A View From Outside
Strange Horizons has posted an interview K. Lincoln Bird did with me and Yoshio Kobayashi a while back. Go read it and see what you think. I think it raises a lot of questions to talk about, that are being talked about right now within speculative literature, but Yoshio's perspective on it is so unique that the questions he raises, for me, are always refreshing.
4 Comments:
Hey, you know Yoshio? He did a write-up about me in Hayakawa SF not long ago. He seems like a nice guy. Looking forward to reading the interview.
Heh. Didn't expect there to be mentions of *me* in the interview. People keep telling me I'm not a core fantasy writer, which I always thought I was, so I'm with you there, Chris.
I kind of like Yoshio's vision of "sprawl," with various writers radiating out from a common center. It's an interesting way to think of it, and a more visually compelling image than "slipstream." I sometimes think of it as compost fiction -- I grew up reading SF, horror, classic literature, suspense, comics, watching movies, playing and running roleplaying games, playing video games, and that's all composted together deep in my mind, and all those elements are present when I'm creating stories.
I've known Yoshio since last autumn, Tim. I think I also blogged about him having me out on Christmas Eve in Tokyo with his family last year when I was alone here. He's a super wonderful person. And as you can see from the interview, really sharp and insightful. And I, too, like the metaphor of the sprawl more than slipstream. Compost is also good too. What you take in eventually grows something from itself. Our reading and entertainment habits and even how we live our own lives all go into our fiction at some level. I know a lot of writers would argue probably about their lives having anything to do with their fiction, but no one will ever really be able to convince me that what we write isn't shaped in some way by how we live.
Very cool interview, Chris. Much to think about, although I'm not sure how I feel about 'sprawl', mostly because I'm not so sure that writers commute to the same city from some posh suburb. It's just doesn't seem that uniform to me.
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