21
Aug
2007
Back in the Saddle
I guess it’s kind of official — my short story “The Eyes of God” is going to appear in that Solaris anthology I was cringeing about the other day. Dave Nickle thinks it comes a wee bit close to being pro-pedophile, but hey — at least I’m officially writing again. I wonder if NAAMBLA publishes fiction…
More Questions from the Queue:
- romripper: have you ever written a book, and at the end thought it was rubbish and started again? I always think a book is rubbish when I’m finished. Except for Starfish. Unfortunately, I’ve never had time to start again, because every book (except, again, Starfish) has been written under deadline. There’s a famous quote — offhand, I can’t remember the attribution — to the effect that we writers never finish a story. We only abandon them.
- ^*(ĞØã+)*^Ħ€ΛΛЇ~┌╦╤─: have you ever gotten sort of “attatched” to some of your characters and not wanted to end the story? I got kind of attached to Lenie Clarke. That was Tor’s fault, actually; I had originally killed her off at the end of Starfish, but my editor thought that was too much of a downer ending for an American audience, so I had to keep her going. Which led to two sequels. I rather like the way Lenie’s arc progressed throughout the course of those books, although I know at least one guy who laments her metamorphosis from bad-ass to pussy in Behemoth.
- Quinion: What profession did you want to be in when you were growing up? Marine biologist, and science fiction writer. I kid you not. I even remember the moments at which those ambitions sunk in: I was five when I decided I wanted to be a marine biologist, and I was seven when I decided I wanted to be a writer. In hindsight, given my obvious ability to stick with goals long-term, I probably should have just decided to be rich. But noooooo.
- .:>TN<:MüÐVª¥Ñê9³™: has a dream u've had at night given u an idea for a book ? Once, long ago, I dreamed of a perfect engineering solution to the problem of putting feet on beachballs so that they could walk autonomously. I still remember that solution to this day. Sadly, I have been unable to interest anyone in any story in which beachballs with feet play any kind of role. Prejudice and intolerance still thrive, even in these supposedly enlightened times.
Next time, maybe some gaming questions. And no, I will not be handing out her phone number.
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Actually, John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon’s classic Dark Star featured a beach ball with feet in a very significant role. We need more walking beachballs to establish a proper subgenre.
Adam Lipkin beat me to it, the first thing that came to mind was Dark Star when reading this post
Same thought here. An evening of Dark Star and nachos and beer could probably lead to walking beachballs dreams no prob.
D
Funny, I thought immediately of Dark Star as well. Come on, Peter! We really, really need that walking beachball story…
-Hannu
I have a friend who’s absolutely convinced that Dark Star’s walking beach ball was the inspiration for Alien’s Xenomorphs.
Cow_2001: I think that your friend might be confused by the fact that Dan O’Bannon is the writer on both movies.
No, they’re right — According to “The Book of Alien”, the original screenplay was supposed to be more or less inspired by Dark Star: a dysfunctional crew scares up a medium-sized creature. It was supposed to be called “Star Beast” or somesuch crappy title, IIRC. Then they got some money behind the project and everything scaled up.
I had not seen Dark Star when I dreamt of footed beachballs, but I had read the novelization by Alan Dean Foster. I’m pretty sure that was the inspiration.