Being Garrulous (again) with Benjamin X. Wretlind (Part 2)

This is the second part of a conversation between author Benjamin X. Wretlind and myself. Please see Part 1 here.

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MKR: Besides leaving a legacy through your writing, is there anyone you hope to inspire? Is there any message you hope to convey, any ideas you want to put out into the world?

BXW: I think you touched on a sort of running theme when you interviewed me way back when. I like to say people are the sum total of their experience and if we just look at the outside, we'll never really understand them. That often leads to stereotypes, discrimination and even bullying. For example, in each sketch in my novel Sketches from the Spanish Mustang, there is one man who is seen through the eyes of each character.  Most assume he's a crazy nut, a homeless man who talks to himself.  However, there's a very long history to that man--war vet, disabled, wife and child, etc.  Why does he act in a particular way, and why does he appear the same, yet different, in strangers' eyes?

I used to think people were generally bad. There was no good in them, so why bother to understand them. The older I get, however, the more I've started to see each person as that sum total of their history.  If that's the case, if I interact with that person don't I become another summand in their equation?  Shouldn't I want to instill something of value to their present?

I do have a lot to say on this subject, but I'll leave it at that right now.  For your part in writing science fiction, what do you want people to see in your characters? Do you have a central theme you're running off right now?

MKR: When one is a child, it seems that everything and everyone is good and beautiful. Sadly, some children learn too soon that that is not the case, like Maggie, in Castles. I think that as we age the misery in the world overshadows the beauty of it. We may remember a beautiful spring day for a short while, but we'll really remember the tornado that took out ten houses the next block over and swept a family of four into oblivion. A kindness done to us by a fellow human being may linger in our memory for a day, but an act of vicious cruelty can haunt us for a lifetime. I fully understand, then, the inclination to see people as inherently evil, especially considering the influence of Christianity on our culture that very explicitly states that the reason we no longer reside in Paradise is because of our wickedness. And it was this view of humanity as inherently base, as our bodies essentially worthless when weighed against the immortal soul, that led to the terrible conditions of Medieval Europe during which most everyone's life was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short," to quote Thomas Hobbes. And the worst part was, that was accepted!

In my view, it really took Enlightenment thinking, humanism and deism, to introduce to the Western world the idea that every human life has worth, every human being deserves to live peacefully and free of oppression. Here was an idea that if there is no immortal soul, if this body, this life, is all we have, how can any one of us justify bringing misery to another human being? We still haven't achieved the ideal of the Enlightenment but we are much closer and at least now the goal is there, where before there was only doom and gloom.

I love your view of human interaction. Yes, we each play a part in the lives of everyone else we encounter. Some of these roles may seem trivial but suppose it is something as simple as smiling at a stranger who looks sad? We may have brought a little joy, a little hope, to that person. We must always attempt to give value to one another's lives rather than take value from them. This is the foundation for forming a more-ideal society.

Now, after all that, I will answer your question. I realize I do go on. You asked "...in writing science fiction, what do you want people to see in your characters? Do you have a central theme you're running off right now?" In Sullivan's War, I hope that readers go away asking two very simple questions: what makes a man good? and what makes a man bad? This is touched on in Book I but explored in more depth in Book II. I don't have an answer for that. I am reminded of the difference between morality and ethics: if one is moral in the Christian sense, one does not lie. So, if one were living in Nazi Germany and a Jew ran by followed by the SS who asked which way he went, you would have to tell them the truth to remain moral. But if you are to be ethical, you must lie and send them in the wrong direction. I know situational ethics get a bad rep and I do believe there are universal ethical laws, just as there are universal physical laws. But it's something to think about. To whom do you owe your ethical fealty?

Another idea I explore in Sullivan's War is that of justification. Is it acceptable to do a "bad" thing if it ultimately leads to a greater good? In your stories, it seems your characters engage in an awful lot of justification but of a more personal, selfish kind. This also interests me. We seem to be able to justify an awful lot if it serves our own greater good. Counteracting this is one of the key challenges of society, I think. Is this a theme you have intentionally been exploring in Sketches from the Spanish Mustang?

BXW: I don't know if that internal justification is a subconscious result of turning 40, but Sketches from the Spanish Mustang is filled with it. I'd like to think I've been impervious to middle age, but the more I write, the more I realize I'm probably not. I really enjoy exploring a character's inner child, what makes them who they are. In A DifficultMirror, which I started when I turned 28, actually, the history of a person is forced out in the open and how they deal with whatever mistakes they've made is explored in depth.  That's dark fantasy, however, not reality. In reality, we all have our skeletons, our histories we hide away so no one can see.  However, no matter what we do, we are the sum total of our parts and we can either accept what we've done or try to justify it in some way. 

As I sit here talking about this, I realized that the characters in my upcoming novel Driving the Spike must justify their actions. Are they good, are they bad? Much like you explored in Sullivan'sWar, there is a difference between morality and ethics. Did you start out with that theme before you penned the first word of Sullivan's War or did it come out as you wrote it?

MKR: It evolved. Sullivan's War started as the story about Frank Allen investigating the murder of Assemblyman Gene Palmer. From there it got tied in to Sergeant Riley's Account, then a third story I had written called "Promises," the story of a bounty hunter tracking down a criminal, got incorporated into the beginning of Sullivan's War: Book II. Now, early on I must have decided that Sullivan's War would address these issues of right and wrong because the title All Good Men Serve the Devil was there from nearly the beginning. I actually wrote out a bit of dialogue to incorporate that line before I got to that scene in the book. By the time Book I was finished, however, I felt that it was heavy on action but character development and exploration of theme were a bit lacking. I attempted to correct that with Book II.

My next project, Chrysopteron, started a bit aimlessly but as I wrote the overarching theme began to reveal itself. It was at that point that I wrote an outline to make sure I hit on all the thematic points I wanted to address: hope, loss, faith, sacrifice, right and wrong (again). I ended up shuffling the organization a bit and added another story line but the thematic structure remained intact. I hope readers will pick up on it and appreciate what I am trying to do. Of course, the reader applies additional meaning based on his or her own perceptions. I think the best authors are able to convey their own meaning but be subtle enough about it that the reader happens upon it without explicitly being told. But I guess some readers will completely miss the point, no matter what you do. Do you worry that readers will completely miss the point of your work? Do you care, as long as they pull some meaning from it? Or are you even content for your work to be perceived as just an interesting story, with the reader taking nothing away?

BXW: I really don't worry about what readers get out of my novels, as long as they get something.  There's a meme that's been passed around regarding meaning that you've probably seen.  "What the author meant" vs. "What your English teacher thinks the author meant."  While I can laugh at the simplicity of the author's statement ("The curtains were blue") and the teacher's meaning ("The curtains represent his immense depression and his lack of will to carry on"), I find this meme more telling of what literary snobs think we should get from a novel.  For example, if the New York Times says Castles reeks of abuse and discord, then to me they didn't get it.  Conversely, if the Colorado Springs Gazette says Castles is a view into the growth of a woman through abuse and neglect and carefully questions how environment can affect genetic mutations in the brain, then I think they're pretty close.  Now, what do my readers come away with?  I would hope the literary snobs don't mutate my message, and I hope I write it clear enough that it sinks in with the masses.

I've been very focused on the themes presented in Sketchesfrom the Spanish Mustang. As I mentioned before, it's important to me that I impart the idea that people are the sum total of their days and not just a present manifestation with or without obvious merit.  I do worry the message won't reach the reader, but all I can do is try.

Do you ever worry?

MKR: Do I worry about the message not reaching the reader? I wouldn't say I worry, per se, but I do make a point of writing afterwords for my major works. I do this not so the readers "gets it" but because I want to communicate with the readers on a more personal level. I want them to know what went into creating the story, the inspirations, etc. I think that knowing these things does enrich a text.

I like how the focus of much of your work is trying to make the point that a person is the sum of his or her experiences. It's a profound message, and yet so simple. For example, I am the product of very fortunate circumstances. Because of where and when and to whom I was born, I have been able to cultivate a life of ease and comfort in which I can spend a great deal of my time writing, reading, traveling, focusing on art, philosophy, etc. rather than worrying about where my next meal is going to come from. Reading about the problems that the characters in Sketches from the Spanish Mustang face really reinforces how good my life is, how petty my problems.

Do you think that you are trying to point humanity (or America, at least) in a different direction? Do you want readers to go away thinking that if people are the sum of their experiences, perhaps society as a whole could do something to make some of those experiences more positive? Or is it up to individuals to engage one another and help their fellow human beings along?

BXW: Afterwords are often my favorite part of a book, and I really enjoy reading them.  James Rollins typically puts in a fact or fiction section at the end based on his research.  I know it sounds petty, but that's cool.

I really never thought my writing could point America or the world toward any lofty goal, however I would like to reach at least one person.  It's very important I leave a mark on someone's life, whether or not that's with Sketches from the Spanish Mustang, Castles, the upcoming A Difficult Mirror or the next novel I'll start working on this summer.  That next novel--Driving the Spike--is probably going to be the closet I get to pointing humanity at anything, but I sincerely doubt it'll have the lofty impact I want it to have.

I think there's something to be said about a person who engages another without expectation of reward, and even the smallest attempt to help another can make the biggest impact.  To help without expectation of reward, I truly believe, makes a man (or woman).  Most of us drop money into the Salvation Army bucket during the holiday season, but how many take a full Saturday and sort donations in a food bank warehouse or stand on a serving line at a soup kitchen or walk ten miles for autism research?  These things are small and there is no reward save the feeling you get for helping.  Sadly, there are a lot of people who don't look at life this way; they expect something tangible in return for their effort--getting paid to be a foster parent, getting a t-shirt from a MS walk, showing off some certificate from the two hours they did something for someone.  Helping shouldn't be like that.

I guess I got on my soapbox again. I tend to do that.

Inventing a Universe

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch,

you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan

Let me begin with a confession: I believe in parallel universes. I believe that any possible universe that can exist, does exist. There are people much smarter than I am who could tell you all about string theory and probabilities and lots of other stuff that it requires a degree in physics to pretend to fully understand, so I won't get into that. I will only say that I have no proof for this belief. There is nothing supporting it besides faith. Just as I have faith that there is a creator, I have faith that there are parallel you's, parallel me's.

As a writer I am completely astounded by the fact that everything I write, everything that I put down on the page, has or is or will happen to someone in one of these universes. The Myriad Spheres universe in which the Sullivan's War story line takes place is really out there (or over there, as the case may be). When I write, do I somehow subconsciously tap into this reality? Probably not, but it's an idea that I fancy.

So when I find myself writing about this universe, I feel like I owe something to the people in it to get it right. And this is where another confession comes in: I didn't get it right.

The very first story I wrote in this Myriad Spheres universe is a short story called Sleep. All the elements were there that would eventually lead to this fully-realized universe, encompassing forty-six inhabited planets, most of them governed by an interplanetary body called the Stellar Assembly. This idea of thousands of freighters traversing the cosmos via hyperspace was also there. But I didn't quite know why all these freighters would be, for the most part, privately owned. In fact, the justification for this system wouldn't come until much later, in Sullivan's War: Book I - All Good Men Serve the Devil:

     The interstellar passenger ships were among the largest of the space-faring vessels. There were, of course, larger cargo vessels operated by a few corporations but most freight was transported by smaller ships. Due to the vast distances and long travel times between markets a system of small-fleet operations, or even individually-owned cargo ships, had developed. A corporation, no matter how organized, simply couldn’t keep track of its ships and cargo on such a large scale, especially when news of any problems or delays took months to reach headquarters.
     Passenger operations were a little different. Flights didn’t have to be arranged on short notice to fulfill the varying demands of the interstellar marketplace. The passenger flights were scheduled years in advance. Every Monday a flight left Earth for Faris, every Tuesday for Oceanus and so on. And with an estimated sixty billion people spread out across forty-six inhabited worlds, there was never any shortage of passengers.
     Often, those who needed to make last-minute plans would have to book passage on the much more frequent and flexible freighters.

Now, this is something that worked to my advantage when it came time to write Sullivan's War. Rick Sullivan needed a way to get from planet to planet under the radar and he could do this on freighters but not on passenger ships. But this has nothing to do with my mistake. In fact, in Sleep there are two.

First, I list the travel time between Silvanus and Faris as thirty days aboard the Ares, which I mention is an older ship and isn't moving as fast as newer vessels. When I finally sat down and plotted out all the distances using tokens and a tape measure (writing science fiction is sophisticated work!) I discovered that it would have to be one month and twenty-seven days for all the other travel times in Sullivan's War to make sense. Oops! I highly doubt that any reader would ever realize this (or care) but it made me realize that it is very difficult to invent a universe, even if it is already out there, fully formed, just waiting for my psyche to tap into it.

The second mistake I made has to do with the planet Faris itself. In Sleep, the main character Jane searches the Freight Transporters' Database and finds out that Faris allows for orbital disposal of waste. If you've read Book II of Sullivan's War you'll know that the Farisians are highly protective of their planets' environment and probably wouldn't cotton to this sort of thing. Oops!

I know that as I continue with the Rick Sullivan novels and write other stories in this universe (I have half a dozen ideas to develop) I will make more mistakes. But you should know that I really am trying to get it right. I am trying to keep the details of this universe consistent, I am trying to create a believable world, given a few not-outrageous suspensions of disbelief. And I think that readers are responding to this. I have had several nice reviews commenting that they enjoyed the political nuances that are at play throughout the Sullivan's War series and that the universe seems plausible and authentic. I am trying to make this universe as real as possible, and that includes creating a full history that takes into account politics, technology, the biology, geology and environments of various planets, inter-planetary conflict and more than a few remarkable individuals like Rick Sullivan who are destined to have a greater impact on history than most other people.

I take great pride in inventing this universe and if you have read Sleep or the Sullivan's War series, I want to tell you a secret: there are many elements within each story that, if you like my writing and continue with it, you will see come into play in future stories. It is my hope that each story I release will contain a small nugget of information that savvy readers will pick up on and remember when they read the next book. Just to reveal a couple, the hyperspace entities that are introduced in Sullivan's War: Book II will play a very big role in Rick Sullivan's future adventures. And the Squamata, the species native to Edaline that were introduced in the Prologue to Sullivan's War, Sergeant Riley's Account, will make an appearance in Sullivan's War: Book III.

If you haven't read any of my work but do decide to pick up one of my books, I hope this information will enrich your reading experience and bring the Myriad Spheres universe alive for you. It is very much alive for me and despite the unsavory elements that inhabit some planets (and the Stellar Assembly) I think it's a place full of wonder and excitement. If you would like a glimpse of it, please see the links below.

Best,
Michael K. Rose

Related Links:

Sullivan's War: Prologue - Sergeant Riley's Account
Sullivan's War: Book I - All Good Men Serve the Devil
Sullivan's War: Book II - A City without Walls
Sleep - A Science Fiction/Psychological Horror Short Story

Oh Boy! Politics and Religion in Writing!

     I sometimes wonder if it’s possible to be a writer and be non-political. Not in the sense that one is a news hound and watches the debates with bated breath, but in the sense that one has a very clearly-defined political ideology. I wonder this, of course, because as I write I find my own political ideology slipping into my stories. I do not intend to do this; it’s just that as I write situations seem to naturally arise that ask--nay, beg--to address political issues.

     In the Sullivan’s War series, the whole idea of political corruption is, of course, an ongoing theme. I suppose some will read it and say “Aha! He’s commenting on our own current administration!” Others might read it and say “I’m with him! There’s no doubt that he’s referencing a certain administration that ran for, oh, say the first eight years of the 21st century.” And still others might say “What a scathing metaphorical indictment of the Taft administration!”

     I find this interesting but the truth of the matter is, I’m not doing any of it. The Stellar Assembly, the main governing body in Sullivan’s War, is not flawed by way of design; it is flawed because it relies on human beings to carry out that design. And believe it or not, human beings are flawed.

     Our main flaw, I think, is that of greed. Give a group of people a supply of anything and one or some of them will grab a larger handful than the rest. The greedy person will, of course, justify this behavior in a variety of ways and will no doubt not see themselves as greedy but as somehow “more deserving” or “more capable of managing the resource.” If anything will be the downfall of human civilization, I believe it will be this trait.

     I think the Prologue and Book I of the Sullivan’s War series are very open to interpretation. It’s a bit accidental that it turned out that way but I’m glad it did. Now, Book II, due out on March 30, will probably reveal my political stripes a bit more clearly. I considered the effect this may have on readers. Will they like me and my work less if their political beliefs happen to run counter to mine? Will my work be polarizing, with some proclaiming me to be a genius, others calling me an ignorant hack?

     I figure the only way to avoid this from happening is to focus not on politics, but on religion. There’s a safe subject. Questions about the afterlife do arise in Sullivan’s War: Book II, but those questions are left largely unanswered. However, my next project after Sullivan’s War, a novel called Chrysopteron, deals rather directly with the issue of religion.

     Briefly, it is about a generation ship called the Chrysopteron that is en route to a distant planet. An event occurs aboard the ship that gives rise to a new religion and this religion becomes a point of contention for the future inhabitants of the planet once they begin to realize that many of the things they believe may not be true. The novel touches on many themes but one of the issues it examines is this: is religion a net positive or a net negative for society? It also asks whether or not historical fact should be an acceptable tool to condemn a religion. Specifically, are the merits of a religion really dependent on whether or not what its adherents believe is true? Can a religion survive being exposed as a complete fabrication? Can the religion carry on with its followers now viewing their mythology not as historical fact but as moral allegory?

     Of course, like any good religious story, there must be ambiguity. What really happened aboard the ship? Sure, the legend that arose around this particular event is exposed, but the event itself… was there something more to it? Will another event that occurs in the story’s “present day” assume the same significance that the first did for the main characters’ ancestors?

     Now, I know that many will read Chrysopteron and see it as a condemnation of religion. It is not my intent for it to come across that way, but the story requires it. What I mean is, if the religion in Chrysopteron is not called into question, there is no story, at least not the story I wanted to tell. This is one of the reasons that, despite being nearly finished with Chrysopteron, I intend to spend a few more months on it. I want to make a strong point, of course, but not in a way that will alienate readers. I want to leave readers asking questions about their own beliefs, not feeling as though I’ve made an obstinate proclamation regarding religion.

     In the end, I realize that tackling such issues as politics and religion is bound to leave some people unhappy. But for whatever reason these two things are so inseparably tied to our history and our culture that any writer is missing exploring a significant part of the human condition if he does not address it at least occasionally. And I do not believe a person ever became a writer so that he might be timid. So if you are a writer I say to you: be bold but be considerate. If you have a particular point of view to express do not do so with rage and bluster. Rather, let your skill as a writer allow you to weave that point into a narrative where it will find a natural home, where it will engage the minds of your readers and, even if they close the book disagreeing with you, will at least have them closing it thanking you for engaging them with grace and humility. There are highly political authors who never learned this lesson and they are the truly polarizing figures. They are the ones that drive a wedge between opposing sides rather than bringing them together in civil debate. With my writing I hope to do the latter.