John Kessel
Q-1.
Do you think a certain generation gap really exists, or, if not exactly a gap, do you feel some kind of distance between veterans who started their careers before 1960s and the younger generation Y in our genre, at least?
A-1.
I agree with John Klima’s description of the typical arc of a writer’s reading as he or she ages. We tend to have less time to read, and tend naturally to read those writers we know, unless we make an effort. I also agree that it’s a bad habit to get into. But I don’t think there is necessarily a prejudice against newer writers involved-I think it’s more laziness and habit and lack of time.
I think most writers who started in the 1960s are not likely to be reading the generation of writers who came of age in the oughts. But there are undoubtedly exceptions.
Q-2.
Do you think the general atmosphere for the genre is less passionate now than, say, thirty years ago? I know there are fewer voters for the Hugo, and even those voters usually vote for their favorite works now, rather than the ones we can boast about as the representative masterpieces of the genre that particular year, as cornerstones of SF history.
A-2.
I think the audience for written sf, though it may be larger in absolute numbers, is considerably smaller in comparison to the total numbers of fans of Science Fiction in all media than it was thirty years ago. And their passion for, and familiarity with, the broad range of written sf is also less. Thirty years ago SF was still a minority taste, confined to people who devoted much of their imaginative lives to reading sf. Even then the rise of media sf and fantasy was changing the nature of the readership and fandom. Now I culture of written sf is divided into sub-groups for whom there is little consensus on what recently published works constitute classics.
Q-3.
Has fandom changed? Or is it writers who have changed? What are the things that concern them most? They used to be the moon, rockets, a-bombs, wars, urbanization, etc.
A-3.
SF is about different things today. Space travel sf is almost nostalgic. The icons you mention are mostly yellowed and crisp around the edges, and if you want to write about, say, “urbanization” today you have to reinvent the term. “Urbanization” was a mid-20th century concern, and reeks of 1950s sociology. No one can write about that in the way, say, Silverberg did in Tower of Glass. And that’s a good thing. Likewise A-bombs and robots.
Q-4.
What do you think about the current state of SF? How do you like recent works by the newer generation of writers? Who is your favorite among them, or writers to watch? Can you recommend them to your personal friends who have never read our genre?
A-4.
I try to read some newer writers, but I confess to not being current on many of them. I meet people at conventions and at workshops whose work I then go on to read, or if I hear a lot about them, I will seek them out. But I am far from being conversant with the vast number of new writers.
The fact that I consider Ben Rosenbaum, M. Rickert, Paolo Baciagalupi, Vandana Singh, and even Kelly Link “new” writers shows how much I am from a different generation. They are all well along in their careers. But I like their work, and learn from them.
Q-5.
Which of your works would you like to be read by Japanese readers?
A-5.
Read my collection, The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories. And my old stories “Invaders” and “Buddha Nostril Bird.”
Q-6.
What is your current work? Your next project?
A-6.
I just finished editing a reprint anthology with James Patrick Kelly titled The Secret History of Science Fiction. Looking back over sf from the early 1970s to today, by writers within sf who write literary stories, from literary fiction writers who occasionally write sf, and by crossover writers.
I have two new stories coming out, "The Motorman's Coat" in F&SF, and "Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance" in The New Space Opera 2 edited by Jonathan Strahan and Gardner Dozois.
