IGMS Issue 32 (17 page)

SCHWEITZER
: Regarding Magic Realism, there is an indelicate quote which I will have to clean up a little before I can repeat it in the august pages of Orson Scott Card's magazine. I paraphrase Gardner Dozois. Suppose there is a voice in a part of the human anatomy whence voices do not customarily issue. If it is caused by aliens, that's science fiction. If it is caused by demonic possession, that is fantasy. If no one cares, that's magic realism.

Gardner's version was funnier, but I think the distinction is valid. That is, if "magic realism" actually means anything, it represents the attitudes of non-scientific, non-skeptical cultures, in which what we would call "the supernatural" is taken for granted as part of daily life. It is the extreme polar opposite of the Lovecraft approach, in which hard-headed skeptics with a firm grounding in science go mad at some violation of natural law. Magic realism is basically saying there are no natural laws. Can this be a valid and deliberate approach to fantasy? Can it be something which somebody outside of the original South American context can deliberately assume for purposes of a story?

BLAYLOCK
: Gardner's definition seems to hit the nail on the head. (I have it on good authority that Gardner was once on a panel at a convention where he was asked a question regarding what constituted science fiction. I don't know whether the question came from the moderator or an audience member. Supposedly part of his answer suggested that one might write SF like Blaylock: "Is that a dinosaur in the bushes or a trick of shadow?" And leave it there, the reference to the dinosaur being enough to qualify the story as science fiction. Gardner is an insightful guy.) I have very little science in me. There was a time in my youth when I was a monumental tropical fish enthusiast, and could remember the genus and species of hundreds of freshwater aquarium fish, especially if they were bizarre. I'll never forget that the purple striped gudgeon is in fact mogurnda mogurnda mogurnda. That's as close to "science" as I've ever gotten. When I've had an opportunity, I've happily put a gudgeon or a leaf fish or a Surinam toad into a story, thereby infusing it with scientific . . . validity. When I was in physics class in high school, I confused mass with volume. My teacher explained to us that an astronaut hurtling through space would increase in mass as he approached the speed of light. I immediately pictured an enormously fat astronaut shoe-horned into his ship, bulging out through the portholes, a sort of giant balloon man, dangerously overinflating. I innocently mentioned this during the class discussion, thereby striking the teacher speechless and then moderately angry. It seemed apparent to him that I was making fun of him and of physics in general, something that I deny (unless I'm around scientific types, in which case I insist that I was only fooling). In fact I was entirely innocent, which made it clear that I had no chance of writing science fiction, and so I fell naturally into writing fantasy.
The Digging Leviathan
featured a mechanical mole built of a vacuum cleaner and parts purchased at a Sprouse Reitz dimestore. Ace Books put an SF logo on it, explaining to me that if a book had a machine in it, it was science fiction by default. Homunculus was science fiction because it involved vivisection and an animated skeleton (or so I suppose).

All that being said, I'm going to have to be careful with this question in order not to sound like a lunatic, although it occurs to me that it's too late for that. The truth is, I'm no rationalist or materialist or anything of that nature. I'm happy to believe in ghosts and in the paranormal, although in an eccentric and (in a literal sense) unpopular way. I wrote a story titled "The Other Side," about a character who is confounded by evidently paranormal experiences - small, inexplicable, irrational, useless things. That was the only story I've ever written that was virtually entirely autobiographical. There's a long record of very convincing plesiosaur sightings in the open ocean and in deepwater lakes, well up into the 20
^th
century. Science has no truck with such nonsense, but I'm happy with it. Science had no regard for giant squids until a batch of them showed up one day, although mariners had for a thousand years reported seeing enormous sucker marks on whale carcasses. One day, maybe tomorrow, a plesiosaur will appear in Los Angeles Harbor, and science will take it on the chin once again. If Gardner's definition of magic realism is correct, then I'm one of those non-scientific, non-skeptical types that dwells on the fringe of the cultural norm. I'm not sure that one has to have come from South America or some other exotic place to qualify in that regard. In fact, I find southern California quite moderately exotic from time to time. (I've also read and reread Charles Fort.) The term "magical realism" has a highly intelligent ring to it, which makes it appeal to me. "That Blaylock is apparently crazy!" "Not at all, he's a Magical Realist."

SCHWEITZER
: What are your writing methods like? Are you an outliner? Someone who starts from an image, or a word? You will recall how Tolkien one day jotted down "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit" with no idea what that meant, and all else followed. Are you like that, or are you one of these writers who wants to know where he is going first?

BLAYLOCK
: I'm an outliner, although not as ferociously as some writers I know. I'm generally prodded into thinking through a novel by a combination of setting and character, both being vitally interesting to me. I carry on a schizophrenic conversation with my computer for a period of several months, during which time the plot swims into focus and begins to reveal itself as a series of scenes. When I've got enough of them in my mind, I try to write an eight or ten page double-spaced outline, which I use to hustle the book to a publisher. Meanwhile I start in on the writing process, at which point I put the outline into the drawer. I rarely look at it again, because the nature of the beast is fixed in my mind. The best stuff, without fail, is suggested to me during the writing process itself, and very quickly the outline seems to be flat and uninteresting, hence my diminishing interest in it
.

That's my method. One last thing: my first novel,
The Elfin Ship
, was pure shooting-from-the-hip. Lester del Rey agreed to buy it after telling me that it had a completely senseless, crappy, stupid plot, but that he'd send me a contract if I would throw away the second half of the novel and send him a plot synopsis that would work. There followed two or three pages of information informing me (not always kindly) about the nature of plots in general. My experience with Lester and Judy-Lynn del Rey was like one of those Scared Straight programs where enormous tattooed felons scream at fifteen year olds. Without them, however, I'd probably have become a beach bum.

SCHWEITZER
: So, what are you working on these days?

BLAYLOCK
: At the moment I'm in between books -- plotting out two new ones, actually. I've just finished thinking through a sequel to my recently published novel
Zeuglodon
, and I've got some notions for a new Steampunk novel swirling around in my mind. I'm waiting for it to stop swirling and stand still, so that I can see what it actually looks like. Two weeks ago I mailed in the manuscript of a short Steampunk novel to Subterranean Press -- a novel titled
The Pagan Goddess
, which will be published as a companion volume to
The Ebb Tide
and
The Affair of the Chalk Cliffs
(ideally with J.K. Potter illustrations). Not long ago I got a new agent -- John Berlyne of the Zeno Agency, London -- who's a real taskmaster, and he's got the strange notion that I must write more. I plan to be cooperative in that regard.

SCHWEITZER
: Thanks, Jim.

Welcome to Issue 32 of
IGMS
. The staff had a few health challenges recently, so we're running a bit later with this issue than we had hoped. But life goes on and so do the stories.

Our cover story this issue is "The Temple's Posthole" by Megan Hutchins. In a tropical setting where healing magic is derived from the foundation of the architecture, deep in the jungle lies a secret temple with powers beyond imagining - and a totally different purpose.

"Notes on a Page" by Barbara Barnet-Stewart is a wonderfully whimsical yet thoughtful side trip into the world of music. And when I say "trip," I am being quite literal.

Michael Banker's tale "Through the Veil" is a fairy tale-type story with a Korean setting, waltzing back and forth through the thin gauzy barrier that separates the living from the dead.

Part II of the novelette "The War of Peace," penned by Trina Phillips, is the conclusion of a story begun in our last issue. Humans have planted their new town atop the breeding grounds of The Family, a race of six-armed aliens more than capable of physically forcing the humans to leave. But The Family's leader Ardam thinks an alternate plan of attack might be more effective.

And Ian Creasy's clever story "Winning Veronica's Heart" turns a comic from an alternative reality into the spokesman for anyone who's ever loved and lost . . . and lost, and lost, and lost.

Also in this issue, Darrel Schweitzer's InterGalactic Interview with James P. Blaylock, one of the earliest pioneers of Steampunk.

And since this is the first issue of 2013, it's time to reflect back on 2012 with our annual
IGMS
Reader's Poll. All subscribers can go to the voting page and vote for their favorite B&W interior illustrations, their favorite stories, and their favorite cover illustration. You'll be asked to rank your top 5 stories and your top 5 B&W interiors in order of preference, and then you'll be asked to select you single favorite cover illustration. It's that simple. It's also important, because the winners in each category get cash prizes. And if you need further incentive to support your favorite creators, everyone who casts a vote will also be entered into a drawing for one free hardback copy of
Ruins
, the second in Orson Scott Card's Pathfinder series, autographed by the author. So there's something in it for everyone. (Odds of winning depend on the number of entries, blah blah blah, etc etc etc, insert usual and customary contest disclaimers here_______). So . . . vote early, vote wisely; just make sure you vote. It's the only way to be entered into the drawing.

Enjoy.

Edmund R. Schubert
Editor,
Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show