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Dr. Robert Runté on popular culture, education, and life. Recent Posts
Mother Part II Mother Part III Douglas Garfield Personal Genotyping Father-in-Law Book Covers Kasia Bedtime Edward Willett Interview, Part 4 Comments
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The Princess, The Mermaid, and Their Hot Air Ballon by Tigana Runté March 2003 Blog Indexes:
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Mother Part I With the passing of my brother, Doug, the care and feeding of our mother has fallen to me. Doug went to the nursing home every day, summer and winter, blizzard or rain, to feed mother supper. He only missed four days in four years, right up until he fell ill himself. Blind and with no memory, she could neither see her supper nor remember it was there without his patiently spooning it out for her. Mother was always a slow eater, and now at 99, it routinely takes three hours to get her supper in. Her meals are all pureed, but she still has to compulsively chew each mouthful to liquid. There are frequent pauses to reheat the current course in the microwave, since the meal obviously gets cold over three hours, and reheating the food significantly increases not only her enjoyment of the meal, but also the chances of her actually eating. It all looks like baby food to me, but it is clear from looking at the trays of the other residents, most of whom do not require pureeing, that the food here is excellent; far superior to hospital food, with much less repetition in the offerings. With only three or four exceptions in four years, she has always raved about the soup; she expresses similar enthusiasm for the entrée about one day in three. Mom also loves the strawberry flavour Ensure, a liquid meal substitute, and I have found that by mixing her "Great Shake Plus" protein drink into her tea, I can usually get that in too. Mom was extremely dependent on Doug; more so even than I think Douglas realized. Before, when I'd come up to visit, I would often go to the nursing home when Douglas wasn't there, to increase the visitor-to-hours-alone ratio for mom, but I quickly discovered that Mom wasn't the same person when Doug wasn't there. Most of the day she would sleep, or daydream, and neither the staff nor I could sustain much interaction with her. As soon as Doug showed up, however, his voice would trigger an instant rally, and she would sit up and engage with him for the duration of his visit. Of course, by definition, Douglas never saw her when he wasn't there. Douglas would talk about her good days or bad days, but the truth is, it was probably good hours and bad days, because she was never really there outside of the brief window of his suppertime visits. Some evenings she would be lucid and have lively conversations with Doug; other evenings she would be engaged, but very confused; others she would simply sleep through the entire meal, not eating. Doug and I suspected the sleepy or confused days correlated to when she got her pain medicine renewed, but we could hardly begrudge her pain relief. Initially, Mom had more good days than bad, but increasingly Doug reported she was having more bad days than good (and that was Doug's biased sample of the 'good' part of her day, at that.) As mom declined, I eventually gave up trying to visit her when Douglas wasn't there. As even supper times became increasingly problematic, I came to see my role not so much as visiting Mom, as supporting Doug. I'd regale him with my ongoing monolog as he struggled to feed mom, and we'd get a decent visit out of it, whether or not Mom was able to participate. She was usually able to say hello and goodbye to me, but as Doug needed to sit by her good ear to feed her, she often couldn't hear me, and didn't usually remember that I was there, or who I was, without a good deal of prompting from Doug. But of course, the vast majority of days Doug was there on his own. It must have been incredibly hard on Doug. I don't know how he managed, especially as the percentage of 'bad' days increased. Staff subsequently told me that it was not unusual for him to take until 10PM to feed her supper (which starts at 5). As mom became increasingly confused, it must have been hard to sustain conversation or find rewarding moments. (The worst was a brief period in February when Mom went completely deaf for a couple of weeks -- blind and deaf must have made trying to feed her supper very difficult and frustrating. Fortunately, her hearing partially returned in March.) Living in Lethbridge, I can't be there every night, of course, but I have managed to get up to Edmonton for a week to ten days at a time. Whenever I'm away from home for a week, I feel guilty throwing all the parenting responsibilities onto Mary, and I miss my wife and kids horribly; but whenever I'm at home in Lethbridge, I feel guilty about abandoning my mom. There really is no way to balance that out, so we just do the best we can. (Mary is content -- and farsighted enough -- to have me role model for our kids that it is sometimes important to put others' needs first; at some point, we will want our daughters to occasionally abandon their husbands and children to come feed us supper...) I have a great deal of confidence in the nursing home staff, who provide excellent care for my Mom. I think Doug's having been there every evening went a long way towards forging a connection with the staff, and by going up every few weeks, I've managed to maintain that positive relationship. But staff are not family, and my being there seems very important to mom. Not only don't I want her to feel abandoned, but I can provide the three hour meal service and the little touches (like extra cups of tea) that the staff's heavy workloads preclude. I cannot always get her to eat, but my batting average is better than the staff's (just because I have a longer timeframe in which to succeed). Mother Part II Good Days and Bad DaysI've been fortunate that most of the days I've been visiting mom have been good days. Once or twice she's known who I am, remembered my daughters and wife, and been able to hold a normal conversation. Most days she's been talkative and upbeat, but 'confused'. A couple of days have been bad, with mom either being too sleepy to eat, or too grumpy. "Confused" is not really a fair description. The doctor diagnosed "Alzheimer's", but I do not believe that to be entirely accurate. The real problem is that mom has lost her memory, and is blind, an unfortunate combination. Being blind, Mom has no basis on which to distinguish between dreaming and waking. Ever had that experience of waking up in a hotel or at a relative's and taking a second or two to remember that it's not your own bed? Or just that that was a dream, and now you're awake? Where the rest of us can open our eyes and look around to orient ourselves each morning, Mom has no access to accurate updates. On the contrary, her eyes insist on feeding her false images. (This is apparently fairly common among those who become blind as adults.) For several years, Doug would have to remind her that she was blind, so that whatever she was seeing wasn’t real, and Mom would go, "Oh yes, you're right." Doug would remind her that she was in the nursing home, and she would say, "Oh yes, of course!" And Mom would be able to orient herself back to the real world. As her memory has increasingly failed, however, her ability to recall that she is in a nursing home (which she has never actually seen) or even that she is blind, given that she is 'looking' at something right there right now, has also declined. So she isn't 'confused', so much as reacting to the sensory data available to her, which unfortunately is inaccurate. I am convinced, if mom could only see, she would be reminded of who and what was around her, and consequently lucid much more of the time. As it is, however, with little to ground her in our world, she spends much of her time in her own. I often arrive to find her in animated conversation with people who aren't there; or when I ask her about her day, she'll tell me about visiting long-dead relatives in cities to which she's never been; or tell me that sitting on the plane all day has been tiring, and ask when do we expect to land? (Well, not an unreasonable question given that she spends the day in a reclining wheelchair, about as comfortable as a typical airline seat.) Increasingly, Mom spends most of her time in 1948 -- just before or just after her father passed away -- surrounded by her friends and family. She often has tea with her mother as they sit in the kitchen after supper; or with her sister mid-afternoon. Her brothers amuse and help her; various relatives come to visit on a daily basis, especially a contingent from England who seem to be staying with them. These visits are the source of considerable enjoyment for my mother, who seems to revel in the company. It does create a minor difficulty for me, however, in that I was born in 1951, and therefore do not yet exist in this world. When I tell her that I'm her son and here to visit with her, she looks confused and troubled. "Who did you say you were?" "I'm, Robert, your son." She shakes her head as if to clear it, and says, "Robert? I don't have a son 'Robert'. My sons are 'Doug' and 'Ron'." "I'm your third son." "I only have two sons." And so on. I try to imagine what it is like for her to be sitting having tea in the backyard at her parents' home, and have some complete stranger come in and claim to be the son she hasn't borne yet. Freaky weird. Even weirder for her is the disorientation that occurs when she falls asleep during dinner. I guess Doug was better at reading the signals, but I can't always tell when she is opening her mouth for the next spoonful, and when her mouth falls open because she's fallen asleep between chews. On one recent memorable occasion, I spooned in a nice dollop of pudding, and Mom shot up in her chair sputtering and crying out. "What's wrong?" I shouted into her good ear. "Um, urfph, ack" mom choked out, feeling around for a napkin. When I put it into her hand, she spit the pudding out. "What's wrong," I asked again. "Did it taste bad? Was there something in it?" After a moment or two mom calms down and says, "Well, no, I guess there was nothing wrong with it, really. But what was it doing in my mouth?" "Um, I put it there?" "You put it there?" "It's chocolate pudding," I said. "It's good." "Well, yes, I suppose it was. But what is it doing in my mouth?" "Why not? It’s desert. It's supper time, and that was desert." Mom's trademark head shake trying to make sense of what I'm saying. "But I was just getting on the train, and suddenly I had a mouthful of pudding." She'd fallen asleep, and drifted in to a vivid dream between one mouthful and the next. Okay, again, how weird would that have to be? You're walking along the platform about to board your train, and suddenly and inexplicably, a spoonful of chocolate pudding materializes in your mouth. (Magic realism story idea in there somewhere, for sure.) On my most recent trip, the problem of not knowing who I am was further compounded by her insistence that I was a woman. Her hearing seems to have lost the lower registers, and with the added difficulty of a slight cold that made my voice more than usually squeaky, she became convinced that she was hearing a woman. Having visualized a woman sitting next to her, it must come as something of a preposterous shock for said woman to then claim to be one's son. It doesn't bother me. I don't really care whether she knows who I am or where she is, so long as she is happy. Her waking dreams seem to be mostly upbeat -- she often tells me she has had "a wonderful day visiting everyone" or "it's been a nice quiet day with Evie" (her sister). Got to beat sitting alone, blind and aching, in a nursing home. Mother Part III A Bad DayThe worst visit to Mom's nursing home for me this week was so bad that it's the stuff of black comedy. As I arrived, the woman from the adjoining room waved me over. I hadn't seen her on this trip so far, but she had in the past often given me very helpful updates on my Mom. "Hello, [name deleted]," I said. "Hello," she greeted me with her raspy voice. "Could you help me?" "Of course," I said, "What can I do for you?" "I'd like to die, now. Could you kill me?" "Ah..." "You have to hurry, though, before the staff come back." The evening went steadily downhill from there... The aid who brought my mother's supper tray told me that Mom hadn't eaten or drunk anything all day. The pressure was therefore on for me to get something into her. Mom took two sips of soup, and then carefully held out the cup at arm's length. Thinking that she was aiming for her tray table, though way off the mark, I attempted to intercept it. This provokes a very hostile reaction. "What do you think you're playing at! Let go!" "Oh, sorry. I thought you were looking for the tray table." Mom gives me a disgusted expression as if I am a total moron, and says, "I was passing it to Evie, as you could see plainly see. What did you think you were doing, ripping it out of her hand like that?" and proceeds to stretch her arm out once again. Where the cup hovers precariously, and begins to tip onto the floor. I again attempt to catch the falling cup, and mom again goes ballistic at my interference. "What is wrong with you? This is completely unacceptable behaviour! It is not appropriate to grab my cup out of my very hand. If you interfere with us again, I shall have to ask you to leave." And again proffers the cup to her long dead sister. "Evie's not here," I say. "This is your soup, and you need to drink it." Again, Mom tilts her head and takes on this look of complete incredulity that anyone could have the gall to maintain something so patently absurd. "What do you mean 'Evie's not here?' She's sitting right there. You can see her," [Points] "on that wicker chair right there. That's Evie! Now stop being so rude!" And so on. Eventually I give up arguing with her over who's there -- because, truth be told, I'm not absolutely positive that just because I and the staff can't see or hear them, that mom's family aren't in fact sitting around visiting her. Mom's not only completely convinced, she's convincing. I'm not sure whether I find this creepy or reassuring, but there is a long tradition in our culture that those on the other side sometimes crowd 'round to welcome you to the next world. Fair enough, if spending time with her family helps her with the transition. But on this particular evening, Mom refused to eat at all. "I've already eaten, thank you. I had two great big buns, and a huge bowl of soup, and turkey, and desert, and there is simply no way I could take another bite." When I pointed out that they had just brought her meal and it was sitting untouched on the tray table in front of her, I was again on the receiving end of that disgusted look that I was contradicting not only her but the obvious facts sitting in plain sight. "You can see my empty plate right there! I had these two great big buns, and--" "Mom, they don't serve buns here. You haven't had a bun in four years." "How would you know? You weren't here when I was eating them." And so on. Again, the facts as I know them are in direct contradiction of the facts of which she is equally sure. She has eaten a huge meal with her family, and is now sitting having a quiet cup of tea, and what am I on about? In the end I had to go home with nothing concrete to show for my visit, except for my own grieving: seems to me, if she is not only spending all her days visiting beyond the veil, but now taking her meals there as well, it may not be long before she moves there permanently. DouglasI'm still reeling from the death of my brother, Douglas. I had tried phoning him Thursday evening, and when I was sent immediately to voice mail, thought he must be on the phone to our other brother. But when I still hadn't heard from him Friday I started to worry, but assumed there was some innocent explanation. He often took awhile to respond to phone messages because he often went days without using the phone and therefore without hearing that he had messages waiting. But when I still hadn't heard Saturday, I called the nursing home where my mother is and asked if he was there -- he fed mother supper every evening without fail. When he wasn't there and hadn't called to say he was away sick, I phoned his building and had the caretaker break into his suite. She found him dead.This weekend was Tigana's 10th birthday, so we had taken her out of town to Kananaskis for the weekend to celebrate. We decided not to tell her until after the weekend, not only so as not to ruin her birthday, but so she wouldn't be reminded every birthday from here on in. And Tigana is going to take this very hard because she is still coping with the loss of her Grandfather whom we buried less than two weeks ago. But this meant I had to hold it together for her sake, and this actually seems to have been helpful for me. And I dragged Kasia around with me more than usual because she is so full of life at age 4 that it sort of offsets the shadow of death...and she has been quoting some of the books we read her and things we've said to her to help her deal with the loss of her grandfather, so hearing them back has also helped me. Being away from home complicated coordinating necessary arrangements, since I didn't have access to my phone lists to tell people who needed to know, or even a home phone to use. We got back to Lethbridge this evening. Tomorrow I fly to Edmonton to make funeral arrangements, arrange for the continuing care of my mom (99 next week) and otherwise take charge of things. I am fully expecting to lose it when I am alone in Mom's place (where I'll stay) or when I am going through Doug's place looking for papers addressing his wishes etc. but in some ways that will be easier than trying to help my kids with this -- a very tough job I have had to dump entirely on Mary, who will tell the kids about Doug Tuesday or Wednesday. The only good news out of this is that the Medical Examiner assured me that Doug had likely not suffered. He had a heart attack and would likely have lost consciousness before he hit the floor. He had complained to my other brother of flu a few days before so we're now wondering if those flu-like symptoms were in fact already signs of heart failure, and the act of lifting the Oxford English Dictionary (which he was holding when they found him) was the final effort that triggered the end. If so, it would have been and oddly fitting ending for my brother, for whom books meant so much. More on this when I can. Labels: family GarfieldOkay, here's one from Central Ganglion:The Garfield minus Garfield comic. "Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb." Deeply disturbing in a very funny way. Labels: Popular culture Personal GenotypingOkay, this is pretty cool, in a "The Future is Now", and a "I have a bad feeling about this" kind of way.Check out this blog by Mike Spear, publicist for Genome Alberta. Spear's blog talks about buying a home genotyping kit at Best Buy, and two rather more expensive kits from the Internet, to examine his personal genome. He did the swabs today, and has sent the sealed test tube(s) off to the lab(s), and in due course will be told his genetic medial history. He'll then record in his blog how the process went, which kit gives the best results, and so on. His hope is not merely to compare the three services, but to have the scientists and ethicists he works with comment on the whole process to help work through the implications of all this. In a CBC radio interview this morning, Spear's raised a few of the more obvious issues: if the results come back that he has a genetic predisposition for prostate cancer or memory loss, will he then become obsessive about looking for symptoms? Or is this a useful heads up? Or will the public confuse genetic predisposition and test results to think that they need prostrate surgery right now? Or that they are safe from obesity, or whatever, because they don't have the predisposition? At the moment, unless he takes the results to his doctor and allows them to become part of his medical records, Spear's genome analysis is private and insurance companies can't ask for tit. But Spear's raised the concern that in five years, such testing could be routine requirement for insurance -- what insurance company is going to take you (at least without gigantic premiums) if your genetic profile suggests you may develop cancer? Same for employers, etc. This is definitely scary stuff. And then, coincidentally, I was listening to bit from the Comedy Factory podcast where they talked about a dating service that did genotyping on its clients -- so you could tell if you were about to date your long lost cousin, and more likely, so that you could tell if your genes were compatible. But besides questioning just how much one's compatibility could be determined by genetics, the commentator made the rather chilling point that sending one's DNA for analysis in the states is maybe not the best idea. Since the Patriot act allows the government there to look at any information in any American company's data base.... well, you can see the problem. Father-in-Law My wife got a phone call as she was putting the finishing touches on her keynote address for a conference in Tokyo: Her brother told her that her Dad had taken ill and was not expected to live through the day. Mary booked the next flight up, but her father passed before she could reach his side. Fortunately, we had been up to see him only a couple of weeks before. Although at that point he had been expected to live for a couple of years, he had declined considerably since our previous visit. When Mary had first seen him on that trip, she had doubled over as if punched in the stomach, he had become so skeletal. And, it being one of his 'bad days', he was essentially unable to speak, simply mumbling incomprehensibly. The next day he was a little better, and could speak clearly, but his mind was still confused. I asked him what he had done that day, and he told me that he had spent the whole day here in jail, but that no charges had been laid yet, and they wouldn't tell him what he was being held for. He explained his plans for going over the wall to me. Then, with a generosity of spirit that was typical of him, he offered to take me (apparently a complete stranger to him) over the wall with him when he escaped. The next day, Mary went into see him while I worked on the car, and he was apparently worse again. So Mary had recognized that the dad she had known was already gone in one sense, and said her goodbyes.  August 10, 2007)(Mary later told me that she had realized that she had accepted that her Dad was no more when something went wrong with the car and it hadn't even occurred to her to phone him for advice, even though it was late at night on a Sunday, and Mary had figured out to call long distance to a mechanic in another time zone to get the information we needed. I knew that the man I had known was largely gone when he told he that he had not only stopped working on his various projects, but stopped reading. Indeed, he no longer watched the news. I had been pleased that when he no longer could be physically active (e.g., fixing the roof) he had switched to genealogy and writing his autobiography and composing essays on disputed passages in the bible. These projects had kept him mentally active for a number of years, haracteristic of the man always interested in everything. He had even taught himself bookbinding to finish his books. So to see his mind slowly grinding to a halt was hard to take.) The call came in on a Monday (March 3rd) and Mary stayed in Edmonton until the following Sunday to organize the funeral etc. The kids and I went up on the Thursday for the Friday graveside ceremony, and a memorial service at his church on the Sunday. At home with the kids, I tried to prepare them for what was coming. In anticipation of either her Dad or my Mom (who is 99 next month) passing, we had assembled a selection of storybooks that assist kids with grieving. But to my great distress, we could not find the cache of books anywhere. (I must have put them somewhere so kids would not read them prematurely, but did a better job of hiding them from myself than from the kids.) So I zipped out to Chapters and was quite shocked at how poor their selection of books was for this purpose. They only had two books on the topic, neither of which I felt were suitable. There are in fact dozens if not hundreds of books available, but I guess they do not pay to keep on the shelf since they only sell when the family needs them: but when you need them, you REALLY need them. I have to say I feel that Chapters (especially given that it is the ONLY new bookstore in town) has a social responsibility to stock at least a few copies of a few titles on this very important topic. Mary therefore looked for copies in Edmonton as she went around making arrangements for the funerals, moving her dad's possessions out of the veteran's home, etc. but could only find one or two titles in Chapter/Indigo etc. Finally, she went to Greenwood's, an independent Edmonton bookstore, and they had an entire shelf of excellent books.  Of course, one of the best, and one that most Chapters/et.al carry (though my local store had been out) is Robert Munsch's The Lighthouse: A Story of Remembrance. I love his funny books, as does every kid 3-10, but people often forget his serious side. Lighthouse and I'll Love You Forever are fabulous sentimental books that I highly recommend. I also really liked Bear's Last Journey by Udo Weigelt (Author), Cristina Kadmon (Illustrator); it seemed to help my kids with their grieving. Another one, loaned to us by Kasia's Montessori teacher, Zahra, was Lifetimes by Bryan Mellonie. I think this one was the most help to Kasia.  It's hard to know how the kids took the passing of their grandfather. Tigana, of course, greeted the news with hysterical sobbing, but then she has always been dramatic; and she talked a lot about feeling "confused" and "scared", so I suspect it had as much to do with coming to grips with the general concept of mortality as with her feelings for her grandfather. Which were probably mixed, since visiting in the veteran's home could not have been a lot of fun, especially near the end when Grandfather couldn't recognize her. But I think she does truly miss her grandfather.  Grandpa, Tigana and Kasia August 10, 2007 Kasia hadn't really known her grandfather while he was still active, so was probably less connected then Tigana, though she still loved him, and he certainly doted on Kasia for as long as he retained his faculties. Kasia seemed less affected than Tigana, but you never really know what's going on inside that brain of hers. After an initial sob or two, she had seemed to go about her life normally, but every once in a while we'd get a glimpse of her interior processing. E.g., I'm sitting in the car, still in Lethbridge, when I hear this voice from the back seat say, "Knock Knock" "Whose there?" I respond Kasia says, "It doesn't matter because he's dead." Okay, what do you say to that? Both kids had a hard time at the funeral(s) but both spoke at the graveside and at the memorial service. It was touching. The weirdest thing, though, was that after the graveside service we picked up a local paper in Devon and discovered that the local ski lodge (which had been a huge part of my father-in-law's life -- he'd run the ski club for years) had burned down at the same moment as he had passed on. Labels: family Book CoversA package arrived with two review copies of SF books from a small press publisher. I often review SF for NeoOpsis Magazine. so this is fairly routine, but on this occasion, I happened to be opening the package in front of my wife. Who looked over at the books and said, "Oh my god, those covers are terrible!" I had to agree. Both looked amateurish, and did not encourage me to read the books within. Indeed, I decided these would have to be restricted to nigh time reading because I didn't want to be seen carrying these around in public. My wife spent a minute or two analyzing why the covers were so bad --"They're both awful," she said, "but for different reasons". I had to agree, and expressed some disappointment with the publisher, who generally had better covers then this.Having drawn my wife's attention to the publisher, she looked at the logo and recognized it. "This isn't one of the publishers you were thinking of sending your novel to is it?" I allowed that they were in fact on my short list. "Oh my god!" she said, clearly concerned that I might end up with such a cover. "Can you specify in your contract a plain black cover with just the letters of the title and your name on it ?" "I'm afraid the nature of the book is such, there will have to be a space ship on the cover". "A spaceship!" my wife cries in anticipatory horror. "But I am hoping to recommend a specific artist to them after I sell them the book." "Oh my god," my wife complains, "why couldn't you write something more respectable. Like, say, pornography?" Kasia BedtimeBedtimes remain contested territory with 4-year old Kasia in spite at our attempts at consistency, firmness etc. Lately, I have been emphasizing that her daily protests and tantrums over having to go to bed -- and no, we're not going to read just one more book, and no, you may not get one more drink of water, etc. etc. etc. -- are a waste of her energy and unproductive because 8:00 o'clock is bedtime and nothing she says or does can change that. Look, I say pointing, it is coming up on 8:00 o'clock so you might as well accept gracefully that you are going to have to go pee and get into your PJs and go to bed, rather than make all this pointless fuss that is frankly unpleasant for everyone.So tonight, after a particularly grumpy session, I again say that her saying all those mean things to me is, well, mean. And she responds, "I am only doing that because you're being so mean to me!" To which I naturally, and now somewhat routinely respond, "Don't get mad at me because it is 8:00 o'clock and bedtime. Look, it has nothing to do with me. It's just the clock telling us it's time to go to bed, so what is the point of getting so mad at me?" She seems to accept this somewhat, examining the clock closely as I point out the big hand on the 12 and the little hand on the 8, and settles down enough to actually lie down on the bed, head on the pillow, and is silent for a long pause. Long enough to make me hopeful that she is in fact about to go to sleep. And then a tired, quiet voice asks, "Dad?" "Yes, Kasia?" "Can we get a new clock?" . Labels: Kasia Edward Willett Interview, Part 4 Photo by Sharon EisbrennerRobert: So the next obvious question is how do you ensure "characters who are as much like real people as you can?" Are they based on people you know? (and do they know they are those characters?) or are they composites of people you know? Or do you just draw them from your head but try hard to work out the details in a consistent way? Edward: I've never knowingly based a character on a real person (although I do borrow people's last names without shame). In a sense, though, I'd say all characters are composites of people we know, because what else do we have to draw on when it comes to portraying how real people think and talk and react? I usually worry about whether my characters are acting consistently or not. I'm glad you think they turned out okay! Robert: They're not only consistent, but the product of their histories.... So who do you read? Which writers inspire you? Influence your writing? Edward: I suspect the most influential books on my writing aren't recent ones, but the ones I read as a youngster. The first SF book I can remember reading was Robert Silverberg's Revolt on Alpha C. After that can Robert A. Heinlein's "juveniles," most of which I read multiple times. (My three favorites there: Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, Tunnel in the Sky, and Podkayne of Mars.) Andre Norton figures in there, too. Since I started writing novels in high school, I suspect their influence has seeped through everything I've ever written. On the fantasy side, besides the aforementioned Norton (although I actually liked her SF as much or more than her fantasy), there were C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, of course. These days--I recently devoured the Dresden Files books after my brother introduced me to them. Naomi Novik's dragons-in-the-Napoleonic-era books are recent favorites as well. Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas under Red Skies have both blown me away. I never miss a Terry Pratchett. I still read quite a few YA books, too, because I suspect I'll find myself writing in that field again--at least, I hope I do! On that side of things, Justine Larbelestier's Magic or Madness series is undoubtedly the best of my recent reads. Robert: Oh Oh! I remember Revolt on Alpha C! I've never heard anyone else mention that book, but it was after reading that book that I started writing. (okay, haven't actually finished anything yet, but that's when I started writing). And now you mention it, I totally see the influence on Marseguro! Though I'd have to say the ethical dilemmas (and the killer robots for that matter) are better in Marseguro than Revolt. And yeah, I can see some influence of Hienlein in your writing. So with the mentions of Pratchett and Tolkien et al, can we look for some mass market fantasy novels in the near future? Edward: Gee, I hope so. I have a fantasy proposal in hand and will probably be putting it forward to DAW again very soon along with a possible third book in the Marseguro sequence. (I thought I'd be done after two, and maybe I will, but I can see the outline of a third, though I think that would definitely be the last.) I enjoy writing fantasy as much as I enjoy writing science fiction, and there's the strictly commercial fact that fantasy outsells SF to consider, as well. Sheila Gilbert (my editor at DAW) has indicated she'd be happy to consider a fantasy from me, so...we'll see! Robert: You also mentioned YA books..you've done quite a few of these over the years. Are you involved in school visits? I'd think your obvious performance abilities would make you a big hit on the school tour circuit. Edward: I do a few school visits every year. I'm not sure how big a hit I am, but I enjoy them. The biggest advantage being a performer gives me is that, if they get bored with my reading or answering questions, I can always burst into song. A rousing rendition of "Me" from Beauty and the Beast usually captures their attention (and mightily embarrasses those of them who can't imagine anyone doing that). I enjoy answering questions more than I enjoy reading, actually. I try to answer everything honestly, even the ones that obviously aren't meant seriously. My favorite: "Is it true that all writers are alcoholics?" Robert: Oh, nice! Changing topics slightly, you've made the first two chapters of Marseguro available online. And you have an excellent blog - my favorite part of your blog is "the first sentence I wrote today" feature, which I find captivating -- it gives this odd peek at both the creative process and your next book. So my question is, how important do you think it is for an author to have a strong online presence these days? Edward: I THINK it's very important, but I don't think you can prove it. My blog, for example, is doing good to get a couple of dozen visitors a day, and most of those are just random Google encounters. Is that doing anything to sell my books? Maybe once in a blue moon. My main website does better, with around 500 visitors a day, but that's almost entirely because all of my science columns are archived on there, so Google finds me a lot. I have an ad for Marseguro on every page, but does it sell any books? Who knows? If you can develop a major web presence, like, say, John Scalzi (to name the obvious example) then I'm sure it helps a lot. For the average writer...I'm sure it helps to be online, but maybe not as much as we'd like to think. When I studied public relations in university (part of my journalism major) one axiom stuck with me: 90 percent of advertising is wasted, but nobody knows which 90 percent it is. I suspect that's very true of online marketing efforts, too. Plus, maintaining an online presence is work that takes away from other work, like, say, writing. It's much easier and more immediately gratifying to post to a blog than it is to actually write another chapter. Which is one reason I like to do the "first sentence I wrote today" feature (although I'm a bit behind on that at the moment because of all the stuff I've been doing around Marseguro's release, among other things). It keeps the blog going while at the same time giving me just a little added incentive to actually write that first sentence, and subsequent sentences. If I know I'm going to tell the world how many words I wrote today, maybe I'll write a few more than I otherwise would! Robert: Was "the first sentence I wrote today" original to you, or did you see someone else using? It seems to be absolutely brilliant for the reasons you mentioned -- not a distraction from the real work of writing and maybe even an additional motivation, while still engaging one's (potential) readers. Edward: I don't think I"ve seen anyone else do it. I was inspired to do it by other writers who would occasionally post snippets of something they were working on, and still others who keep a progress chart showing how many words they'd written in a particular day. I just kind of combined the two. Robert: Well, I think it is more effective even than posting first chapters online -- the 'first line I wrote today' gives a real sense of the book unfolding and the style, tone etc., while still working well as a 'tease' since there is not enough to really fill in the blanks without buying the book. I think some day you will receive some kind of award for coming up with the innovation that made blog-based promotion actually work for authors. Remarkably entertaining! So how much time do you devote to your blog/web page typically in a day? Edward: Half an hour to an hour, I'd guess. Sometimes more, sometimes none at all, although I like to get at least one entry on the blog every day. I used to post more science links on the blog than I do now. Partly that's just because I'm so busy right now: when/if things ease off I'll do more of that. The other reason is that I now do some of that as one of the bloggers for Futurismic (http://www.futurismic.com), which is a science- and science-fiction group blog (and also has been, and hopefully will be again, a market for fiction) based in the U.K. I usually manage three or four posts there a week. Each one of those takes half an hour or more to pull together. Then there's my main website, http://www.edwardwillett.com. I want to completely redesign it, but that's a bit intimidating since it has something like 900 pages. I suspect I'll end up essentially creating a brand-new site from scratch and archiving the old one. I don't want to pull it down because there are science columns on it that people have linked to, so I don't want their URLs to change. It looks very late-90s now; very dated. I should mention I also maintain, with some regularity, the news blog for SF Canada, the professional association of speculative fiction writers in Canada, at http://news.sfcanada.ca., and the website at http://www.sfcanada.ca, as well. Both of which I'm currently behind on, I admit, but hope to bring up to snuff soon. Robert: Thanks so much for doing this interview! And good luck with sales of Marseguro-- and I can't wait for the sequel! Edward: Thanks! It's been fun! Labels: interviews, reviews, Willett Edward Willett Interview, Part 3 Robert: I'm always interested in a writer's process. Some writers write by just sitting down at the keyboard and letting things develop as they may; at the other end of the continuum are those that don't set pen to paper until they have a completed outline, a white board filled with timelines and thematic analysis, and a stack of index cards detailing each character, his/her growth, and their interaction with every other character. You've mentioned that Marseguro grew out of a scene you developed in a workshop, but that it was also the first time you sold the synopsis before writing the actual book. So where does your process normally fall on that continuum, and /or can you talk a bit more about how you wrote Marseguro. Edward: The fact I sold Marseguro from a synopsis didn't really change my process too much. I always sit down and do a rough outline, just so I know where the plot is going to go before I start. I'll usually make quite a lot of notes about the world and the characters before I start, too. To create the synopsis, I just put all that stuff into one file and polished it a lot more than I would if it were for my own use. Once I start writing, though, things certainly do develop as they may. Terra Insegura, the Marseguro sequel I'm working on now, is a case in point. I realized I needed to add a new viewpoint character fairly early on so that I could provide the reader with a view on some things happening in orbit while my other viewpoint characters were all on the ground. But once I created that character, he had to have his own agenda, and that agenda has now, as I approach the end of the book, forced me to completely replot the last 20,000 words or so. I don't mind, because I think it's an improvement over what I originally put in the synopsis, but I didn't realize it was going to happen when I created the character several weeks ago now. And I think the last bit I wrote on Terra Insegura, just yesterday, may have some serious ramifications for my expected ending, as well, so again, despite having put a fairly detailed synopsis down on paper to sell the book, I'm also just sitting at the keyboard and letting things develop as they may. The other thing about my process is that I write a complete first draft, and only then go back and rewrite and rearrange and polish. I very rarely back up and rewrite anything at this point: I just want to get a mass of words in place, so I have something to go back and shape. Even when I realize I've missed something important, I don't go back in the story during this stage of writing: instead, I just write a note to myself right in the text and carry on, something like: NEED SCENE DEFINING RICHARD AND EMILY'S RELATIONSHP ON MARSEGURO PRIOR TO MISSION, to give you an actual example. Robert: My next question was going to be if your characters ever surprised you, but I see you've already answered that one. So I'll ask instead, is writer's block ever a problem for you? Or does it all pretty much flow from the outline? How long does it typically take you to write a book like Marseguro? Edward:Depends on how you define writer's block. I can be a terrible procrastinator, which I suppose is a form of writer's block, but once I actually make myself sit at the keyboard, words come very easily. I sometimes think they're absolutely terrible words, and there always comes a point during the writing when I think the whole thing is a hopeless mess and who am I kidding?, but I've learned to push through that. I just tell myself I'll fix everything in the rewrite. Asor how long it takes me to write a book like Marseguro...longer than it should. If I could work on nothing but fiction, I think I could do 3,000 to 5,000 words a day, which would give me a first draft in less than a month. In an ideal world, I'd then have time to share it with some first readers and gather feedback, then a leisurely month to rewrite the whole thing. But in the world I actually live in, I manage more like 1,500 to 2,000 words a day on a good day, so it takes me more like two months to write the first draft, then I rewrite as fast as I can to meet the deadline that I've already had extended slightly... Either way, though, I guess it boils down to about three months or a bit more to produce the mansucript I give to the editor. Editorially suggested rewrites, on Marseguro, then took another four or five weeks. Robert: You're complaining about 2000 words a day and three months to write a novel? You need to talk to those of us who have been grinding away on the same manuscript for 12 years! :-) So out of all the words in Marseguro, which is you favorite bit? Your favorite scene, or your favorite piece of dialog? Edward: 'm rather partial to the scene in which the killer robot chases Emily and Richard into the lava-tube caverns of Sawyer's Point, because it was fun to write, because Sawyer's Point is named after Rob Sawyer, in whose class the book began, and because its a mutated version of one of the first scenes I wrote, back when I was trying to make the tale fit into a short story. Robert: Yeah! Killer Robots! Anyone who knows me knows that I am always advocating for more killer robots in Canadian SF. No, honest! But it really is a good scene and a crucial one in the development of Richard's relationship with Emily, and in his own development. So let me just clarify for readers, these are not stupid Hollywood killer robots, but decently literary killer robots. I'm not helping am I? But it brings up a serious point. Both Lost in Translation and Marseguro are actioners, with strong narratives and strong characterizations, but you still manage to pack in a lot of literary value: complex ethical issues, the evils of intolerance and prejudice and the importance of karma, that you mentioned earlier in this interview. So how consciously do you balance those two elements? Does it all just flow out, or do you have to work in the outline to get the right balance of killer robots and philosophical content? Edward: 'd have to say that the killer robots come first, then I add in the other stuff. I'm interested primarily in telling a good story. That's where the action comes in. I love space battles and killer robots and all that good old space opera stuff. But when it comes to the characters, I try to make them as much like real people as I can. The mixture of realistic characters with extraordinary events is automatically going to bring up complex ethical issues, just as it does in real life. We all struggle with our conscience every day as we choose what actions to commit. Sometimes the choice is clear-cut, sometimes it's a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. Sometimes we do something in the heat of the moment we bitterly regret later, but we still have to live with the consequences of our actions. All these things should apply to fictional characters, too, no matter how speculative the situations in which they find themselves. Labels: interviews, reviews, Willett Edward Willett Interview, Part 2 Robert: One of the things I liked about Marseguro was the complexity of the main, and even a few of the secondary, characters. (This is in sharp contrast with a lot of SF where the viewpoint character is essentially flawless Hero, or at best a Peter Parker flawless Hero-with-angst.) Your viewpoint characters are either slightly damaged individuals or ordinary people (well, aside from the whole gill thing) who have to try to rise to the occasion. And every time they succeed, you keep raising the bar on them for the next task. This makes for very engaging characterizations. So my question is this: if you were casting for the movie version of Marseguro, who would you have playing which roles? Edward: Now there's a question I've never considered. Hmmm. Richad Hansen...how about Nicolas Cage? Seems like an ordinary guy but can do extraordinary things when he has to. Emily Wood...Catherine Zeta-Jones comes to mind, except she's too old. Someone like that, though. I don't see enough movies any more to be able to name somebody more in the correct 20ish age range. Samuel Cheveldeoff...John Malkovich would be interesting. Chris Keating...some unknown and ordinary looking kid appearing in his first movie.
Robert: Hey, I was thinking Nicholas Cage for Hansen too! But does your wife know about your thing for Catherine Zeta-Jones? (Oops! Nevermind...that wasn't an interview question!) In both your SF novels, the protagonists start out with one point of view / set of prejudices, and end up with a very different set of understandings / positions. You've already suggested that character growth is an underlying principle in your writing, but the particular pattern that has appeared in your books is a archetypal Canadian version -- the hero who sets out to achieve one set of goals, but ends the book somewhere entirely different. I don't think any author ever sits down and says, "I'm going to write a Canadian SF novel" and restricts themselves to some textbook's definition of typical Canadian themes, but, upon reflection after the fact, do you detect anything distinctly Canadian about your writing? Edward: Huh. No, I've never thought of it in that terms, and I generally vehemently oppose the notion that there's anything distinctly different about science fiction by Canadians versus science fiction by Americans: I don't like pigeon-holes and I prefer to think in terms of individual authors rather than national identities. Besides, I only just became a Canadian citizen: I was born in New Mexico and we moved to Saskatchewan from Texas when I was eight. I went to university in Arkansas. Most of my life I've been an American only, and proud of it, much to the horror of various Canadian friends who seem to think being an American should be something to be ashamed about. Since I've lived with that attitude my whole life, I generally let it go, but it does rankle. However, now that I'm married to a Canadian, and the father of a Canadian, and since I have, after all, lived here longer by far than I lived in the U.S., I decided I should be a Canadin. But I'm a dual citizen, so I'm still an American, too. Maybe that's the process you see in my characters: starting out with on point of view/set of prejudices (purely American), and ending up with a very different set of understandings/positions (becoming Canadian)! Robert: Works for me! Clearly, Canadian themes have taken over your subconscious! [ I'd argue that analyzing cultural differences is valid because individuals are all products of their environments -- hey, I'm a sociologist in my day job -- but that one has to be careful not to over do it. People who try to dictate particular themes or forms to authors (e.g., Soviet Realism, certain Canada Council juries) are idiots.] So my next question was going to be whether you ever had to consciously edit yourself to sell to the American market, but the answer there is pretty obviously a 'no'. So let me ask instead, how did you end up choosing DAW as your publisher for Maresguro (and Lost in Translation)? And what has that experience been like? Edward:Ah, thereon hangs a fascinating tale. (Well, fascinating to me, anyway.) Ten years ago, at least, I wrote Lost in Translation, a novelization of a short story that I'd sold to the premiere issue of TransVersions magazine in, I think, 1994. I shopped Lost in Translation around on my own. Nobody wanted it. (Including, I suspect, DAW, though I don't have the records to prove that.) Then I got an agent. She shopped it around. Nobody wanted it. (Again including, I suspect, DAW.) She sent it back and quit being my agent. Then, in 2004 or 2005, I got an email from John Helfers, who edits at Martin H. Greenberg's Tekno Books, which packages science fiction titles for the Five Star imprint. Five Star publishes hardcover editions, but really only sells to libraries; indeed, the books are library edition hardcovers, which means that they have the cover art printed right on the hardcover, not just on the slipcover. John wanted to see Lost in Translation. I sent it to him, he liked it, and in 2005 Lost in Translation came out in a Five Star hardcover.  Cover of the Five Star edition of Lost in Translation I was toying with, but hadn't yet acted on, the idea of dangling the published book in front of agents to see if I could get one to take it on in the hopes of selling the paperback rights for me when, one very fine day, I received a phone call from John Helfers, who told me Martin H. Greenberg wanted to talk to me. Which he did. As Greenberg explained it to me, DAW had a "hole" in their publishing schedule and needed book to fill it. Since Greenberg has edited a number of anthologies for DAW, and they knew about his Five Star books, they asked him to send along some of the books published under that imprint for them to consider for paperback publication. Which he did and, lo and behold, DAW picked mine! (So really, I didn't pick DAW, DAW picked me.) With that offer in hand, but before signing the contract, I went in search of a new, improved agent. Ethan Ellenberg responded the quickest and agreed to take me on. We agreed that my next move should be to offer DAW two synopsis for my next book after Lost in Translation. One was a sequel to Lost in Translation, while the other was Marseguro. The response was, "Which one do you want to write?" and after talking it over, Ethan and I agreed that it was better to go with the new idea rather than a sequel to a book that we didn't even know at the time whether or not anyone would like. It was the first time I ever sold a book based only on a synopsis and then had to actually write the thing: like most starting-out novelists I was used to writing a book and then shopping it around for months and years in the faint hope someone would buy it. It was also the first time I had strong editorial input after I turned in the initial manuscript: none of my other fiction publishers were large enough/interested enough. Sheila Gilbert and I spent a couple of solid hours on the phone talking about the manuscript, and at the end of it, I went back and beefed up the story by almost 20,000 words, particularly in the areas of characterization and motivation and the political situation on Earth. A fairly major plot point also made its way into the story during the rewrite, and a good thing, too, because it's a major element of the sequel! I've enjoyed all my dealings with DAW thus far. They've been great. Robert: Fascinating! As part of the discussion of publishers, I usually ask authors what they think about the cover art put on their books. I'm guessing you're probably pretty happy with your covers, since both books look pretty good, but I wonder how much input you had into the coverart. Edward: I had a bit. I suggested scenes that I thought might make a good cover, and in the case of Marseguro, provided some extra description of some of the things that might appear in those scenes. I didn't know what Steve Stone would do with it until I saw the finished product, though, and yes, I was very happy with them both.
Stone is a top-notch cover artist whose art has also graced books by the likes of Stephen King and George R.R. Martin. It'd be nice if some of their sales would rub off on me by association... Labels: interviews, reviews, Willett Edward Willett Interview, Part 1 Edward Willett, author of Marseguro and Lost in TranslationRobert: In my review of Marseguro for Neo-Opsis Magazine, I said that "As the stakes continually rise, the protagonists have to constantly up their game to overcome yet greater obstacles and confront yet more profound ethical issues...As in Lost in Translation the characters have to confront their prejudices, overcome their justifiable hatreds, examine their loyalties and -- even more clearly in this book – Willett seems to suggest that triumph ultimately belongs to the characters who able to experience the most growth. The winners are those who are able to place others over self, whereas the losers are undone by their core selfishness. In Willett's universe, karma counts..." So I have to ask -- did I get that right? Do you believe in Karma? Was that a conscious theme of Marseguro? Edward: I guess I would say I believe in karma as a good organizational principle for storytelling. Certainly I don't see much evidence of it in the real world, where the shallow, foolish, self-centered and cruel can prosper very well, thank you, and live to a ripe old age. But my fictional world isn't the real world--no fictional world is, or it isn't fiction, is it? Since characters who don't grow and change and increase their understanding of their wold and modify their behaviors accordingly are dull, they don't get top billing in my story. I'm not sure it was a conscious theme: I think it's just part of the way I tell my stories. Now that you've pointed it out, I can see it in pretty much all of my fiction to date. Robert: Maresguro revolves around issues of genetic engineering and religious intolerance. What stimulated your interest in those two themes? Edward: mmm. I should probably explain how this story began. In the fall of 2005 I was attending Robert J. Sawyer's Writing Science Fiction class at the Banff Centre, part of their annual Writing With Style program. On September 20, at 9:13 a.m. (I still have the original file, written on my PDA), Rob had us write the opening of a story. I wrote: "Emily streaked through the phosphorescent sea, her wake a comet-tail of pale green light, her close-cropped turquoise hair surrounded by a glowing pink aurora. The water racing through her gill-slits smelled of blood." I liked it. So did the others in the class. And so I began to develop it further, thinking that it would be a short story, then. (I didn't think of it as a novel until I needed a synopsis to present to DAW, with, obviously, happy results!). I wasn't thinking genetic engineering when I wrote that opening couple of sentences (neither of which exist in the finished book, by the way). But in order to have someone who seemed to be human, with a very human name, who also had gills...well, genetic engineering seemed to be the way to go. Also, genetics were on my mind because I had recently written Genetics Demystified, a basic introduction to genetics, for McGraw-Hill. And also because the genetic revolution is happening now, all around us, and may well alter society in the future even more than the computer revolution. So genetic engineering wasn't something I set out to write about, so much as it was a way to justify the existence of a character I wanted to write about. That said, genetic engineering intrigues me because of the prospect it holds of humans being able to alter some of the things that have defined being human for millennia. Are we still human if we can breathe water, or fly, or see in the dark? Are we still human once we can start altering the design of our brains, the very way we think? There are lots of interesting questions in there for SF to explore. As far as the religious aspect...I should say up front I'm not anti-religious. Far from it. I grew up in a strict Christian household. My father was both a preacher and a teacher at a private Christian school. I attended a Christian high school and a Christian college, and many of the finest people I know are Christians of the sort that many of the other people I know, through science fiction and theatre, would dismiss as bigots or idiots or both. (I sometimes think if I could get all of my friends together in the same room at the same time, there would be a massive matter-antimatter explosion.) But there is a mindset that afflicts some people that moves them from "This is what I believe, and will argue for passionately," to "This is what I believe, and will force others to believe...or punish them for not believing." In my book, this mindset is found in The Body Purified, which is a religion (though one of my own devising, not one that exists today). But it's also a mindset that can be found amongst people of, say, strong political belief, or any other kind of strong belief: the notion that others cannot be allowed to have their own opinions about whatever it is you believe in so passionately, but must be forced to agree with you...or, failing that, at least forced, through whatever power you can bring to bear, to act as if they believe in it. In Marseguro, the Body Purified has a LOT of power to bring to bear, because it has become the world government of Earth. But although the Body Purified is a religion, it's not just religious intolerance I have a problem with: it's intolerance of all kinds. Robert: Your mention of Genetics Demystified brings up another question I've been dying to ask, if a little off the topic of Marseguro. Many SF fans think of Marseguro as your second book, but in fact you have a stack of young adult novels, nonfiction books, and biographies behind Maresequo and Lost in Translation; and I first heard of you as a science columnist and radio personality; and I've seen some TV science reporting you did; and I can't help but notice your Facebook portrait here is you performing in the musical, Beauty and the Beast. So, who are you really? Novelist, nonfiction writer, actor, singer, or, radio personality, or science columnist? When people ask you what you do for a living, which answer comes first?  Edward: I guess I'm "All of the Above." I tell people I'm primarily a writer, but I act and sing as a sideline. If asked what kind of writer, I say I think of myself as a science fiction and fantasy writer first, but nonfiction is my bread and butter. Really, I'll do anything for a buck! Robert: Oh, let us say rather that you are the embodiment of the modern day renaissance man! Labels: interviews, reviews, Willett Interview with Edward Willett I'm doing an interview with author Edward Willett on Facebook for the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy group (moderated by BC author, Donna Farley) to coincide with today's official release of Marseguro, Ed's second mass market SF novel. I'll reprint my questions and Ed's answers here when it's done, but if you'd like to add your own Q and A to the process, join us any time between now and Thursday Feb 7 on Facebook. You can also read the first two chapters of the book at Ed's site and view the book trailer. My review of Marsguro is in the current issue of Neo-Opsis or you can read the positive bits excerpted on Ed's blog Ed's Blog. Labels: interviews, reviews, Willett New SF ImprintNot the sort of SF I write -- or usually read -- but nevertheless an interesting announcement:University of Ottawa Press Announces Speculative Fiction Imprint The University of Ottawa Press is very pleased to announce its new speculative fiction imprint, Cangrande. The imprint will include books of “science-based fiction,” novels which draw heavily on current scientific research. In the tradition of Francis Bacon, Mary Shelley, and Aldous Huxley, Cangrande books will emphasize the social and ethical challenges technological innovation poses to human existence, and explore the utopian vision of the future promised by science and materialism. “We are very excited about this new imprint,” says UOP Marketing Manager Jessica Clark. “It signals an important shift in our publishing program towards trade books. We also feel that Cangrande’s editorial mandate fits perfectly within our scholarly list. Though these books use the novel form to dramatize scientific progress and the ethical issues that it raises, at their heart, these books are based on the most important scientific research happening today. And the scientists and philosophers who are writing these novels deserve to have their books respected both as literary and scientific creations.” The inaugural Cangrande title, already available, is Hera, or Empathy by William Leiss, the first book of the Herasaga, a three-book cycle about a group of sisters who were genetically engineered to have increased cognitive abilities. Leiss, noted risk management expert and scientist, will also act as the director of the imprint for the next three years. He believes that the speculative fiction genre creates important social dialogue: “With each passing day, new discoveries in the natural sciences are perceived by citizens as increasingly important for everyday life. Many of these discoveries also raise social and ethical issues that deserve wide and protracted discussion. The genre of science-based fiction provides a new opportunity for the public to learn about these issues and to become engaged in thinking about them.” For further information, please visit www.uopress.uottawa.ca Labels: Popular culture, reviews, writing |
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