# Conversations with Live Science Fiction Writers



## J-Sun (Jun 28, 2011)

Naturally, the correlative of  Conversations with Dead Science Fiction Writers occurs to me. In these days of wiredness maybe this list doesn't mean as much, as virtual conversations are sometimes possible, but still... This list is done more hastily than the other, so might not be my absolute top half-dozen (not that the other necessarily is, either) but here's some that occur to me:

*Greg Egan*. Who are you man? Why no photographs or conventions? Are you anything like your writing? - because that's kind of hard to imagine.

*Carol Emshwiller*. She just seems like an extraordinary person. Her writing is not at all my kind of thing, generally, and isn't really aimed at me at all, but it affects my brain like SF should. It's not the _kind_ of thing I like but, _sui generis_, I like it. I'd like to talk with her about how she manages to get through my thick head.

*Joe Haldeman*. I dunno - he's a great writer with intense experiences and seems like a great guy. I don't have anything specific - I think it'd just be neat.

*Geoffrey Landis*. Let's talk NASA. Let's talk Mars. Let's talk SF.

*Frederik Pohl*. I suppose I could have a sort of conversation with him if I started responding to his blog and I sort of did have a brief conversation with him (perhaps only a single post; perhaps more) at the _Asimov's_ posting board a few years back (which was great) but I mean a sit-down in-person conversation. He's probably the Jack Williamson of 2011. I'm afraid no one goes further back than he does (I dunno about age, but in terms of active experiences and knowledge of the field.)

*Bruce Sterling*. Da man. Vincent Omniaveritas. Chairman Bruce. Cyberpunk manifesto guy. Visionary in residence. How can you not want to get near the buzzing copper wire that is this guy? I think I'd most want to know what it was like for him cranking out _Cheap Truth_ and why he abandoned the Shaper/Mechanist stuff or anything like it. And how I could convince him to write more.


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## dask (Jul 1, 2011)

Jack Vance. There is a bunch of others I wouldn't shaking hands with and saying "Hi, I really admire your work." But Vance is about the best there is. Oh, I wouldn't mind talking with Ray Bradbury either. He's pretty cool and when he's good he's well nigh unbeatable.


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## clovis-man (Jul 1, 2011)

dask said:


> Jack Vance. There is a bunch of others I wouldn't shaking hands with and saying "Hi, I really admire your work." But Vance is about the best there is. Oh, I wouldn't mind talking with Ray Bradbury either. He's pretty cool and when he's good he's well nigh unbeatable.


 
I actually did get to talk to Ray Bradbury once. But it was at a book signing and consisted primarily of something about the edition of *The Illustrated Man* I had.


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## Connavar (Jul 1, 2011)

Jack Vance is the best living author to me and i did send him a message saying how important his writing was to me.  I got reply from his son saying he had read it to him.  You can ask things in his message board that sometimes gets through to him.  But i wasnt interested in asking questions specially from a writer who even when he was active avoided talking about his works.

Usually i like to keep distance from writers i like, even dead ones i dont like to imagine what if i met them.  Chances are they are not as interesting as their writing.

Also 16-17 June there was the first ever SF convention in Sweden in Stockholm.  I think Liz Williams and some other well known SF writers was there.  I missed due work but who knows next year i might meet an author i read there.   No more jealous of Brits,Americans,Aussies with their conventions


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## J-Sun (Jul 2, 2011)

Connavar said:


> Usually i like to keep distance from writers i like, even dead ones i dont like to imagine what if i met them.  Chances are they are not as interesting as their writing.



That's a good point. To perhaps go further, some authors seem to be great people or at least just real ordinary people but, with some people, the idea that they can write anything publishable based on their non-fictional drivel becomes amazing. I haven't 'met' a couple of authors that I've seen post on a couple of other boards (or even interacted with them) but, based on their posts, you couldn't pay me to. (But, then, maybe they'd be fine to meet in person when their faces are in reach of peoples' fists.  Still wouldn't make them cool people, though.)

Still, I prefer to be optimistic. If I don't know otherwise, I hope I'd enjoy meeting the authors I like.

-- Oh, and I say "I like" though some people whose work I dislike might be fascinating people and could have made my list if an example had occurred. And the idea of the thought experiment isn't necessarily to meet your very favorite authors, but just people that, for whatever reason, you think would be extra interesting. It'd be hard to leave off your very _very_ favorite authors in most cases, of course, but, using myself as an example, my top six 'meet' authors aren't necessarily my top six 'read' authors.


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## clovis-man (Jul 2, 2011)

Connavar said:


> Usually i like to keep distance from writers i like, even dead ones i dont like to imagine what if i met them.


 
Conn, I especially try to keep my distance from dead writers.


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## J-Sun (Jul 2, 2011)

clovis-man said:


> Conn, I especially try to keep my distance from dead writers.



*smacks forehead* I completely missed that.

Good advice.


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## blacknorth (Jul 3, 2011)

J-Sun said:


> *Bruce Sterling*. Da man. Vincent Omniaveritas. Chairman Bruce. Cyberpunk manifesto guy. Visionary in residence. How can you not want to get near the buzzing copper wire that is this guy? I think I'd most want to know what it was like for him cranking out _Cheap Truth_ and why he abandoned the Shaper/Mechanist stuff or anything like it. And how I could convince him to write more.



What did you think of Involution Ocean (if you don't mind me asking)?

(I loved it)


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## Connavar (Jul 3, 2011)

clovis-man said:


> Conn, I especially try to keep my distance from dead writers.



Thats just a bad joke 

I of course meant i dont need to know about old, dead writers lives to get to know them better.  Dead or alive im interested in the artist, the writer and not the man,woman who happens to be the writer.


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## clovis-man (Jul 3, 2011)

Connavar said:


> Thats just a bad joke
> 
> I of course meant i dont need to know about old, dead writers lives to get to know them better. Dead or alive im interested in the artist, the writer and not the man,woman who happens to be the writer.


 
I know exactly what you meant and your point is well taken. I just couldn't resist the play on words. I probably wouldn't want to have conversed with Robert Heinlein because of his chauvinist/jingoist views. But I've enjoyed much of his writing. As far as live writers go, I'd probably be the same with Samuel Delaney, an author whose work I enjoy immensely.


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## J-Sun (Jul 3, 2011)

blacknorth said:


> What did you think of Involution Ocean (if you don't mind me asking)?
> 
> (I loved it)



I don't mind a bit but, unfortunately, I can't say yet, as it's sitting in the To Be Read pile (TBR mountain, actually).


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## blacknorth (Jul 5, 2011)

J-Sun said:


> I don't mind a bit but, unfortunately, I can't say yet, as it's sitting in the To Be Read pile (TBR mountain, actually).



I think you're in for a treat. It's the kind of book I'd just love to have written. I finished it and thought, it's as though someone took a DNA sample from Ahab's white whale and found it to be extra-terrestrial.

And the love interest is marvellous too.


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## J-Sun (Jul 6, 2011)

blacknorth said:


> I think you're in for a treat. It's the kind of book I'd just love to have written. I finished it and thought, it's as though someone took a DNA sample from Ahab's white whale and found it to be extra-terrestrial.
> 
> And the love interest is marvellous too.



Sounds good. That's one of the reasons it's still in the TBR - I have to confess I have never read Moby Dick.   I have it and was intending to read it prior to the Sterling. I assume it is kind of a prerequisite, right?


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## blacknorth (Jul 8, 2011)

J-Sun said:


> Sounds good. That's one of the reasons it's still in the TBR - I have to confess I have never read Moby Dick.   I have it and was intending to read it prior to the Sterling. I assume it is kind of a prerequisite, right?



No, I wouldn't say you'd need to have read MD to read IO - it's enough to be aware of it. The two share mood, character and obsessional qualities but there's no arc or link between the books beyond inference here and there. And, in fact, I enjoyed Involution Ocean a lot more.

Philip Jose Farmer's Wind Whales of Ishmael is of greater interest to Melville readers. Loved that one too.

Edit: Meant to say, I'm intrigued by your praise for Carol Emshwiller - I've never heard of her nor even seen a book by her. Would you recommend a starting point for her work?


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## J-Sun (Jul 8, 2011)

blacknorth said:


> No, I wouldn't say you'd need to have read MD to read IO - it's enough to be aware of it. The two share mood, character and obsessional qualities but there's no arc or link between the books beyond inference here and there. And, in fact, I enjoyed Involution Ocean a lot more.



Yeah, I didn't figure they shared anything direct but was more wondering if it would be full of allusions and parallels that would fly by me. Good to know that isn't overdone (which would be a flaw if it were, IMO).



blacknorth said:


> Edit: Meant to say, I'm intrigued by your praise for Carol Emshwiller - I've never heard of her nor even seen a book by her. Would you recommend a starting point for her work?



What did it for me was _*The Start of the End of It All and Other Stories*_[1]. That's an amazing collection. I've also got her first collection _*Joy In Our Cause*_  (which collects work from her middle period) which is good but not as good as the later collection. And I picked up _*The Collected Stories*_ (which is the only way to get more than a couple of her early stories) but I've only read four of those stories here and there and, so far, her earliest stories are surprisingly professional and competent but very conventional and on a very fixed theme and lacking any notable Emshwillerian brilliance (I expected them to be more wild and uncontrolled with hints of brilliance to come - I was hoping for more "Pelt"s [2]). So she definitely seems to get better as she goes. (She describes her career as having five phases but I've only read enough to detect three.)

[1] The first I ever read was "Pelt" and "Day at the Beach" in Merril's _The Best of the Best_, a selection from her series of proto-New Wave "literary" SF annual anthologies and always liked the latter and loved the former, but never followed up until a zillion years later with the 1990/1 collection, which I didn't get until c.1999.

[2] Not that "Pelt" is wild and uncontrolled - I meant it was an amazing story and I was hoping for more like it only not expecting that they could all be as good as "Pelt".


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## J-Sun (Jul 10, 2011)

J-Sun said:


> ...I've only read four of those stories here and there and, so far, her earliest stories are surprisingly professional and competent but very conventional and on a very fixed theme and lacking any notable Emshwillerian brilliance (I expected them to be more wild and uncontrolled with hints of brilliance to come...



Ironically, I read her fifth published story yesterday ("The Piece Thing") and this one, told from the stream of consciousness of an alien, begins to be noticeably (while still early) Carol Emshwiller. It's flawed in that the author is to the human in the story as the human is to the alien, in a sense (which is to say, fairly inhuman - but that's part of the power of the story, too), and I'm not sure how well-modulated the feeling in it is, but it's very interesting.

Sorry - off-topic, but I just wanted to balance my last post.


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## blacknorth (Jul 12, 2011)

okay, with insights like that I will definitely pick up something by Ms Emshwiller in the very near future and let you know how I get on with her work. Thanks.

I'm not sure whether your edition of Involution Ocean has Harlan's Ellison's introduction - if so, it's great fun to read.


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## J-Sun (Jul 12, 2011)

blacknorth said:


> okay, with insights like that I will definitely pick up something by Ms Emshwiller in the very near future and let you know how I get on with her work. Thanks.



Welcome!



blacknorth said:


> I'm not sure whether your edition of Involution Ocean has Harlan's Ellison's introduction - if so, it's great fun to read.



Yep, it does - the '77 Jove edition (I think this is the first edition of a paperback original - _The Harlan Ellison Discovery Series: #4_) - I _have_ read that part and you're very right.


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