* [1]Home * About * [2]Rules * [3]About the Award * [4]FAQs * [5]Awards Committee and Nebula Juries * The Awards * [6]Nebula * [7]SFWA Grand Master * [8]Andre Norton * [9]Author Emeritus * [10]Nebula Weekend * Blog * [11]Interviews * [12]Blog * Anthologies * [13]Nebula Awards Showcase * [14]SFWA European Hall of Fame * [15]Science Fiction Hall of Fame * [16]Contact * [17]Sitemap The Nebula Awards APRIL 2009 Los Angeles, U.S.A. [18]Nominees and Winners [19][IMG] View past nominees and winners of the Nebula Award. [20]Novels [21][IMG] Virtual library of Nebula and Norton novels at Shelfari. [22]Pictures [23][IMG] View images from the 2007 Nebula Awards Ceremony. [24]Links [25][IMG] A list of links to other sites & blogs of interest. Gene Wolfe Interview Interviewed by David de Beer on December 30 2008 Tell me a little in brief about "Memorare" your Nebula nominated work. Why did you write it and what do you hope readers will take from it? It seems to me that I hear some story ideas better than I see them. In the southwest, particularly, memorials are erected at roadsides. I grew up in Texas, and I could hear the prairie wind and smell the dust. I was the lonely soul in the empty tomb, and I transferred the whole thing to space, the loneliest place (not) on earth. I wanted readers to feel the isolation and lonely majesty of it. I wanted them to realize, too, that God, the saints, and love can be found even there. When you say that you hear stories better than you see them - could you clarify that a bit? In a way I hear the characters talking, but not at the beginning. At the beginning I hear the sounds of their voices: Severian's deep, smooth, slightly melancholy tones; Master Gurloes's hard, harsh, implacable vowels, his throat clearing and occasional spitting. In [26]An Evil Guest, Bill Reis's voice, deep and slightly rough, often a loud whisper, persuasive and slightly sinister. Or Cassie Casey's enormous range: now cheerful and energetic, now the pleading of a small girl – the stubborn child, the aching sincerity. What are more important are what might be called sound effects. In [27]Pirate Freedom the creaking of the timbers, the slap of the waves against the hull, the mewing of the gulls, the voices of the men on the topsail yard: "Dirty weather ... dirty weather." The dull boom of the sternchaser in the cabin under the quarterdeck, where Sabina shouts, "That's the way, my braves! Mas! Mas!" while she twirls a slow-match. The Commercial vs the Artistic in writing - is there a genuine difference between these two philosophies or are they artifical attributes? Are they in opposition, and if so, can they meet? The difference seems to me very genuine. The error is to think them antithetical. The purely commercial writer writes for the editor. The purely artistic writer writes for himself or herself. I write for the reader. As long as the editor buys it, I don't much care what he thinks of it. If it's a good solid story, that's enough for me. But if the reader doesn't like it, it's a failure. Insofar as you're aware thereof, which themes and ideas dominate the writing of Gene Wolfe? What do you think readers take from your work they get nowhere else? My great theme is memory. I'm rarely aware of that as I write, but I realize it as I read. Another theme is reality. A good many writers are writing propaganda. I don't do that. I know that not all politicians are crooked. I know that some soldiers are brutal criminals, but also that most are not even close to that. I have been accused of writing only good and bad women, but that is because those are the only kinds I've ever met. There is nothing in my work that readers will find nowhere else, although I wish there were. I try to serve good, honest writing. I make the hot stuff hot and the cold stuff cold – or try to. A great many other writers are doing the same thing. Will you still be read in a 100 years? Does it matter? Should writers write for the present or the future? Will I still be read in a hundred years? I hope so. Does it matter? To me, yes – but I write for the present, not for the future. Books written for the future are not likely to get there. There are lonely men and lonely women in small towns all over the world. I want them to read me, now, and feel a little better. The short story vs the novella vs the novel - what makes you decide to write an idea in one form over the other? I don't decide. The idea tells me. There are book ideas and short story ideas. And novelette and novella ideas. A short story can be padded out, and a novel cut down, but both are forced alterations to attain some preconceived length. If I know I need a novella, I look around for a novella-length idea, or whatever. [28]Your wikipedia entry claims you might be related to Thomas Wolfe - truth or fiction? Although I can't prove it, I think it's true. We Wolfes came out of northwestern North Carolina about 1780 and settled in southeastern Ohio. (My father took me to an old family graveyard out in the country once; the earliest stone we could find bore that date.) Thomas Wolfe was from Asheville. That area is not thickly populated even now. In 1900 – the year that both he and my father were born – it would have been very thinly peopled indeed. In passing... I got a fan letter from that part of the state once, and wrote back to the fan saying that my family had left it toward the end of the Eighteenth Century. He wrote, "I know all about it, and my family would like great-grandfather's horse back." Speaking of respected - from praised to winning awards, does that have an effect? Does it add more pressure, a perceived standard of brilliance you're expected to live up to?How do you handle the praise and the fame and the awards and still remain true to your writing, to yourself? Of course I like to win. It's fun, and I enjoy it. But it's not important. You're known for creating unreliable narrators in your work - would you care to expound on the reasons why? All real narrators are unreliable. That is a great strength: it is realistic. Another is that one can hint at things left hidden. A third is that you can reveal in Chapter 19 something that was hidden in Chapter 9. Please don't ask for examples. What is the story you've written you're proudest of, and why? By "story" I assume you mean a short story, novelette, or novella. Something under novel length, in other words. "Empires of Foliage and Flower," perhaps, because it shows so plainly the brevity, tragedy, and comedy of life. But if you don't like that answer, I have others. There are a good many stories that I'm very fond of. How (if at all) has science fiction&fantasy evolved/ changed in the time that you've been working in the field? Does it still have value in the present milieu? Relevance to the future? How has sf changed? The giants are gone. When I started writing, Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, and Clarke were all producing. You have to have lived in both periods to understand what an enormous difference they made. Fantasy has lost Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. The Harry Potter books are good, but they are YA. Neil Gaiman is our best fantasist and is giving us wonderful books and stories. Another giant has arrived, which may be why fantasy feels so much healthier now. Both science fiction and fantasy have value, for the present and for the future. It's important that they be there – and that they be good, and thus read by as many as possible. The interesting point is that fantasy is very, very old and SF a stripling. The oldest known fiction is fantasy, I believe. The first great fantasy, GILGAMESH, comes to us from the dawn of civilization. Fantasy assures us (quite truthfully) that the universe is inconceivably wide and wild. Once I wrote a poem about a man who lived on an island whose population believed it to be the only place. He walks around the island, and from a lonely beach sees another island. Fantasy is that walk. "Things could be different," says fantasy. "They could be very, very different just over that hill. Have hope." SF assures (quite truthfully) that they will be. "They may be better," says SF, "or they may be worse. But they will not be like this." [29]Gene Wolfe [30]Gene Wolfe is a prolific and critically acclaimed author of [31]The Book of the New Sun, [32]An Evil Guest and [33]The Knight. He was awarded the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1996. Michael Swanwick described him as [34]the greatest writer in the English Language alive today. [35]DAVID DE BEER`s short fiction has been published in or is forthcoming from venues such as Chizine, Alienskin and Courting Morpheus. He currently resides in Johannesburg, South Africa. 2 comments so far. 1. davenix on 01st January 2009 at 3:34 pm [36]Picture of davenix I love that you removed my comments and I love that you do so with the weak logic that I am just being a troll. Are you always overly sensitive or just a no-nuts censor? What book was I refering to you ask? That awful Evil Guest that is up for the nebula award you douchnozzle, but of course you do know that. If the LPH reference was lost on you, then you obviously didnt even bother reading the cover much less the awful book. I look forward to this comment be removed. Happy new year Big Brother...god forbid anyone post a critical opinion of something you praised only to get an interview. -d 2. [37]David de Beer on 01st January 2009 at 4:15 pm [38]Picture of David de Beer Your comments weren't removed, they were temporarily closed. Uncivil behavior gets that response. And yes, your behavior is definitely troll-like. but this one I'll leave because you continue to make such a monumentous arse of yourself. This interview has nothing to do with Evil Guest. This interview came about as a result of Gene Wolfe being on the Nebula nominee list for his shorter work, Memorare. The interview is about Gene Wolfe, the author--as all the interviews to date have been about the authors--not a specific book that offended your malfunctional excuse for a brain. It says so in the very first question: Tell me a little in brief about “Memorare” your Nebula nominated work. which you would have known had you possessed the capacity to read. if An Evil Guest is up for the Nebula award then you must be precognitive, since the Preliminary Ballot, never mind the Final Ballot, hasn't even been announced yet. Further, the book was only released Sept 2008 and can therefore still be considered for the next Nebula but as of the last tally is not on the Preliminary Qualifiers: [39]http://www.nebulaawards.com/index.php/guest_blogs/nebula_report_preliminary_qualifiers_dec_08/ see that above link? it lists all the novels which have qualified for consideration for the Preliminary Ballot barring only the last month's count. They are the Preliminary Qualifiers thus far. Once the final tally is done the Preliminary Ballot will be drawn, and from that ballot the Final Ballot will be drawn and THOSE are the works that will be up for a Nebula. see any book called An Evil Guest there anywhere? Happy new year Big Brother aww, are we not going to be friends then? how about a hug? I'll give you a free cookie! 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[47][ Submit ] [48][ Preview ] All Interviews You can see a list of all interviews [49]here. RSS Feed Subscribe to the [50]RSS Feed. Email Updates You can also [51]subscribe to receive new interviews via email. * 2007 Nebula Award Novel Nominees [52]The Yiddish Policemen's Union (winner) by Michael Chabon Ragamuffin by Tobias Buckell The New Moon's Arms by Nalo Hopkinson Odyssey by Jack McDevitt The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon For sixty years, Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of revelations of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. Proud, grateful, and longing to be American, the Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant, gritty, soulful, and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. For sixty years they have been left alone, neglected and half-forgotten in a backwater of history. Now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end: once again the tides of history threaten to sweep them up and carry them off into the unknown. About the Author Michael Chabon is the bestselling author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, the novelist Ayelet Waldman, and their children. Ragamuffin by Tobias Buckell The Benevolent Satrapy rule an empire of forty-eight worlds, linked by thousands of wormholes strung throughout the galaxy. Human beings, while technically “free,” mostly skulk around the fringes of the Satrapy, struggling to get by. The secretive alien Satraps tightly restrict the technological development of the species under their control. Entire worlds have been placed under interdiction, cut off from the rest of the universe. Descended from the islanders of lost Earth, the Ragamuffins are pirates and smugglers, plying the lonely spaceways around a dead wormhole. For years, the Satraps have tolerated the Raga, but no longer. Now they have embarked on a campaign of extermination, determined to wipe out the unruly humans once and for all. About the Author A professional blogger and SF/F author originally born in Grenada, Tobias currently lives in Ohio with his wife, Emily. Tobias began reading at a young age and started submitting and writing multiple short stories while in high school. He attended the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy workshop in 1999. He sold his first story shortly afterwards, and has since gone on to sell over 30 more. He has written and sold three novels. The New Moon's Arms by Nalo Hopkinson When an abandoned toddler appears on the shore of her Caribbean island home, Chastity Theresa Lambkin, aka "Calamity," becomes a foster mother in her 50s. Years previously, a one time, teenage experiment with a best friend unsure of his sexuality resulted in daughter Ifeoma. As Calamity, who narrates, now freely admits, Ifeoma bore the brunt of Calamity's immaturity, and their relationship still suffers for it. As Calamity relates all of this, things that have been missing for years inexplicably reappear, including an entire cashew tree orchard from Calamity's childhood that shows up in her backyard overnight. It could be island magic, or something much more prosaic. The rescued little boy's origins do have some genuinely magical elements (Calamity names him "Agway" after his foreign-sounding laughter), and Hopkinson's take on "sea people" and how they came to be adds depth and enchantment. About the Author Nalo Hopkinson a writer who has so far published a collection of short stories, four novels and an anthology or two. She has lived in Toronto, Canada since 1977, but spent most of her first 16 years in the Caribbean, where she was born. Odyssey by Jack McDevitt The world has discovered, despite all the promises held out by the champions of interstellar travel, that it offers few prospects for economic advantage. Public funding and private contributions for the Academy have been drying up. Even sightings of mysterious lights in the sky, once called UFO's, now known as moonriders, draw only skepticism. In an effort to recapture some of the glamor of earlier years, the Academy plans a well-publicized mission ostensibly to seek the truth about the moonriders. The mission will visit tour spots where they've been seen, while simultaneously — the real purpose of the flight — giving the general public a chance to get a good look at famous locations in the solar neighborhood. About the Author Jack McDevitt is a former English teacher, naval officer, Philadelphia taxi driver, customs officer, and motivational trainer. With the nominations of Infinity Beach, Ancient Shores, “Time Travelers Never Die,” Moonfall, “Good Intentions” (cowritten with Stanley Schmidt), “Nothing Ever Happens in Rock City,” Chindi, Omega, and Polaris,, "Henry James, This One's for You," and Seeker, his work has been on the final Nebula ballot ten of the last eleven years. The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman Since H. G. Wells' heyday, the time travel scenario has undergone so much variation that it's easy to envision the river of ideas finally running dry. But here the ever-inventive Haldeman offers a new twist: a device that travels in one direction only, to the future. Lowly MIT research assistant Matt Fuller toils away in a physics lab until one day he makes an odd discovery. A sensitive quantum calibrator keeps disappearing and reappearing moments later when he hits the reset button. With a little tinkering, Matt realizes that the device functions as a crude, forward-traveling time machine. About the Author Born in Oklahoma 9 June 1943. Grew up in Puerto Rico, New Orleans, Washington, D. C., and Alaska. Currently lives in Gainesville, Florida and Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife Gay Haldeman. As of August, 2008, they will have been married 43 years. 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Your wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Wolfe 29. http://www.flickr.com/photos/28040896@N06/3089462756/ 30. Gene Wolfe http://mysite.verizon.net/~vze2tmhh/wolfe.html 31. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312890176?ie=UTF8&tag=nebs-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0312890176 32. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765321335?ie=UTF8&tag=nebs-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0765321335 33. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765347016?ie=UTF8&tag=nebs-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0765347016 34. the greatest writer in the English Language alive today http://www.michaelswanwick.com/auth/squalidansw.html 35. DAVID DE BEER http://david-debeer.com/ 37. http://david-debeer.com/ 39. http://www.nebulaawards.com/index.php/guest_blogs/nebula_report_preliminary_qualifiers_dec_08/ 49. http://www.nebulaawards.com/index.php/interviews_all 50. http://feeds.feedburner.com/nebulaawards/Whmv 51. http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=2182636&loc=en_US 52. javascript:; 53. http://www.sfwa.org/ 54. http://www.tonygeer.com/ 55. http://www.expressionengine.com/