Prime Time Replay:
Lucius Shepard
author of Life During Wartime, Kalimantan,
and others
MsgId: *omni_visions(1)
Date: Thu Sep 25 20:18:36 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
Welcome to OmniVisions. Tonight at 10:00 PM EDT, our guest will be writer and sf luminary Lucius Shepard. As usual, the show will take the form of an interview for about the first hour, and we'll open up to audience participation about 11:00 EDT. Join us!Lucius Shepard is probably best known as the author of such works as "Life During Wartime" and "Barnacle Bill the Spacer," Lucius has also spent years performing as a rock musician and traveling all over the world. His writing has been likened to that of Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene. We look forward to seeing you in a couple of hours.
It's now 10:00 PM in NYC, so as soon as we hear from Lucius we'll get started. (soft sound of nonchalant whistling and occasional foot-tapping heard in background)
MsgId: *omni_visions(5)
Date: Thu Sep 25 22:06:49 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Hi, sorry!
MsgId: *omni_visions(6)
Date: Thu Sep 25 22:08:05 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
Hi There! I guess we were waiting on opposite street corners.
MsgId: *omni_visions(7)
Date: Thu Sep 25 22:09:01 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
My fault. I was talking to the imaginary folks in the SF Cafe.
MsgId: *omni_visions(8)
Date: Thu Sep 25 22:09:11 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
Let's start right in: What are you currently working on? The imaginary folk are amongst my favorites.
MsgId: *omni_visions(10)
Date: Thu Sep 25 22:10:25 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Me, too. They don't serve as good martinis as real people, but hey...At present, I'm working on a mainstream novel concerning the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in Dade County, FLA, and messing with a science fiction book,working title, "The Martinique," and doing a novella which will form the last section of a story cycle concerning an immense paralyzed dragon.
MsgId: *omni_visions(14)
Date: Thu Sep 25 22:17:55 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
That last would be part of "The Man who Painted the Dragon Griaule"?
MsgId: *omni_visions(15)
Date: Thu Sep 25 22:19:12 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Right. It's almost finished, and takes place at aboutt he time of the end of "The Man WHo Painted...".
MsgId: *omni_visions(16)
Date: Thu Sep 25 22:21:09 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
That has been a wonderful series. I presume (or at least hope) that these will be collected under one cover...?
MsgId: *omni_visions(17)
Date: Thu Sep 25 22:23:07 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Hopefully. The last section is much the longest and concerns a hunter with a rather mystical bent who's searching for a mysterious creature that lives unerneath the dragon's wings.
MsgId: *omni_visions(18)
Date: Thu Sep 25 22:25:14 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
I find it interesting that you're working on a fantasy, a sf story, and a mainstream novel all at the same time. How do these disciplines differ for you, if at all?
MsgId: *omni_visions(19)
Date: Thu Sep 25 22:29:04 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
There's not much difference in the way I'm approaching them now. The novels are both longish and complicated. Perhaps if this were ten years ago, I'd see that they had different problems. But now they're just novels to me. The science fiction novel is interesting in that the narrator is a charactor who has acccess to the thoughts and memories of poeple who's lives span three thousand years, and so this allows a very complex structure. The mainstream book is more linear.
MsgId: *omni_visions(20)
Date: Thu Sep 25 22:30:30 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
Do you set out to write in a particular milieu, or do the stories just come as they will and end up falling where they may?
MsgId: *omni_visions(21)
Date: Thu Sep 25 22:34:31 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
My stories all derive from characters in whom I'm interested, mostly people I've met or fragments of my own personality. So I usually write in a present day or near future millieu. Occasionally, I lapse into fantasy, and those stories--like the dragon stories--are essentially set in a time out of time, non-specific. But plot, for me, always derives from character, and so all the setting and stuff comes later, and what I choose as setting is what the characters demand.
MsgId: *omni_visions(22)
Date: Thu Sep 25 22:36:22 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
When you teach at Clarion (the f/sf writer's workshop) do you teach this, or is your week more genre oriented?
MsgId: *omni_visions(23)
Date: Thu Sep 25 22:40:53 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
I don't distinguish between the two forms. When I first started writing, I perceived s-f to be a genre in which plot was necessarily more important than in non-genre writing. The plot, I thought, had to set more in the forefront of the story. Now I think that it's important to approach anything I do from essentially the same stance. So what I teach at Clarion is what I feel about all forms of writing. I usually talk a lot about the importance of establishing character, beacuse most novice writers don't have their characters wholly in mind when the set out to create a fiction. But what I teach also depends, of course, on what the preceding teachers have covered.
MsgId: *omni_visions(24)
Date: Thu Sep 25 22:44:46 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
Do you think ot perhaps hope that the genre(s) may be moving from the concept of "idea as hero"? Or perhaps, if you're not following the field closely right now, do you think this would be a good direction?
MsgId: *omni_visions(30)
Date: Thu Sep 25 22:59:49 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
I think what we now consider science fiction will gradually come to refer to Wheatie-box-sized volumes with garish covers and inept prose. It seems to me that the more ambitious writers of genre fiction, those who are not dealing with dark force and heroes and page after page of data relating to gas reduction are being absorbed by the mainstream. If published today, the work of people like Russ and DIsch would probably be published as mainstream.
MsgId: *omni_visions(31)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:02:39 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
A good point. And Delany, I'll warrant. What are the differences between writing novels and the short form?
MsgId: *omni_visions(32)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:02:58 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Ôver the past decade there have voices raised more and more frequently against so-called literary sci-fi, and the formation of groups like the whatchacallit Post-Joycean society who blame James Joyce for their own ineptitude as writers, etc. etc., for taking the story out of writing. It amazes me that the genre has taken to breaking writers down into two groups, storytellers and stylists. As if Gene wolfe, by virtue of writing good sentences, can't tell a story.
MsgId: *omni_visions(33)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:04:28 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
(Message to all: We have now opened the forum for audience participation. If you would like to add your comments or chat with Lucius Shepard, use the dialog box which should have been added to your screen by now. (Click on "Pause While Typing", first.) Please don't forget to sign your messages so we know who you are.)That's an interesting observation. Yet, there are a lot of new writers (and old hands for that matter) who are creating what Rob Kilheffer refers to as "Stealth SF". It belongs to the genre, but it isn't explicitly sf. Some of your best work could be thusly described, and I think a number of fine writers are following suit.
MsgId: *omni_visions(36)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:07:40 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
From a writer's standpoint, he difference is basically financial. I've read a lot of bad novels that would have made good novellas. The short form can have a kind of rock and roll impact, like listening to good album for the first time. A novel -- a good one -- at any rate is something to savor. The novel is what I'm mostly interested in now, though I am planning to do some stories. Writing a novel is something I really don't yet understand . . . that is, I'm not sure what I'm doing. I have to feel my way in matters of pacing and so forth, but I'm finding much more satisfying than I did earlier in my career. Which means, I guess, I feel more capable.
MsgId: *omni_visions(34)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:06:55 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 206.79.40.74
Gatorbait here . . . Any truth to the rumors of a Staten Island novel?
MsgId: *omni_visions(38)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:09:12 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Gatorbait, yeah, I've got "The 'Velt" about 3/4 done, and I'm hoping to write the last 100 pages next year. It's a very depressing piece, quite in keeping with the part of Staten Island I lived in.
MsgId: *omni_visions(37)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:08:47 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 207.146.209.186
Will A Handbook of American Prayer be published anytime soon?
MsgId: *omni_visions(40)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:10:57 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Handbook's a sad story, but with a happy ending. I lost most of the novel in a computer accident. It's now sitting here finished, but I need to go over it again. I think I'll have some time toward the end of November, and put an end to that piece of business. Zeisng will bring it out within three months of delivery.
MsgId: *omni_visions(42)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:12:06 EDT 1997
From: EllenDatlow At: 38.26.14.75
Lucius, I have a question for you from the illustrious Lawrence Person, who cannot be here himself. He wants to know if "GORMENGHAST" was a large influence your writing of "THE GOLDEN."
MsgId: *omni_visions(44)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:13:11 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
You're the 2nd writer I've spoken to this week who's lost important work due to computer accidents. Maybe we should hold some remedial safety tips. (I do tech support in one of my real lives.)
MsgId: *omni_visions(45)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:15:20 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Ellen, I don't think Gormenghats wasa conscious influence, though I'm certain -- since I read it -- it was to some degree an influence. But I've often had large complicated structures in things I've written, like the bayou mansion in "GREEN EYES," so I just think that weird big houses are something I tend to like. IT's sound that such houses in dreams signify women. For what that's worth.Actually, Jim, I took my computer in to a Mac fix it place in Manhattan and they totally blew the recovery. So . . . go figure.
MsgId: *omni_visions(41)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:11:56 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 199.174.156.10
How has the way you work changed, say from Green Eyes, to the Andrew book you're now writing? Ben_T
MsgId: *omni_visions(47)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:16:52 EDT 1997
From: EllenDatlow At: 38.26.14.75
Hey, Lucius, I was in Jungian therapy years ago and I was told many rooms in houses was more about personality/gifts in yourself, etc. NOT women:) (and what would it mean to a woman who dreamed that, in your pov?)
MsgId: *omni_visions(48)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:18:45 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
We'll talk about that recovery job offline . . . ;-) Who would "you" say your antecedants are? We've now heard you compared to Mervyn Peake, Joseph Conrad, and Grahame Greene.
MsgId: *omni_visions(49)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:19:15 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Ben, I think I have to leave it to readers to define how the work has changed. But I feel that my characters in the new stuff are much more idiosyncratic, muc more clearly articulated, and that the stories I'm telling are much more peculiar than the old ones, even if they aren't science fiction or fantasy. My appreciation of the world, it seems, has grown more perversely individual.My antecedents? It would be a tremendous honor if someday my work were to mentioned as a footnote in the leterature of the expatriate along with that or those writers you mention. I suppose Conrad, but truthfully, I think my new work my share obsessions more with writers like Josef Svorecky and weirdos like Mishima and etc. Obviously I'm not as accomplished as they are, but I have faint hopes yet.
Ellen, in your therapy, they're parts of persoanlity; in my dreams, they're women. How about that.
MsgId: *omni_visions(52)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:25:01 EDT 1997
From: EllenDatlow At: 38.26.14.75
Hey, Lucius, I can accept that.
MsgId: *omni_visions(53)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:25:14 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
Have you considered adapting your work to other media, or having others do it? (I know "Life During Wartime" is under option.)
MsgId: *omni_visions(54)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:25:31 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Okay, we're set then, Ellen.I wouldn't want to skeletonize my own work, and that's what you have to do to write a screenplay from a novel. "Life During Wartime" has a screenplay written by Harley Peyton, and is under option to Gale Anne Hurd and Phillip Noyce. I'm interested in screewriting, but not in trying to adapt my own work.
MsgId: *omni_visions(56)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:28:04 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 207.146.209.186
How long are you planning to continue your work on "Vermillion?" - Josef
MsgId: *omni_visions(58)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:29:51 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Vermillion is toast, cancelled after 12 issues. But I'm doing a mini-series for Vertigo, a five parter entitled "The Bamboo Union," set in contemporary Vietnam, and they're thinking about doing a voodoo book called "BLACK SUN."
MsgId: *omni_visions(57)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:29:30 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
Would you write original screenplays?
MsgId: *omni_visions(60)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:31:47 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Yes, I am doing some original screenwork, but I'd prefer not to talk about; in fact, I'm sworn not to do so by a certain paranoid partner of mine.
MsgId: *omni_visions(59)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:31:20 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 199.174.156.10
As a writer who once worked as a musician, is it fair to ask if a knowledge of composition, in the musical sense plays a role in how envision and structure a story?
MsgId: *omni_visions(63)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:34:34 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Music -- Yes, that's interesting. I haven't really thought about it, but now I do, I actually believe it may come into play in short fiction especially. To give anything apporaching an intelligent answer, I'd have to think about it more, but I do notice sometimes that I tap my foot when I write , and, more seriously, I think it has some effect on the way I look at pacing.
MsgId: *omni_visions(62)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:33:44 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
Fair enough. Persuant to our phone conversation, is there any forthcoming screenwork in sf that you admire?
MsgId: *omni_visions(65)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:38:17 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Screenwork, absolutely. I saw a screening of The Truman Show from a script by Andrew Nicol, who wrote and directed "Gattica." Both these films are very good science fiction, science fiction in the best sense of the word, free of monsters and explosions, and the Truman Show, though not as good as the original script, isgoing to be huge. The original script was very Kafka-esque, in that it reaveled itself slowly, but in the movie all the info is front-loaded, which is kind of a drag. Never-the-less, Peter Weir coaxes an amaxingly good performanc out of Jim Carrey, and the screening audience gave it a standing ovation. Big hit. "Gattica" will do well, I think, but no as well as TTS.
MsgId: *omni_visions(66)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:39:41 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
I saw Gattaca, and was "very" impressed. Do you think there could be an upsurge in "quality" sf filmmaking?
MsgId: *omni_visions(64)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:37:24 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 207.146.209.186
When you find time to read, do you indulge in SF works by contemporaries . . . Connie Willis, Dan Simmons, Kim Stanley Robinson . . . Josef?
MsgId: *omni_visions(67)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:40:11 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Of course I've read and admired books by Stan, And Connie, And Dan Simmons, and have enjoyed them. But lately, I've been readin for different purposes, lots of non-fiction and very little fiction, most of it mainstream. I've only read about three novels in the last six months. "Texaco," "The House of Dead Girls," and "Cold Mountain."
MsgId: *omni_visions(68)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:41:26 EDT 1997
From: EllenDatlow At: 38.26.14.75
It's "THE CHURCH OF DEAD GIRLS" and it was terrific. You recommended it to me and I think it's the best horror novel of the year, so far.
MsgId: *omni_visions(69)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:42:10 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
I think this guy Andrew Nicol is going to be a very significant figure in bringing a new perception of what science fiction can be to the Hollywood community. As I said, I think both these movies are going to make money, and if that's so, Nicol is going to be very influential. I think he'll help make it possible for a much broader spectrum of sf to be filmed.Yeah, "Dead Girls" is a class act. Definitely a cool book. Hope it brings Dobyns some $$$$$.
MsgId: *omni_visions(71)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:43:32 EDT 1997
From: EllenDatlow At: 38.26.14.75
Where did Nicol come from? What' his background. Is Gattica his first movie?
MsgId: *omni_visions(72)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:44:58 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Ellen, Nicol is a Brit. He sold the Truman Show for 2.5 million, amidst a huge buzz, and got a directing deal ass part of the package. "Gattica," his first film, is part of that package.
MsgId: *omni_visions(73)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:45:45 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
Do you think hyper-media has anything legitimate to offer for fiction, or is it just a gimmick? Better yet, can you imagine or devise a medium in which you'd like to work? (This is my version of Barbara Walters' "If you were a tree, what kind would you be?")
MsgId: *omni_visions(74)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:48:23 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Well, I find it easier to answer Barbara's question -- I'd be a monkey puzzle tree. I'm so unafmiliar with the hypermedia deal, anything I'd say would be foolish. But since I'm being foolish anyway, my perception is that the web is not going to be as big a deal as once was thought. I see more as a fad like CB radio that will have it's day and then dwindle down to a more reaspnable proportion. But then, who am I to prognosticate? I don't have a very good record in doing so.
MsgId: *omni_visions(75)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:52:13 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 207.146.209.186
Plan to include "Taylorsville Reconstruction" and other early stories in any future collections (US)- Josef
MsgId: *omni_visions(77)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:54:21 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Right now we're talking about doing big selected stories thing, which might include some of the earlier stuff. Depends on the publisher to a great degree. I wouldn't mind seeing a collected stories, even though I'm no longer happy with most of them. But I am putting togeher stories for a new collection of stories I'm writing now, and I really have high hopes for it.
MsgId: *omni_visions(76)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:53:58 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
Getting back to your current writing, did anything personal in your life bring on the Dade County book? I just happened to travel through there briefly during that period, and it was a memorable, depressing and simutaneously uplifting scene.
MsgId: *omni_visions(79)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:56:31 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Yeah, I grew up in Florida, went through a number of hurricanes, some pretty damn big, though not Andrew-sized, and I was down in Dade after the big one. I've always had a curious affection for Florida, especially South Florida, and I reall am having a bll with this project. I used to spend serious party time in Miamiduring high school, so a lot of my dead brain cells are drifting around down there.
MsgId: *omni_visions(78)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:55:48 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 207.146.209.186
Who's the publisher (of selected stories and new)? Josef
MsgId: *omni_visions(80)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:58:00 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Josef, there's a negotiation going on about the selcted stories, so I can't say yet, and I haven't put out the new collection yet, because I'm still working on a few pieces of it.
MsgId: *omni_visions(83)
Date: Thu Sep 25 23:59:26 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
Well, there ya go. Luciusm thanks both for being here, and for your writing. It's refreshing to find iconclasmic work handled so superbly.(hmm... Iconoclasmic is a new word, I think. I'll try to copywrite that typo.)
MsgId: *omni_visions(85)
Date: Fri Sep 26 00:00:53 EDT 1997
From: Lucius At: 199.174.177.37
Okay, Jim, thanks. See y'all later.
MsgId: *omni_visions(86)
Date: Fri Sep 26 00:02:24 EDT 1997
From: EllenDatlow At: 38.26.14.75
Thanks Lucius, Jim, you were both at top form:)
MsgId: *omni_visions(87)
Date: Fri Sep 26 00:02:30 EDT 1997
From: Jim_Freund At: 207.38.234.221
And thank "you," Lucius Shepard. To all, thanks for coming by. Don't forget that next Thursday, Ed Bryant will host Melanie Tem, discussing her new book, "Black River." The following Thursday, Oct 9, my guest will be James Morrow, who'll be discussing "Blameless in Abaddon," the sequel to his tour-de-force, "Towing Jehovah." Good night.
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