjoy about teaching? What do you find most challenging about teaching writing, specifically with a focus on short stories?

  Actually, I’m not teaching anywhere at the moment (someone, anyone, feel free to go make that correction on my Wikipedia entry), but I do love teaching better than almost anything. Why? Because it involves reading fiction, talking about how it works, and how it could work differently.

  The most challenging thing about teaching writing is that you can give feedback that would absolutely be useful for yourself, but might be of no use to the person who has written the story. Help isn’t always helpful.

  Many of your stories have received great acclaim. What advice would you have to writers who love this genre and hope to find their work as well-received one day as yours?

  You can’t aim for awards, or reviews, or sales, or any of that. All you can do is write stories and then take pleasure in figuring out how to make them better. Write the kind of story that you want to read.

  Who are some other short story authors whose work you consistently admire? Anyone you look to for inspiration?

  Near to home, it would be Holly Black and Cassandra Clare (we often work together at a café). Slightly farther from home: Karen Joy Fowler, Maureen McHugh, Joe Hill, Peter Straub, Margo Lanagan, M. T. Anderson. I’d like to read more stories by Ben Rice (I think there are only two out there).

  Lightspeed Assistant Editor Erin Stocks’s fiction can be found in the Coeur de Lion anthology Anywhere but Earth, Flash Fiction Online, the Hadley Rille anthology Destination: Future, The Colored Lens, and Polluto Magazine. Follow her on Twitter @ErinStocks.

  Author Spotlight: Sarah Langan

  Earnie Sotirokos

  “St. Polycarp’s Home For Happy Wanderers” is the sixth part of the Family Teeth collaboration you co-authored with your husband, J.T. Petty. Was transitioning from the previous story in the series difficult?