It's been almost two years since the last installment of the
The
Neverending Interview that began way back in the 20th century circa
1995. We are asking these questions just before John Shirley's new novel CRAWLERS is
to be released. Before we get started, let us state that this book is a hell
of a lot more than just another science fiction/horror novel. It's good story telling,
yes, but it's the first book to really place "modern horror" -- something that's become mummified
into traditional tedium -- into a 21st century context. At least, that's part of our take on it.
Q: Could you tell us about the novel, Mr. Shirley?
A:In a way it's the first cyberpunk horror novel. It has much to do
with suburban kids on the street -- based on my own town, people I know,
things I've seen -- and contemporary culture. And technology. The horror
element is a variant of the traditional "pod people/body snatchers"
story, solidly within that sub-genre, but it has its own peculiar twist.
Like a lot of my stuff it's got a level of allegory going, but one that
doesn't interfere with storytelling. The military is both vilified and
defended in the book -- which is the way it should be. I think we should
be skeptical of government and military and, at the same time, we should
recognize our honest need for them, and the fact that there are heroic
individuals within the framework of the mindlessly voracious
bureaucracy.
Q:Yeah, well, although Philip K. Dick probably wouldn't have agreed there was
"a need" for those institutions, this book reminds me a lot of his work. In fact,
I'd call it the bastard child of PKD and Stephen King: now 15 years old -- online, with
an iPod on a skateboard. One of the strongest aspects of the book is your characterization
of the teen-aged protagonists. Having three sons helps give you some perspective, but there's
a lot more going on there as far as an empathetic "connection" between you as an author
and these 21st century kids you are writing about.
A:I've never quite
grown up. I've always stayed connected with youth
culture, street culture. "A Song Called Youth" was the overall title of
my cyberpunk trilogy after all. I still compose rock, still play with
rock musicians. I know where the borders are though -- I am not one of
them. That is, I'm no longer a kid and I'm not part of their culture. I have no illusions about that. I can talk to them -- but they
are another species, teenagers, or at least their own society. It's like
being an anthropologist who has infiltrated a tribe -- the aborigines allow
him to be among them and even participate in some of their rituals but
he's not really one of them. Yet I remember being one. They're always
the same, with different language signifiers, different camouflage and
sartorial cues, but underlyingly the same. But now the presence of
internet culture, rom culture, kazaa-type culture, open sourcing,
Instant Message communing, chatrooms, ubiquitous cellphones among young
people, redefines the medium of that familiar imperative. And the medium
is the massage, and the message, and it changes people sometimes, and
technology has an impact. It's quite distracting. Difficult for them to
focus on books, and the other slow media. It's a challenge for them to
bridge the culture, when the old one is so sluggish. They're capable of
processing information so much faster than adults.
Q:But that presents a problem --
if written media are not reaching
this generation, then how do you convey complex messages? All sorts
of media can convey simple messages, but even then the medium twists
the message. Look at film, even the very best (and there aren't many)
cannot deliver all of most novel-length stories. Worse, since a
movie is the product of a committee (directors, writers, actors,
producers, designers, studios...) the final message can be
distorted. Media radically filters and layers information -- look
what is already done with "nonfiction." That's a little frightening...
A:People now have to process more information on a daily basis than
they once did in a whole year. Our kids are media saturated. And big
Media is constantly pushing for their attention -- every new "blockbuster"
film, the advertising implies, is the GREATEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED.
It's been like that for generations but now they're so damn efficient
at creating that urgency. Television, movies, PCs, internet, radio, cd
players, game systems on small and large screens, mp3 players, internet
movies, internet television, internet instant messages, arcades, palm
pilots, N-gages, cellphones, combinations of all the above, laptops, and
so on... Young people are not to be blamed for their filters. I have, anyway,
always written in scenes. I have always written cinematically. This
isn't designed to be a way to get past anyone's programming, so to
speak, it's because I was influenced by film makers as storytellers and
because I believe in the power of the mental picture as a narrative
device. I try to create mental pictures that I can pass along, almost
like telepathy in prose. That's what I try to do anyway. I try to make
the writing musical -- stylish, something that would sound good read
aloud -- at the same time. These are tough things to try for. It recently
occurred to me that I've been doing things the hard way for years, on
several levels. I've been trying to write stories in which the imagery
is truly original. This of course is not particularly welcomed in the
marketplace. Trying to create a "photo-realistic surrealism" in prose is
writing for a nearly nonexistent audience. I don't know what I was
thinking.
Anyway, in writing for young people, one can find those who still relate
to prose and books -- there are some -- and one can try to find a
language, an approach, that fires the imagination of those who are more
fast-paced-picture oriented. But you know I think there's plenty of
evidence that people have a hunger for word-narrative. Look at the
success of Harry Potter. Now there's a kind of "ghetto literature" (one
Oakland man sold 35,000 self-published books in this genre), which is
melodramatic, exciting stuff about the violence, drugs, sex, competition
and tragedy of ghetto life, and these little books (most are kind of
short) are really selling in beauty shops and corner liquor stores.
People hunger for it. It's up to writers to connect to that hunger, to
give them something they feel is nourishing. It's on us, not on the
reader.
Q:Del Rey labels CRAWLERS as "horror." We hope this doesn't keep SF fans
away from it because it's more 'science fictional' than a lot of SF these days.
Why this direction?
A:Their direction or mine? Their direction is because they are stuck in a
marketing filter, and things are routed into specific slots, and if it's
a square peg they *force* it into the round hole. Mine is because that's
where the story was, for me. I was seeing people hijacked by their own
technology and that's what the story's about. It's not Luddite, it's not
anti-technology -- I'm using a computer to write this -- it's about what
happens when the balance is lost. What happens when your balance is
lost? You fall.
Q:If given a reasonable chance, what novel would you write? Not
bounded by holes of any shape or anyone's expectations of what john
Shirley "should" write?
A:Well, there are suspense novels I'd like to write. But I'll stick to a
few that cross over into the genres I've been associated with. There's
one that might be called FOOD which is about when our fragile, over
complex, vulnerable system of food growing and manufacture and
distribution in the USA collapses, and a major famine rages across the
USA. The story is one of survival, and struggle, and the real primal
humanity emerging in Americans. It'd follow one family surviving this.
They have luckily obtained a stockpile of guns...
Then there's THE OTHER END which is an alternative end of the world
book--but it's kind of a negative apocalypse. It's like a GOOD
apocalypse. It's when God remembers us (in a sense) and suddenly
realized we're backed up on receiving justice, and justice is parceled
out (right, according to my lights, my subjective POV) across the world,
and, really, rather than it being a big judgment day only good
happens--well there is retribution of sorts for a lot of people but it's
not a hellfire sort of thing. It's a sort of anti-apocalypse. It's very
dreamlike...
Another sort of positive apocalyptic
tale is GLASS GLOBE which is about
the establishment of a world government on the heels of global
catastrophe. It comes about because this World Government (a democracy
sort of like the UN but with real power) is the only way to save the
planet in the wake of global disaster. So GLASS GLOVBE would start with
the unpopular premise (or unfashionable premise) that world government
is a good thing, if -- I say again if -- it is developed intelligently.
It would be about the adventure of creating a world government, the
danger, the risks...
Q: Thank you, Mr. Shirley. I have a feeling we'll be
adding to this again soon.
contact: jshirley@darkecho.com