Conducted for
Seattle 2001 WorldCon Bid Progress Report 2
by Linda Deneroff

Tell me a little bit about your fannish background.

Susan

Fannish background. I was raised in a house full of readers because we spent a lot of time overseas, where you couldn't readily enjoy the local media because it was in a foreign language. As a result, we did a lot of reading when I was growing up, and books were passed around from my older brothers and sisters on down.

My brother, Robert, subscribed to a Science Fiction book club, and I can remember that one of the very science fiction books I ever read was I, ROBOT by Isaac Asimov—a wonderful thing for a kid to start on because it was a lot of fairly short material that was suitable for a young woman whose attention span was maybe not what it became in later years. So, I started out reading things like THE VOYAGE OF THE SPACE BEAGLE, which made it very poignant the other year when A. E. Van Vogt was the guest of honor at Norwescon. THE VOYAGE OF THE SPACE BEAGLE and SLAN and THE PEOPLE—all this terrific science fiction stuff that was coming out during the early '60s.

Later on, when I became an adolescent and became involved in the media science fiction that was available, I was a STAR TREK fan, a DARK SHADOWS fan, a STRANGE PARADISE fan. As a young adult, I became very involved with STAR WARS [fandom] and kept on writing all the time. Some of the science fiction books that I remember reading as an adolescent were DUNE and STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND. My fantasy diet included E. R. Edison and—needless to say— J. R. R. Tolkien. This material was just wonderful imagination food for any teenager.

Susan

My very first convention was a Disclave, in Washington, D.C., when I was on active duty in the United States military. And to this day, the first part of a filk song that I heard at Disclave haunts me, because I've never been able to find the rest of the words, even though I have thumbed through Filthy Pierre on more than occasion, trying to locate the particular song in question. It came that when my military tour of duty was over and I came back to Seattle, I got involved in the local science fiction community, going to the STAR WARS movies, going to the midnight premiere of ALIEN and great movies like that. I became involved in STAR WARS fanzines, went to media conventions, and just generally had a terrific time. I think that fandom is probably the best writers' group a person could ask for, as long as a person doesn't run into any buzzsaws too early.

 

Why did you choose to live in Seattle, and what kind of inspiration do you get in your writing from living there?

Susan

When I was 13 years old my father came to Seattle from India, which was his last overseas assignment, and brought his family with him. We stayed here while he completed a doctorate in Southeast Asian studies, and during the time that it took him to do that, my mother decided that she liked it here and that we were staying. We've been here every since. As far as I'm concerned, Seattle is the bright center of the universe. I was born in Georgia and raised in all kinds of different environments, but I've been here since I was 13 and consider myself almost—almost—a Seattle native.

And the kinds of contributions that Seattle as an environment make to the creative life of the individual are many and very rich in terms of the richness of the environment itself. Not only is Seattle an ethnically diverse environment , but the Seattle area has got tremendous diversity in all kinds of different natural settings, from the Mediterranean forest of Seattle—City of Seattle itself—we've got Puget Sound, we've got the rain forest, we've got mountains, we've got the desert on the other side of the mountains—you can have just about anything that you want in terms of natural environment within a few hours of downtown Seattle. And the vitality of this natural environment can't help but nourish the creative instincts.

Susan

Well, it's tremendous fun being nominated for the Campbell award. To me it means that, gosh, the science fiction reading community has really noticed my debut novel and believes that it stood out in some way from the work of all my peers. That kind of recognition is pretty special. Whether a person a wins or loses the award, it's the fact of being nominated that's called me out from my peers, and so, although it may seem trite, it is actually the nomination itself which constitutes recognition. I cherish that.

Susan

Andrej's situation is an ethical question that's interested me for a long time. The situation that he's in is a situation that I think a lot of us face—in a much attentuated degree, of course. And so, what particularly interests me about Andrej and his situation is the fact that he represents in extreme circumstances the same kind of ethical dilemmas that we deal with on a day-to-day basis, and tries out for all of us some of the strategies that we all use to figure out a way to behave reasonably and honorably and reconcile our behavior with things that are going on in our environment that we can't quite accept at the same time.

Susan

—where are we going with all this? At this point in his career, Andrej is trying different strategies. At this point in his career, in my opinion, he knows that what's he's doing is not right, and he is trying the different kinds of things that we all try to reconcile his consciousness that it's not right with his feeling that he has no control over his environment or what's required of him. It's not working, because the conflict is more extreme than the ones we usually face in our day-to-day lives. . . .

Is there any such thing as "I was a sinner and I have resolved to do no more" and acquiring a species of redemption? It's never an abrogation of responsibility, and I hope that the character of Andrej, as he's written, is obviously the sort of person who would never try to dodge responsibility. But is there a point at which it's enough to redeem the character to have him realize that he can take action against what he believes is wrong? If the things you've done in your life that you know are wrong are the things that define your life, if there's no such thing as straightening yourself out, then we're all in a lot of trouble.

Susan

The book that I'm writing right now is a story of a young woman who is an avalanche soldier. An avalanche soldier is responsible for keeping resorts and mountain shrines safe from natural disaster and from religious terrorists—acts of terrorism performed by religious dissidents. In this environment, this young avalanche soldier begins to suspect that the new teacher that the religious terrorists have found may actually be the messiah. So what this story comes down to is whether a soldier can do what she can do because she knows she's right—which is a luxury that we don't have—or because she's doing the best she can with what she's got, believing that she's right in the full knowledge that she could be wrong.

Susan

This is a science fiction novel. This is social science fiction. Or sociological science fiction. Koscuisko novels are marketed as science fiction because they have spaceships, and Koscuisko novels have spaceships in order to construct this particular social laboratory. That's the reason why it's science fiction.

Susan

And neither is AVALANCHE SOLDIER. AVALANCHE SOLDIER is on an earth, but it's not Earth as we know it; these religions are not religions that we know, and so forth. It's science fiction in exactly the same sense that Koscuisko novels are science fiction.

And then, after that, there's another idea that I'm playing with, but after AVALANCHE SOLDIER that'll be three Koscuisko novels. HOUR OF JUDGMENT is going to be a January 1999 release, which means that it will start shipping in early December 1998. After AVALANCHE SOLDIER, my editor will decide whether to go for the next Koscuisko novel or to go for a different standalone novel. And AVALANCHE SOLDIER is a standalone novel; it is not part of a series.

Susan

I'm a presupporter of the Seattle Worldcon bid. The most obvious reason is because this is where I live and it would be the very most inexpensive way to attend a Worldcon during that year.

But I also think this part of the country has got things to offer for people who come to a Worldcon that are unparalleled in terms of the diversity and the accessibility of the wonderful things that you can do in Seattle. And I suppose that some of the things that I would particularly like to see a Worldcon do that maybe I haven't seen before at other Worldcons would be to cultivate a stronger connection with the local technical community and possibly have a track where we could have speakers from Microsoft, speakers from Boeing Computing Services—with the artificial intelligence people—people from Everett and the monolithic structures and the very large civil transport program; speakers from the technical community that could come in and address not so much the advertisement or public relations sorts of aspects of their programs, but the technical aspects.