Interview
Conjectural Figments sent ten questions to Simon Morden recently, in which we asked the author of the Petrovitch trilogy (Equations of Life, Theories of Flight, Degrees of Freedom from Orbit Books) about—as the name of the article plainly explains—fiction, the future, and everything in between. We highly recommend that you seek out the Petrovitch novels for there hasn’t been anything in science-fiction with as much heart, humor, and bravado in quite some time. Here’s what he had to say.
10
Conjectural Figments: You've mentioned Bradbury as a major influence. Was there any specific works of his or other writers that really sparked your imagination when first beginning to write your own SF? Simon Morden: Oh, pretty much everything I’ve ever read. I’ve got shelves of the stuff, from right back to when I first discovered SF when I was still at primary school. I still have that first Arthur Clarke short-story collection “Of Time and Stars” (with the edition date of 1974) that I bought with my own money. I was ten. And the first story in the book is “The Nine Billion Names of God”. Seriously – can you imagine the effect that had on my ten year-old brain? “Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.” Harry Harrison. Asimov. Niven. And Bradbury: the first Bradbury I picked up was Fahrenheit 451. Was there any way back after that? I had all those writers, all those books in my head. So when it came to writing my own stories, I knew how I wanted to do it. That didn’t necessarily make it any easier, as in my mind’s eye I had a vision of what it should look like, but initially lacked the skill to execute. Like any artistic endeavour, it takes time and effort – and you never stop learning, no matter how old you are or how many stories you write. Of course, my first efforts turned out more often than not as Bradbury pastiches, but eventually I found my own way of telling stories. What I want to do, what I always want to do, is to inject a little of that sensawunda I first got – and sometimes still get – from reading.