Allen Steele answers your questions

When I was about 12 years old, I read the Captain Future stories when they were reprinted in paperback during the hero-pulp revival of the late '60s-early '70s. This is how I found Doc Savage, the Shadow, the Spider, G-8 and his Battle Aces, and all those great heroes of the '30s. I liked Doc and the Shadow better, to tell the truth, but Curt Newton and his crew stuck in my mind because they were spacefarers, and I'm a lifelong space buff. Many years later, I began to wonder what a '90s version of an SF pulp hero would look like ... an interesting question, because the Depression-era pulp heros look rather quaint by today's standards, mainly because we tend to be drawn more toward anti-heros. So I decided to write a postmodern pulp adventure in which a character who expresses (but doesn't personify) the values of a '30s hero runs smack into a harder, grittier sort of protagonist. Hence the double-meaning behind the title.

I dedicated "The Death of Captain Future" to Edmond Hamilton, and publicly thanked him when I accepted a Hugo for the novella at this year's World Science Fiction Convention, because it was the right thing to do. One of Ed Hamilton's best friends, Julius Schwartz (who co-plotted some of the original Curt Newton stories) was among the first to congratulate me after the ceremony. If what I did passes muster with Julie, then it must be okay.

By the same token, however, SF owes much to its past, and I hope it never loses touch with its pulp origins. Many current themes are prefigured by stories that were written years or even generations ago. Cyberpunk, the genre's last major literary movement before the current hard-SF revival, is indebted to Alfred Bester's novels of the '50s, as well as '60s New Wave stories by Harlan Ellison, Samuel R. Delany, and Norman Spinrad. You can even find first evidence of the human-machine interface theme in the Professor Jameson stories that Neil R. Jones wrote in the '30s. Today's radical-hard SF authors are consciously walking on ground that Robert Heinlein, Frederik Pohl, Isaac Asimov and others paved for us years ago. We're standing on the shoulders of giants.

Science fiction, perhaps more than any other genre, is an empirical form of literature. Its practitioners are mindful of the accomplishments of the past; every so often, we take some old rocket fuel, remix the formula so that it's more combustible, and drop a match in it just to see what happens. That's what makes the genre so interesting; it's constantly reinventing itself.

I don't walk around with a sign around my neck that says "Famous Science Fiction Author," and I'd sooner have another root canal operation than be forced to wear one. My 13-year-old niece thinks it's pretty cool that her uncle just won a Hugo award, but the nice lady who cuts my hair doesn't give a damn. My next-door neighbor has read all my novels, even though he's not an SF buff; he likes them, but doesn't treat me any differently when we chat across the backyard fence.

As far as my place in the SF galaxy goes ... well, there are readers who passionately love what I do, readers who think I'm the anti-Christ, and readers who put down one of my stories or novels, smile, and then pick up something another author has written. I do what I do, and hope that it finds an appreciative audience.

I'm just thankful that I'm not John Grisham or Stephen King. The sales would be nice, sure, but I don't think I could handle the notoriety.

When I'm working out a story in my mind, I'm also determining which subjects need to be investigated. I'm a journalist by training, so this process tends to come as second nature: divide up the line of inquiry, then methodically move in on each of them.

I just finished a new novel, A King of Infinite Space. For this book, I had to look into several areas: asteroid mining, the construction of large-scale space colonies, cryonic preservation, nanotechnology, genetic engineering of human beings for low-gravity environments, supercomputers based on DNA structure, the Omega Point theory, and cool rock bands of the '90s. I broke these items down into separate categories, then spent time raiding bookstores for appropriate material. I ignore all other SF speculation on these subjects. Other authors may have tackled these subjects before, but I pretend that I'm the first guy to have written about these things.

Most of the research comes from current books and recent magazine or newspaper articles: I keep a large file cabinet filled with stuff I've torn out of The New York Times, Space News, Scientific American, and other reliable sources. I've become less dependent on personal interviews lately, if only because I'm a little more reclusive since I gave up journalism. Sometimes, though, I go into the field to get first-hand impressions; the first chapter of A King of Infinite Space takes place at last year's Lollapolooza concert here in St. Louis, and I was there, taking notes from the eleventh row. Courtney Love isn't as deep as Robert Penrose, but she's got better legs.

All this stuff goes into a fat binder that sits on my desk while I write, and out of this comes a novel. Most of the time I get it right, but on occasion I miss the mark. Goes with the territory.

Having made this caveat, I'll throw out a few things I think may be technologically possible within the next half-century. Nuclear fusion, both as a form of electrical power and as a means of spacecraft propulsion; if the latter becomes feasible, then we can expect the beginnings of widespread colonization of the inner solar system. The first commercial uses of nanotechnology, probably in the medical field; this, in turn, could lead to greatly expanded lifespans, albeit only for those wealthy enough to afford cellular-repair therapy. True artificial intelligence, probably arising from the development of DNA-based supercomputers coupled with further development of fuzzy logic.

However, there's a long list of technological advances which SF writers in the past thought were going to be in place by the 1990s: moon bases, flying and/or atomic-powered cars, household robots, TV phones, etc. And everyone missed the boat on desktop computers. Tea leaves or chicken entrails are more reliable than SF for divining the future.

We've already had "average people" travel into space; they just weren't aboard American spacecraft. A few years ago, a British housewife won a public lottery which enabled her to visit Russia's Mir space station for a couple of weeks; not long afterwards, she was followed by a Japanese journalist from Tokyo's TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) network. Glavkosmos, the Russian space agency, made these trips possible as commercial endeavors, and I think it's only a matter of time before American industry sees that there's money to be made from space tourism.

A couple of things are going to have to fall into place: development of a relatively inexpensive means of reaching Earth orbit, and the development of a large-scale commercial space industry. In this last year, we've seen three major steps in this direction: the commencement of the X-33 pilot program by Lockheed-Martin, the phaseover of the existing Space Shuttle program from NASA to United Space Alliance, and the signing of the Commercial Space Act. All this bodes well for our near-term prospects for space exploration.

I firmly believe that humankind will become a spacefaring race. The major question is whether this will happen in our lifetimes. I certainly hope so; I'd like to see Earth from orbit.

I regard my tenure at WoMag as my "boot camp" period: I was overworked, underpaid, and damn close to a nervous breakdown by the time I quit to go freelance, but it was also one of the best times of my life. It was hardball journalism; I'd often cover two or three stories in a single day, usually against deadlines that seemed impossible to meet. So the experience toughened me as a writer. Worcester is a blue-collar city with a lot of problems, but also with some of the best people I've ever met; I saw human nature at both its best and worst, and learned things about the human condition that have carried over into my fiction writing.

It's sort of like my short-lived hobby of rock climbing. I'd never do that sort of thing again -- as they say, it's not the fall that kills you, but the sudden stop at the bottom -- but just the same, I'm glad I did it. I often advise young novice writers to go into journalism; many of SF's best authors have been reporters at one time or another in their careers, and it's inevitably helped them. Just know when it's time to get out.

Other than that, nothing much has changed. I still had a novel to finish, and nothing became easier because I now had a Hugo on my office shelf. A King Of Infinite Space was sent to my literary agent yesterday, and now I'm going to take a sabbatical as a novelist and switch back to short-story mode. I may soon be involved in a film project, but that was in the works over a year ago. When I grow wings and ascend to heaven, I'll call a press conference. Before then, I'll still be wondering whether my dogs are getting their Alpo.

I don't mind. Allison's a pal. The reading club to which she belongs posed the same question earlier this year, when I met with them in Kansas City while I was Guest of Honor at Conquest 27, a local SF convention. The group had recently read The Jericho Iteration, and one of the more observant members had noticed a technical mistake: during a scene near the end of the novel, the protagonist squeezes both himself and a Golden Retriever into the "back seat" ...really, the rear cargo space ...of a '92 Corvette. That member actually owns a '92 Corvette, and realized that such a feat is...um, unlikely, shall we say?

They grilled me on this flaw, and I had to admit that I screwed up. No, I hadn't tried to climb into the back of a '92 Corvette, either by myself or with my own Golden Retriever. I've always wanted a 'Vette, and when I saw a chance to put a really sexy car into this novel, that was the make and model I picked. Later, when the beforementioned character and his dog are making a getaway, I had them crawl into the...uh, back seat.

Oops. Can't do that. Like I said earlier: sometimes, despite all my best research efforts, I still miss a point. On the other hand, every SF writer I've ever met has admitted to making mistakes.

I haven't updated it lately, but only because I've been busy with the new novel. At this point, it contains a photo snapped by fellow author Mark W. Tiedemann, the Vacuum Suckers patch designed by new writer J. Scott Crawford, a biography, a near-complete bibliography, a cover gallery, the complete text of my Hugo-nominated novelette "The Good Rat," and a link to the Berkeley Publishing Group. Once I recover from writing A King Of Infinite Space, I'll add some new stuff. Please be patient; I'm peddling as fast as I can.

At the risk of being accused of hucksterism, I'd like to add that I've just published a new short- story collection, All-American Alien Boy: 11 stories about near-future America, each with its own short introduction. It's a trade paperback, with a cover by Bob Eggleton, and published by Old Earth Books. For more information, write to Old Earth Books, P.O. Box 19951, Baltimore, MD. 21211-0951, or e-mail mjwalsh1@aol.com or 102415.1232@compuserve.com.

That's it. Thanks for your questions.