Unless you've carefully sorted through both the awards lists (her story "When the Apricots Bloom" was a Barry Award finalist) and the publishing news (she's the editor for the new "young adult" imprint from Poisoned Pen Press, the Poisoned Pencil), or been edited by her already (25 years of substantive editing!), you may not have crossed paths with Ellen Larson.
We'll all have the chance to enjoy her work later this year, when her own mystery IN RETROSPECT reaches publication from Five Star in November. But Larson goes well beyond crafting a mystery -- a time-travel murder mystery! -- by drawing from powerful science fiction traditions and breaking ground under conditions firmly her own. We're excited to welcome her here for a thoughtful journey into her world. (Make sure you read all the way to the end, for more news and a way to participate!)
Me, Myself, and the Other
I first heard about
the
Other as a character type in fiction as a kid in college, studying
comparative literature and learning how to write. At first I thought it was
strange that characters who were by definition alienated from society would
work in a medium that depends so much on reader identification. Until, of
course, I realized how many readers identify with the sense of alienation.
Me included.
At thirty-three, my sense of Otherness in combination with
my love of science fiction led me to the conclusion that I should live on Mars,
where clearly I would feel more at home. The urge turned out to be surprisingly
inescapable, so I left
my
beloved upstate New York home, eventually landing in Cairo, Egypt. Which
was as close as I could get to Mars.
In Cairo I was, of course, still the Other. With my
clothing, my culture, my experiences, my eye color, my goals in life I was
never going to be confused as an average member of Egyptian society. Which
turned out to be unexpectedly liberating, because no one even bothered to try
to get me to conform (a main source of conflict for fictional and real Others).
I was a different type of Other, and it was wonderful. The society I had been
so at odds with was far away, so the sense of alienation disappeared. Fifteen
invaluable years in Egypt (shokran, Misreen) allowed me to develop a life-long
passion for differences, for Otherness, because it allowed me to understand
that underneath our differences, we are all the Same.
Because of my real-life experiences, my writing often
features societies that are not my own. Writing science fiction allows me to
imagine a society that is out of my own time, one that provides the background
I need to tell the story I want to tell. My personal approach as a writer
involves getting rid of whatever prejudices and limitations present my own
society that I don’t want to be bothered by, so that I can free up my
protagonist to battle what I perceive to be those underlying and universal
challenges of being human. Which is why I’m not so interested in writing the
kind of science fiction that focuses on alien beings and intergalactic
conflicts.
My upcoming science fiction murder mystery,
IN RETROSPECT (Nov. 2013
Five Star - Gale Cengage), is
set in post-apocalyptic Turkey far in the future. For this book I not only
changed societal norms, but I literally sank North America and twisted Europe
into a pretzel. I intermingled such races and cultures that remained and built
a new one. I changed the climate. Thus the literary decks are clear to say
anything about any topic I wish, without the need to bow to history or
transient social conventions. So I built a world with a simple set of political
norms; where science is advanced beyond our 21st century experience; and where
certain young women of petite stature can time travel.
Merit, my protagonist, is a 30th century Other. With her
working-class roots, she feels inferior and out-of-place when, as a child, she
is chosen to be attuned for time travel. Even though she succeeds in becoming
an elite Retrospector, she overcompensates for her underlying sense of
inadequacy and becomes arrogance. As the book begins, Merit is most assuredly
alienated—from her enemies, the Rasakans, for whom she is forced to work, and
from her own people, the Oku, who, exhausted by the war they lost, just want to
find a way to peacefully reconstruct their lives. But Merit cannot forget and
she will not conform. So she exists, ghost-like on the fringes of society—until
she is faced with the dilemma of having to investigate the murder of the Oku
general who surrendered to the Rasakans; a murder she would gladly have
committed herself.
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| Temporary cover image |
Beth adds: I am already haunted by Merit, from an advance read of Ellen Larson's book. Her choice of concept artist Mike Sissons for the book trailer ... well, you've got to see it. And you can! Larson is currently running a Kickstarter
project to fund the making of the book trailer for IN
RETROSPECT. Take a look at this exciting project -- there's still time to take part, too.
