Authors: IGMS
SCHWEITZER:
The earliest things of yours I can remember are a couple stories in
Amazing
in the early '80s. One was called "A Game of Crola," and was eerie and serious -- was that your first sale?
FRIESNER:
No.
Q: -- and then there was "Dragonet," which was more the work of the Esther Friesner we all know. So, where does it all begin?
FRIESNER:
As far as selling stuff, the first thing I got published was in
Asimov's
SF
, when George Scithers was the editor. He had this wonderful, wonderful, kind thing he did, which was to send you back checklists with "This is what you did wrong" for very common mistakes. Then you would start getting letters, which would say, "Okay, you have learned from the checklist and you are making
un
common mistakes," and then finally you would stop getting letters and you would get a check and a contract with no letter whatsoever, and that was great.
I believe my first sale through that route was called "The Stuff of Heroes." It was about a romance writer who had no talent for writing, but she was scientifically gifted, so she had created the first reading system where you got a palpable hologram of the hero. You started the book, the hero appeared, and you were cast in the role of the romance heroine. And of course he was extremely dishy, and well, hijinks ensued.
That was obvious "go for the comedy" gold. The second one was more ironic comedy. It was called "Write When You Get Work," also sold to
Asimov's
, about a solution to overcrowded prisons, and what happens when you are dealing with the results of that solution.
And from there, on we went. I've done funny stuff; I've done serious stuff; I've done horrifying stuff. It's always a lot of fun for me, because, well, if it isn't fun, why am I doing this? The glamour, the respect, the huge piles of rubies. . . . [Laughs.] Yeah, I would, but nobody has been offering me huge piles of rubies. What's the matter with this system?
But that is where my first sales of science fiction and fantasy started.
SCHWEITZER:
You have to admit there are certain perks. There may not be piles of rubies, but I doubt that many mainstream literary writers were ever carried into a convention room on a palanquin borne by scantily-clad, muscular slave-boys.
FRIESNER:
Well, you know, that's because they never
asked.
That's the problem. Usually I ask for something -- see rubies, above -- and I
get
it. Plus, we live in a frighteningly creative community and there is always someone who thinks, Gee, that would be fun. Let's see if we can get together and do that.
So I was in a discussion, and we were talking about what's your fantasy, and I mentioned being borne in triumph on a sedan chair by very nice looking young gentlemen. Some friends of mine said, "Okay, we can do that for you at Balticon," and they did, but you know what the problem is? More people found out about it and I couldn't turn around without someone saying, "Hi, we've got a sedan chair. We've got a bunch of scantily-clad young men. Would you like us to do that again?" I've had that done now three times. I think it's enough and it's time to move on to the rubies.
Are you paying attention? That's
rubies.
SCHWEITZER:
I saw it done at a Phrolicon.
FRIESNER:
Yes, that was the second time.
SCHWEITZER:
I have always appreciated your ability to move on before the gag goes stale. For example, we are beyond Cyberprep now. But it was great while it lasted, a response to Cyberpunk, and a way to promote good manners and niceness in science fiction in the 1980s.
FRIESNER:
I am, I confess it, sometimes a curmudgeon. I now hear people laughing and going, "Sometimes?
Sometimes?
she says. The sun sometimes rises in the east."
But, long, long ago, when Cyberpunk first started, there were a number of its advocates who being very vehement about the fact this was
it.
This
was
what science fiction was going to be. This was the one, true science fiction. There could be no other. Anyone who thinks there can be any other kind of science fiction -- insert rant here.
And I was just listening to this, and my curmudgeonly nature took over, which is basically expressed in the mantra, "Well says
you."
I thought about it, and having observed the way the world works, I concluded that things get accomplished -- whether it's the exploration of space or whatever -- when there is money to be made for someone. So probably the conquest and exploration of space isn't going to be accomplished so much by the people with the chips in their heads as by the people who have the money to start with and want more of it. At the time, "Preppie" was a kind of icon. It was the days of
The Preppie Handbook.
So, instead of Cyberpunk, all this nitty-gritty, I thought we should start Cyber
prep,
because if space will be conquered, it will be conquered by the trust fundees who are terribly polite about it. But you don't want to get in their way. They can be ruthless.
So, it was a very nice joke. I was in this with Susan Shwartz and Judith Tarr as well. Once we had the core idea, we started riffing on it. I wrote the Cyberprep manifesto --
SCHWEITZER:
It wasn't --
FRIESNER:
It wasn't a manifesto.
Pronunciamento
because a manifesto is
ever
so Red and well, Communism is just
so
inconvenient to our interests. I went around a convention getting people to sign it. I got Isaac Asimov's signature. I still have that document, so it is probably now worth, oh, many rubies.
And we had a party to launch Cyberprep. From then on we started having other parties to continue it. Pink and green were the Cyberprep colors. The alligator was our symbol. We had very lovely tea parties. We had a butler at one. It was just a good joke, and then after a while, as with after a good joke, we decided it was funny enough and we stopped it. But it was
fun
while it lasted.
SCHWEITZER:
I was one of the signers. My Cyberprep name was "DC." John Betancourt was "Biff."
FRIESNER:
Yes.
SCHWEITZER:
Do you remember the Cyberprep blazer? There was going to be a final Cyberprep blowout at, I think, the Atlanta Worldcon in 1986, or it might have been New Orleans two years later. There was a power failure and the party was not held.
FRIESNER:
I wasn't even there.
SCHWEITZER:
Then I can tell you a story. I had worked out the proper male Cyberpreppie attire for this. I was wearing a green blazer with a pink alligator on the pocket, which I had made by drawing it on an piece of pink cloth and cutting it out, because I couldn't find a pink Izod alligator. The party was cancelled but I decided to wear this getup anyway. I was wearing a pink shirt, green spaces, a green tie, and penny-loafers, along with my Cyberprep button, and I got into an elevator with Susan Shwartz, who just lost it . . . and missed her floor.
FRIESNER:
[Laughs.] Oh . . . my . . . goodness. . . . Now I do remember that when we had a Cyberprep party at a World Fantasy Convention, Susan brought a bread in the shape of an alligator, and we gave Jane Yolen the first Lizzie Award. It's a big lizard like the one on all those preppie shirts. But just before we served the alligator-shaped bread, Susan raised a knife and yelled, "Think of the New Sun, Alligator!" and chopped its head right off. It was
grand.
SCHWEITZER:
We almost reach a serious point here. The essence of comedy is timing, and the essence of timing is knowing when to stop. This must be the essence of comedy writing too.
FRIESNER:
It depends on the type of comedy. But sometimes people get tired of a joke. You can't tell the same joke over and over unless you're making that movie,
The Aristocrats,
I suppose. But there is always something new to write comedy about, because there is always something new that annoys me. Good comedy, as many people have said, makes you think about things. I always wind up citing Terry Pratchett, because he writes wonderful comedy, and it does make you think about certain things you've just kind of sailed through unconsciously in your day-to-day life. He actually makes you pay attention, and say, "Wait a minute. Is that right? Is that good? Why are we doing this again?"
But before Terry Pratchett, what my father used to read to me for bedtime stories was Walt Kelly's
Pogo.
And
Pogo,
some of it sailed right over my head, all of the stuff he wrote during the McCarthy Era. He had a character, a wildcat who was a caricature of Joseph McCarthy, known as Simple J. Malarkey who started a witch-hunt in the swamp. It was a blood-curdling thing if you knew what was going on in politics. But I was six years old or something, and I just thought it was funny. And then they had the Jack-Assed Society. I didn't know about the John Birch Society. I didn't know why my father was laughing hysterically reading about that. But there was enough for him to think about and appreciate, and for me to appreciate as a kid.
That's another thing about good comedy. Some things are "in" jokes. You can't do something solely based on an "in" joke unless you know that your entire audience is going to get the "in" joke. For instance, if you say "Red Shirts," from
Star Trek,
more and more people know the joke about the red shirts. Whoever wears the red shirt in classic
Star Trek
on an away mission, if he's not one of the main characters, that guy's not coming back. If you wear the red shirt, you're gonna die. Ensign Expendable.
This joke has gotten so accessible that on an episode of the cartoon show
Kim Possible
-- it's always fun, though it is a repetitive gimmick where the characters get sucked into a television and go through all the shows. She winds up in a
Star Trek
type universe. She contacts the kid who is her anchorman. He is a prodigy at the computer. His name is Wade. She says, "I'm in some kind of sci-fi show and I am stuck in this shirt," and he says, "What color is it?" "Red." "Oh my God! I've got to get you out of there in a hurry!" And, apparently enough people know the red shirt joke. Years ago, there wouldn't have been enough people who did for it to work.
So you have to have something to make everyone laugh, those who know the "in" jokes, and those who don't know the "in" jokes.
SCHWEITZER:
As we edge into satire, it would seem that a lot of successful comedy is complaint. Comedy is in effect the use of laughter to prevent things from becoming too bitter. You're talking about your curmudgeonly side. So, have you written a lot of comedy as a form of complaint?
FRIESNER:
Oh, you bet. I am not particularly meek, but I am small and slow, so my ability to effect any sort of change could result in my getting hurt by the people I am complaining about. So, if I can't do anything else, I can at least point out some of the things I find to be ridiculous and hurtful.
One of the stories I wrote was called "'White,' Said Fred." I was driving home, listening to public radio, and they had a story about how in England skinheads were now not merely targeting Pakistani immigrants; they were targeting the children. These full grown men were harassing Pakistani schoolchildren.
I was livid. Now, obviously, even if I were in England, what could I do about it? I am not exactly the sort to go over to a skinhead and say, "And you must stop that now." So I just had to get rid of all the anger I felt about this, and I wrote "'White,' Said Fred," in which three skinheads, who are definitely "We are the master race" supremacists, find a genie in a bottle who turns out to be a skinhead as well, and he gives them the requisite three wishes. Of course they try to change the world to fit their prejudices, and hijinks ensue. I got to do dreadful things to them and that is the closest I'll ever come, but gosh, it was fun.
SCHWEITZER:
Lately you're been writing lots of fiction based on Greek mythology. Would you say something about that?
FRIESNER:
I don't know why, but I have lately been on quite the Helen of Troy kick, and other Greek mythology aside from Helen too. I don't know why. I think it might be, "Oh, I've got a new toy," or it might be that there is so little told about her. In the stories of the Trojan War she is portrayed as not much more than "This is the woman who started it all. She is so beautiful." Even at the end of the war her husband doesn't kill her when he gets her back, because she exposes her breasts to him, and he drops his sword. "Oh, ten years of war. You ran off with that guy. All these other guys are dead, but -- wow!" He takes her back.
I wondered, first of all, is that all there is to her, just a pretty face and a pretty . . . what she exposed? I wanted to explore the character in both historical directions. I wrote a story called "Helen Remembers the Stork Club." I took Helen of Troy because she's half divine. Well, she probably wouldn't have died so young. So I said, "What happens to a woman whose whole identity is that of the most beautiful woman in the world, but she continues to age?" She doesn't age at the normal rate, but she does age. Now here she is in New York City where, if you are a woman of a certain age, people tend to turn you invisible on the street. They bump into you. What if you are that woman of a certain age, and you have been so beautiful that no one would dare overlook you? How does she cope with this new identity? It's almost like Gloria Swanson's role [Norma Desmond] in
Sunset Boulevard.
She used to be this gorgeous movie-star, glamorous, and now all she's got are her memories and her delusions. I did not turn Helen of Troy into Norma Desmond, but I had fun exploring how the character would deal with being there and being who she was and who she had been.
I am also doing the backstory of Helen of Troy, which hasn't been told. What we have of Helen's story, Troy aside, is her conception -- Leda and the swan -- her birth, coming out of an egg, and her twin, Clytemnestra, who was the only half divine. There were four children born of the union of Leda, Zeus, and Tyndareos of Sparta. Two of the children were Tyndareos's children. Two were Zeus's. So two of the twins were mortal: Helen's sister Clytemnestra, and I forget whether Castor of Polydeuces was the mortal of those two. But the other boy was, like Helen, half-divine.