>03-14-13:Sophie Littlefield Reads from 'Aftertime' at SF in SF on February 9, 2013
Click image for audio link.
"These characters are called Beaters..."
— Sophie Littlefield
Sophie Littlefield is a busy writer. I first encountered her work not at SF in SF, but in the San Francisco Chronicle, when they featured her latest novel, 'Garden of Stones,' a harrowing story of growing up in Manzanar. Given the serious subject and well-written treatment, one might be surprised by the range of Littlefield's work. But pleasant surprises are always welcome.
Littlefield is probably best-known for her Stella Hardesty series of mystery novels about a fifty-something crime-solving sewing-shop owner in Missouri. There are four books in the series thus far; 'A Bad Day For Sorry,' 'A Bad Day For Pretty,' 'A Bad Day For Scandal,' and 'A Bad Day For Mercy.' These novels manage to be tough, fun and original, with a great take on the kick-ass woman protagonist. Littlefield tells us that she is finishing up the latest novel now. This is the sort of novel one might think would be perfect for adaptation into a television or movie series; but what you miss in any is the author's prose voice.
She has another mystery series in the hopper as well, the Joe Bashir Crime series, which kicks off with 'Blood Bond.' He's a Pakistani-American Detective, who, in the opening novel, solves a murder that harkens back to a fatal hazing incident. It has the grit of the Bad Day books, and her take on the Joe Bashir rings nicely true.
So, given all of this thus far, you might be understandably surprised that she's also the author of the AfterTime series, in which the zombie apocalypse has been delivered by your ever-helpful government, always just one bad experiment away from bringing an end to all those pesky problems.
The series began with 'AfterTime,' which has three sequels thus far; 'Survivors,' 'Rebirth' and 'Horizon.' Littlefield's take on this genre is quite nuanced and original. Unlike many, she uses the zombie trope to explore characterization, not eliminate it. Her heroine, Cass, spent time as a "Beater," which is the appellation given to the cannibalistic humans in this series.
At SF in SF, Sophie read from 'Aftertime,' segment that is well, fairly dire, and probably not at all what you'd expect from the author of 'Gardens of Stone' or 'A Bad Day for Pretty.' But then again, art and voice break through no matter what the genre. You can hear Sophie Littlefield's actual voice reading from her actual zombie novel by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
03-11-13:A 2013 Interview with Karen Russell
"...we've made these strange mirrors...."
— Karen Russell
Sometimes when you talk to an author, you find yourself having so much fun that it is difficult to focus on the task at hand. Fortunately, as I spoke with Karen Russell about 'Vampires in the Lemon Grove' and 'Swamplandia,' her work in both was so good that I managed to keep on point.
I do edit my interviews, a bit and here I snipped out some of my boilerplate disquisition on the virtues of Frank Herbert's 'Dune' as an exemplar of world building. But as it happened, Russell told me she was in the middle of re-reading 'Dune,' which to me bodes extremely well. I would love to see Russell carve out her place in the world of Space Opera. I can imagine that she would craft an incredible, unforgettable universe.
That said, she certainly crafts a variety of worlds in her latest collection, and it we had a lot of fun discussing her world-building techniques. It's clear to me that Russell is an intuitive writer, who with each word reaches into a nebulous gray space just outside of her own mind to snatch the unknown and give it a form that happens pretty much before her own eyes. This is why it all feels so real and so fresh.
Now, in a different world, if Russell and I had been sitting at a table in the cafeteria just outside a library, for example, we probably could have spent the entire hour discussing just Frank Herbert and Flannery O'Connor. That may seem like an odd pairing to many readers, but to me, and I believe to Russell, these writers have a lot in common.
One of the things I had wanted to talk to Russell about was the presence of these almost alien outsiders in her stories. "Reeling in the Empire" has the Agent, "Proving Up" has the Inspector, and 'Swamplandia!' has the Bird Man.
All of these figures reminded me of one of my favorite Fortean legends, the Bogus Social Workers. Seemingly bland and bureaucratic outsiders who are looking into the conditions of childcare, the Bogus Social Workers are really quite chilling. Reports of these figures first arose in the UK in the 1990's, but they have been seen as recently as last year in Vermont. In Russell's stories and in the Fortean lore, these figures are realistic and ostensibly helpful while they are simultaneously surreal, unreal and definitely threatening. Russell pulls off this mixture well.
08-21-15: Agony Column Podcast News Report : Senator Claire McCaskill is 'Plenty Ladylike' : Internalizing Determination to Overcome Sexism [Incudes Time to Read EP 211: Claire McCaskill, Plenty Ladylike, plus A 2015 Interview with Senator Claire McCaskill]
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Emily Schultz Unleashes 'The Blondes' : A Cure by Color [Incudes Time to Read EP 210: Emily Schultz, The Blondes, plus A 2015 Interview with Emily Schultz]
07-05-15: Commentary : Dr. Michael Gazzaniga Tells Tales from Both Sides of the Brain : A Life in Neuroscience Reveals the Life of Science
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Michael Gazzaniga : "We made the first observation and BAM there was the disconnection effect..."
04-21-15: Commentary : Kazuo Ishiguro Unearths 'The Buried Giant' : The Mist of Myth and Memory
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro : ".... by the time I was writing this novel, the lines between what was fantasy and what was real had blurred for me..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Marc Goodman : "...every physical object around us is being transformed, one way or another, into an information technology..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 199: Marc Goodman : Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It
