ames Patrick Kelly is one of American SF's most capable short-fiction writers. His stylish, lucid and topically diverse stories, which began to appear in the mid-1970s, had by the mid-1980s made him a creative name to be reckoned with; they have been collected in Heroines (1990), Think Like a Dinosaur and Other Stories (Golden Gryphon Press, 1997) and, most recently, Strange But Not a Stranger, published, again by Golden Gryphon, in September 2002.
His novels, in most cases building upon stories and novellas central to his shorter oeuvre, are Freedom Beach (1986, written with John Kessel), the two interlinked "Messenger Chronicles," Planet of Whispers (1984) and Look Into the Sun (1989), and the cyberpunk-inflected Wildlife (1994). He writes a regular column, "On the Net," for Asimov's magazine, surveying science-fictional and related resources available on the World Wide Web.
Science Fiction Weekly interviewed Kelly by e-mail in August 2002, concentrating on Strange But Not a Stranger, his major new collection.
It's long been observed that a Roman Catholic upbringing does wonders for the imaginative development of American SF/fantasy writers—one thinks of Gene Wolfe, John Crowley, Elizabeth Hand, Tim Powers and you yourself. How has your (lapsed) Catholicism shaped you as a writer?
Kelly: Lapsed. Definitely lapsed.
I would say that one of my obsessive themes is the question of immortality. What are the costs and consequences of living forever, both for the individual and society? The central tenet of Catholicism is that we will all exist forever and this incarnation of flesh is but a phase of our immortality. You get that pounded into your head when you're 7 and it's hard to let it go. But the rest of Catholicism was too much about "thou shall" and "thou shall not." At least for this kid growing up in the '60s. And, of course, the history of the church does not bear close scrutiny. And then there's the problem of evil—but don't get me started!
I guess this is a wound that never quite healed. Do I get inspiration from it? You bet.
What first attracted you to SF, and how readily did you break into the professional published ranks?
Kelly: I tell the story in Strange But Not a Stranger about how I got sick when I was 11 while visiting my Grandma Kelly in St. Louis, and to keep me busy she showed me my uncle's old SF collection. But actually I was well prepared as a kid for my lifelong infatuation with the fantastic, having obsessively read the Oz series and, have mercy on me, the Tom Swift Jr. series.
I was the last person allowed to attend the Clarion Writers Workshop at Michigan State University twice, which will perhaps give some indication that my trek to that shining city where the pros reside was not exactly a triumphal procession. At one point, I stashed some 500 rejection slips in a box in my attic. I freely admit that I served my apprenticeship in print; it is my intention that the first six or eight of my published works will never again see the light of readers' eyes. I should say, however, that I was greatly encouraged when Terry Carr picked my second published story, "Death Therapy," for his Best Science Fiction of the Year #8 (1979). This was without doubt the critical highlight of the first 10 years of my career.
In your early years as a writer, you were closely linked authorially with John Kessel; indeed, your second novel, Freedom Beach, was a Kelly-Kessel collaboration. How did this partnership begin? Do you feel each of you brought different strengths to the team?
Kelly: I met John at my first WorldCon, Noreascon in Boston in 1980. He and I hit it off almost immediately as young and lightly published neo-pros. We began to send each other manuscripts to critique and roomed together at cons. Then, a couple of years after Noreascon, John confessed to a momentary writing blockage. I offered him one of my old Clarion stories that I'd been meaning to revise but couldn't figure out how to fix. He ran with it and that was our first collaboration.
John was a key figure in helping me get in touch with my inner English major. After he won the Nebula for "Another Orphan" (1982), in which a modern-day stockbroker wakes up on the Pequod just before its fateful encounter with Moby Dick, he and I hit on the idea of writing a whole novel of comment on dead writers. At the time I had no idea that we were committing post-modernism; I just liked doing the research.
At this remove from Freedom Beach, it's hard to assess the exact fit of our strengths and weaknesses, since both of us were still developing as writers. More recently we've been collaborating with Jonathan Lethem, who is very skilled at developing the conceit of a story. On our last collaboration, "Ninety Percent of Everything" (1999), Jonathan and I were stuck maybe two-thirds of the way through the novella and we handed it off to John, who came up with a marvelous ending. I think John reads as deeply as anyone I know, and thinks about his craft with a fierce intelligence. I would characterize myself as a more intuitive writer, who is sometimes surprised by what he sees himself typing.
Your first solo novels, Planet of Whispers and Look Into the Sun, were exotic planetary romances set largely on a world called Aseneshesh; one of the longer stories in Strange But Not a Stranger, "Glass Cloud" (1987), is in fact integral to Look Into the Sun. What inspired these elaborate visions of alienness? And: Do you see that series of books, the Messenger Chronicles, as complete?
Kelly: There is another Messenger novel to come—I hope. For reasons that are not exactly clear to me, I haven't been all that excited by the novel form for the last few years. But there is another novel that needs to be written before I can go back to Aseneshesh. I do have ideas about what will be in the last book of the Messenger trilogy, although I have thought for some time that it needs to be written by an older man. Given my current rate of novel production, it might well be the work of a septuagenarian!
I have admitted in the past that Planet of Whispers is an Ursula Le Guin novel with the serial numbers filed off. I was tremendously influenced by her as a young writer. I think Look Into the Sun is much more my own book and reflects considerable personal and literary growth.
Would it surprise anyone to hear a science-fiction writer confess to having lifelong feelings of being "Other?" Of not quite belonging to society? In both these books, the main character is doubly alien, in that he lives on an alien world and yet is psychologically separated from it. He is trying to pass for normal, although he is anything but. Excuse the bad pun, but I wrote these novels about aliens to express my own feelings of alienation.
Another novella in Strange But Not a Stranger, "The Prisoner of Chillon" (1986, later incorporated into your most recent novel, Wildlife), is ostentatiously cyberpunk in style and content. Back in the '80s, how did you regard the cyberpunks? Were you one of them, or were you parodying them?
Kelly: Both, I'd say. I went to Clarion with Bruce Sterling and closely followed his career as he developed into (and out of) cyberpunk. When Cheap Truth, the cyberpunk propaganda organ, started lumping me in with my friends John Kessel, Connie Willis and Stan Robinson as literary reactionaries, while claiming the bleeding edge for the cyberpunks, I was at once flattered and annoyed. I did have more in common with the folks some were calling the humanists, but I wasn't at all ready to cede the future of the genre to Messrs. Gibson and Sterling. I thought then that cyberpunk was more an attitude than a revolution. My story "Solstice" [1985] was intended to demonstrate that the literary techniques I had been developing with John Kessel in our collaborations worked just fine when applied to the cyberpunk tropes. "Rat" [1986], on the other hand, was clearly intended as a satire of the cyberpunk antihero.
But at the same time I was writing these stories, I was in my first flush of infatuation with personal computers. I remember buying three or four computer magazines every month and reading them more closely than I read some of the SF magazines. Becoming familiar with this technology made me realize that I had been lazy in imaging my futures. I didn't necessarily think that the cyberpunks had all the answers, but I came to admire the rigor of some of their extrapolation, especially Bruce's. So by the time I wrote "The Prisoner of Chillon," I was ready to roll out speculation on the future of the media and robotics and artificial intelligence to complement a story that takes its theme from a poem by Lord Byron.
When editor David Hartwell told anthologist Bruce Sterling that he didn't have quite enough writers to make a "Movement"—or at least to get Mirrorshades [1986] published—Bruce cast around for some new recruits. Since "Solstice" was at least encroaching on cyberpunk territory, even though with dubious intent, he invited me to be in the definitive c-punk anthology. I have to say I was thrilled. I doubt, however, whether anyone still includes me as a core cyberpunk.
Let's just say that I smoked, but I never inhaled.
Although you've published three and a half novels, you've devoted yourself primarily to short-fiction writing (indeed, your novels have in two cases been assembled from connected stories). Three collections have resulted, and you've won two Hugos. What, for you, is the particular merit, and fascination, of the short-story form?
Kelly: I've been asked this question before, and I'm not sure I know the answer. Writing and reading a short story demands an intensity of attention that suits me exactly. Also, it is easier to experiment in a short story, and to tweak failed experiments. As a reader, I find that I am more often dazzled at the shorter lengths than at the longer.
However, I have no illusions that the general SF audience shares my taste for short fiction. In my lifetime, stories and the magazines in which they appear have lost their position at the center of science fiction and have been pushed to the margins.
Contemplating your new collection, Strange But Not a Stranger: you're strikingly versatile; the book spans a multitude of topics and subgenres. What links these tales? What is the quintessence, or signature element, of the James Patrick Kelly short story?
Kelly: I would hope that the signature element of my career is that it's unpredictable. While there are themes and techniques I might revisit from time to time, I am very conscious of the dangers of repetition—or worse yet, of actually stealing from myself.
I do find from time to time that my work is addressing—and often arguing with—other stories or writers who have gotten under my skin. The cyberpunk stories are the most obvious examples, but there are a couple of others that might not be clear to the casual reader. I type this with trepidation, since I realize that some might infer from this that I write homages or, worse, pastiches. In fact, I'm afraid in retrospect that I did my story "Undone" [the concluding novelette in Strange But Not A Stranger] a disservice by mentioning Cordwainer Smith and Alfred Bester as influences. While I'd be foolish to suggest that I could ever transcend these great writers, I would argue that there are certain effects in my story that are unique to it and of which I am quite proud.
Still, the fact that here in science fiction one can enter into dialogue with other writers—even one's betters—and have readers pick up on the conversation is a feature, not a bug. Or so it says here.
"1016 to 1," the Hugo-winning opening entry in Stranger, features a meeting between a young boy and a time-traveler in the ominous year 1962. Is this story in effect a distillation of the exhilaration and anxiety you experienced as an SF-reading and -viewing 12-year-old back then?
Kelly: Sure. The moment in history it describes, the Cuban missile crisis, is precisely when science fiction ceased for me to be escapist and became very real indeed. I lived in the 'burbs of New York City, and I was quite certain that if nuclear war came that October, all that would be left of me would be a burn shadow on some wall and a scatter of radioactive dust. And how did I know this? From reading science fiction and watching The Twilight Zone and way too many B monster movies.
I have written nuclear war stories throughout my career, even when I've been told they are passé. I've even been accused of indulging in a bit of disaster nostalgia. After September 11, I respectfully contend that these stories are well worth reading and writing again.
"Feel the Zaz" is also something of a nostalgia piece: in a full-blown Internet media economy of the near future, the film and sports stars of the mid-20th century achieve a perversely glamorous revival. Has their sort of glamour truly been lost in the 21st century, and can it ever be regained?
Kelly: I'd say that, as our culture fractures and audiences seek niche art, we won't see the incredible concentration of celebrity as in the likes of Satchmo or Elvis or Marilyn. Rather we will see the dilution, the Warholization, of celebrity; millions of people will be a little bit famous for a little while. Yes, even short-story-writing science-fiction writers will get to be a teensy-weensy bit famous for a Tuesday afternoon, or maybe a long weekend.
"Lovestory" is a rather loving depiction of the family lives of a three-gendered alien species, brought to crisis by the effects of contact with humans. Is this your (short) homage to Ursula K. Le Guin? It involves quite an effort of world-building for a 20-page novelette ...
Kelly: I swear I wasn't thinking of Ms. Le Guin when I wrote "Lovestory."
Yes, I did way too much work on this one, but it was the work that needed to be done to make the story real. From a business standpoint, writing "Lovestory" wasn't a very savvy decision. But it's a story that still pleases me.
I'm reminded of something that Michael Swanwick wrote years ago in his (in)famous essay, "A User's Guide to the Postmoderns" (1986), which discusses the work of some of my writing cohort. Here, let me pull it down from the shelf and quote exactly:
"They are willing to do the extra month's research it takes to establish that below-decks layout of a Spanish galleon or how Mozart actually spelled his middle name, for a story whose proceeds are not going to cover that month's phone bill, because they know their readers care. And if their readers don't care, they can just go pound sand."
Still talking of love stories: Quite a few of the tales in Stranger assert the timelessness of romantic love in the face of all the futuristic science-fictional paraphernalias that might render it obsolete or transform it beyond recognition. This is the pattern in "Feel the Zaz," "The Prisoner of Chillon" (maybe), "Candy Art," "Chemistry" and "Undone." Are you at heart an old-fashioned romantic?
Kelly: Jeez, can't I be a new-fashioned romantic?
As you say, it is fun to imagine how the technological infrastructure will change in the future and how that change will change us. Nevertheless, I'm not sure I can wrap my mind around a future in which people don't fall in love. Maybe that's what lurks on the other side of the singularity, but in all of the stories you mention, the characters are still recognizably human. So they still love one another.
There is something at once ineffably foolish and charming about falling and staying in love. Why do we do it? It is a behavior that is so over-determined that no one can say, exactly. That's why we write about it, although mostly what we do is write around it.
Actually, I hope you will excuse me for bristling at being called "old-fashioned." It's not exactly what a science-fiction writer wants to hear about his stuff! But what I think you're after here is that some of these stories flirt with sentiment. Of course, modernism and modernist critics hold sentiment in contempt. But in doing so, they deny a vast range of authentic human experiences. I am acutely aware that sentiment can turn mawkish in a nanosecond. Perhaps some may say I've slipped and landed face-first in treacle on occasion. But I believe that's a risk worth taking.
Then there are your religious stories, like "The Pyramid of Amirah" and "Proof of the Existence of God." Both assume, within their fictional bounds, that the Divine indeed exists, and fascinating implications flow. These quite short tales have a genuine air of danger; is that intentional?
Kelly: Absolutely. Whenever I write a story that supposes that God exists, I have to imagine that Her ways are mysterious—and therefore scary—indeed. God is the ultimate alien, and to try to cram Her into some anthropomorphic box is intellectually and artistically dishonest.
Going back to your first question, I suppose that the reason I write stories of this sort is that I'm a frustrated mystic. Catholicism prepped me for encounters with the numinous, and these made-up deities are as close as I've ever come to the Divine, alas.
Humor is something you handle well, as in "Hubris," "Candy Art," "Fruitcake Theory" and even the rather stark "Unique Visitors." What would you say is the key to making SF funny? Is black or gallows humor essential?
Kelly: Hey, I'm a big fan of the theater of the absurd. I think Waiting for Godot is a stitch—and scary as hell. In fact, I hereby claim Samuel Beckett as an SF writer. Certainly our greatest playwright! If you haven't noticed, his fingerprints are all over "The Propagation of Light in a Vacuum."
But black isn't the only color of humor. There are moments in "Undone" and "Chemistry," for example, which I intended to be funny, because they reflect the oddball risks we take in order to love one another. I'm a sucker for romantic comedy for all the reasons discussed earlier. Actually, I try to work comic moments into almost every story. As I glance through the table of contents of Strange But Not a Stranger, I see only two, maybe three pieces that don't have some element that tickles my (admittedly idiosyncratic) funny bone.
Moving now to other media: you've adapted quite a few of your stories as audio plays for Seeing Ear Theater. What are the particular challenges of that medium? Does the essence of a story change in such translation?
Kelly: One of the challenges I found most perplexing was conveying background information through dialogue. In workshop lingo, there's a common beginner's blunder known as "As you know, Bob." This involves two characters telling each other information both of them already know, but that the reader needs to find out. As an example, Spock might turn to Kirk and say something like, "As you know, captain, the Romulans and the Klingons both lay claim to this system." This information would be more elegantly conveyed in narration, especially since it makes poor Kirk look like a bonehead. But in an audioplay there is no narration, unless one reverts to the clumsy device of the voiceover. So there are situations where one must tread perilously close to reminding Bob of things he already knows.
I made many changes in adapting the stories, mostly having to do with pacing. The metronome ticks faster in an audioplay. Actually, two of them, "Breakaway, Backdown" and "The Propagation of Light in a Vacuum," made the journey from story to stage play to audioplay. Of all the pieces I did for Seeing Ear Theater, the one that changed the least was probably "Feel the Zaz." I tell the story in Strange But Not a Stranger about how "Zaz" was commissioned as an original play, but when I sat down to write it I found I didn't quite know how to write an original play, so I wrote the story and the play in tandem, going from one to the other. I did finally write an original play for SET, "Carrion Death," and this summer I wrote an original stage play about the Revolutionary War Captain John Paul Jones.
Seeing Ear Theater is no longer producing, alas, although you can still listen by clicking to www.scifi.com/set/. I must confess that I miss it. A lot. I worked there with a number of talented professionals, Brian Smith and Tony Daniel to name but two, who were very kind to the new kid on the block. I thought I was actually getting the hang of writing audioplays when the plug got pulled last year. I am still casting—so far unsuccessfully—for another opportunity to practice this very cool art form.
You write a regular World Wide Web column for Asimov's. Has this made you an "Internet maven"?
Kelly: In the first paragraph of my first column I asserted that the Web is science fiction and I see no reason now to retract, some four years later. It is, in the short term at least, a more important subject for science-fiction writers to explore than space travel, because it is having an immediate impact on the way all of us read and think and communicate—let alone how we scribblers move our literary product. Don't pay attention to anyone who claims that it's overrated. In my opinion, it is impossible for us to assess the extent to which it's affecting us.
So I'm an enthusiast. But the Web is so vast that I'd be hard pressed to call myself a maven. Actually, one of the things I've discovered in writing the column is that it's often about me, or at least the way I engage with the sites I visit. At first, this made me uncomfortable. I'd stayed pretty much backstage throughout my career. But I think this may be one of the consequences of the sprawl of the infofeed. Users will seek out critics—or perhaps guides would be more accurate—whom they know and trust to separate the signal from the noise. The rise of the blog points to this future of mediated surfing.
To finish: What's your next project? More short stories seem a certainty. ...
Kelly: Short stories for sure. I'm currently working on a pesky novelette for the June 2003 Asimov's. If Gardner Dozois and Sheila Williams buy it, I'll have appeared in the June issue 19 times in a row. (But who's counting?)
And there will be more novels.
I promise.
Just don't hold your breath.
Also in this issue:
Naomi Watts and Gore Verbinski of The Ring.
