Karin Lowachee at Ad Astra...
The guests of honour at Ad Astra, the science fiction convention in Toronto, didn't interest me this year. But Karin Lowachee did, and she was going to be doing a reading. That made it worth going to the con, for me. She is the best new author I've discovered in years.
Her books, if you don't know them (and haven't heard me enthuse about them yet) are Warchild, Burndive, and Cagebird, all set in the same universe - I call it the Macedon universe, because of the ship on which much of the action is set, though I haven't heard other people call it that. Psychology, adolescence, and boys warped by war - I can't think of an easy way to describe these books in a few words, so I won't try. Brilliant, flawed, more than worth reading and rereading. I'll try to make my comments on the talk spoiler-free, so don't worry about what you'll learn here if you haven't read them.
So... Highlights of her talk:
- Karin Lowachee started out by explaining that she is at work on her fourth novel, which is not set in the same universe as the previous three. At first, this disappointed me. Then she read her short story, also not set in the same universe, and I didn't care any more. I look forward to anything she writes.
- She is not ready to talk about her new novel - she hasn't written enough of it yet for that.
- Her ultimate plan is to write a series of eight books set in the Macedon universe. The first three are published. #4 would be about the Black Ops, a theme set up in Cagebird. She called them "the fourth player in galactic politics", the first three presumably being Captain Cairo Azarcon of the warship Macedon and the EarthHub government behind him, Warboy - also known as Niko, the human sympathizer who is admiral for the enemy Striviic-na - and the pirates who prey on everyone. #5 would 'wrap it up' (she didn't say in what way). #6 would be about Niko's mother and father, the sympathizers who align themselves with the Striviic-na. #7 would be Ash's story - Ash being Niko's brother, a significant character in Warchild, and part of this would be from Niko's point of view. #8 would bring us back to the characters in the first three books. Pressed a little, she added that there might be stand-alone books and stories along the way, "Easter eggs" filling in gaps in the story.
- She said that the refugee camp described in Cagebird, in which Yuri was growing up, was based on settlements she worked at in northern Canada, teaching adult education. I found the refugee camp scenes chilling. Bleak and convincing.
- She quoted a critic of Cagebird who argued against her winning the Philip K. Dick Award (for which she had been nominated) because there was a strong theme of the protagonist loving his abuser.
"You mean it wasn't politically correct enough?" I blurted.
"Everyone has a different opinion," she said. "I don't think things are that simple."
I thought - but didn't say - yes, that's why these books are so good. People aren't oversimplified. - She talked about the difficulty of creating or understanding alien cultures, when there are human cultures even here in Canada we can't fully communicate with, as their language has concepts ours can't translate, but can only approximate. There are different ways of seeing the world even among humans.
- I asked about Errit Dorr, with a plot point I hadn't been able to fully understand, despite having discussed it with numerous other fans. I had wondered how Erret Dorr had learned Cairo Azarcon's mind-blowing secret, and why, knowing it, he revealed it to Jos. Karin explained that Errit had been a tunnel rat who, at the age of fourteen or so, had wanted to get a position on the Macedon, and had invented the gauntlet run (which we see in Warchild) in order to do so. He became a surrogate son to Cairo, who at that time had little opportunity to see his actual son, Ryan. This gave Errit a unique position on the ship, and Cairo confided in him. He also made him his spy on jetdeck. Errit knew that Jos would not repeat what he told him about Cairo's past, and he knew Jos knew that he meant his threat to kill him if he did. He knew that the information might help Jos. Erret was a good, insightful judge of people.
Karin also said that she couldn't write in Erret's voice, couldn't be in his head, if she writes the book about him it will have to be in someone else's viewpoint, since Erret has a language and outlook all his own.
I hope she will write Erret's story, however she does it. - The story Karin read was from the anthology Mythspring, an anthology of SF stories with their basis in Canadian myth. I wouldn't have gravitated to a book with this theme, but Karin's story, This Ink Feels Like Sorrow, was mesmerizing. She does not have an expressive reading voice, but the story is so well written it was like stepping into another world; I felt as if I knew the unnamed protagonist intimately after only a few paragraphs, and despite the brevity of the story he was as interesting as Jos, Ryan or Yuri, the heroes of the novels. His craft is evoking emotion in the coloured inks of tattoos: "We're all a little colour-blind, a little empty of emotion... I can even ink an absence." And lines like: "It's only a lie if you don't believe it."