EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR, EDWARD M. LERNER

What has influenced you as a writer? Who has supported or helped shape your career?

The easier question might be, what hasn’t influenced me? It often feels as if I have countless muses, starting with much of what I’ve read, both fiction and non. As for who? I hesitate to name names, because I’m bound to omit some important influencer—but I make one exception. Long before I took up writing, one of my favorite authors was Larry Niven. That appreciation led, eventually, to my reaching out to Larry about collaborating and, in short order, to us doing five novels together. In that sense he both influenced my writing and helped to shape my career.

What else? Things in the zeitgeist, digital and otherwise. Things people say, without intending to influence, much less to initiate, future story scribbling. Catchy turns of phrase that, sometimes with years-long persistence, haunt me before finding release in some story. Vacation stops. Family history. In short, being receptive to the myriad myriads of stimuli all around. Yet more briefly: no writer is ever entirely off-duty.

And then there’s my first career ….

What career(s) did you pursue before becoming a writer full-time? How did these paths influence your writing?

My formal training is in physics, computer engineering, and, several years after those, business administration. I’ve had the opportunity to work at some of the world’s leading high-tech companies. Several of the projects in which I was involved and some workplaces in which I was immersed have contributed prominently to my storytelling.

As an influence on my writing, one job in particular stands out. For more than seven years I worked at NASA contractor Hughes Aircraft. Beyond the day-to-day exposure to NASA projects and personnel, that job also gave me the opportunity to “fly” the spaceshuttle training simulator and tour the International Space Station training simulator. Much of that experience found its way into my novel Moonstruck. When Moonstruck became my second novel sold— meaning the first book hadn’t been a fluke—I left the day job to write SF full time.

How would you define the sub-genres of science fiction such as techno-thrillers?

There are certainly recurrent themes in SF: First Contact, time travel, artificial intelligence, near-future space exploration, far-future space opera, and the like. The thing is, most science fiction, in my experience, touches upon several of these themes at once. A novel about establishing a permanent settlement on the Moon, for example, generally won’t be just about constructing lunar habitats. The same story will likely also consider developments in spaceflight technology, power generation, artificial intelligences to assist the settlers, and maybe biological or medical advances that facilitate life in the weak lunar gravity. Why? Because all these capabilities, and more, will be advancing, if not all at the same pace, at the same time. Because the interdependencies of everything are such that You Can’t Change Just One Thing (TM). So, in the case of SF, I feel the subgenre labels can be misleading as often as instructive.

Techno-thrillers, in my opinion, are fundamentally different from SF. A typical techno-thriller takes one real (or hoped-for) technological advance and then focuses narrowly on just some of its implications. One well-known example: Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park. It looked only at the scenario of bringing back extinct species, the dinosaurs, with no thought expressed as to how the gengineering to recreate the dinosaurs might also revolutionize medicine, agriculture, life extension, and so much more. And not only did the broader implications of new gengineering go unexamined, no other technology seemed to have advanced.

In drawing this distinction, I don’t mean to imply criticism. I write techno-thrillers, such as Fools’ Experiments (about artificial intelligence) and Small Miracles (about medical nanotech) as well as SF. My forthcoming novel, Déjà Doomed (dealing with lunar exploration, First Contact, and more) is firmly in the SF category. Moonstruck straddled the boundary.

What appeals to you about the science fiction genre?

First things first, science appeals to me. There is no more successful invention of humankind to explain the world around us, or to improve our lot. That being so, science fiction is a way to explore how new science, or new applications of the science we already have, might be used or abused. SF is also a great way to interest people in science, a Certifiably Good Thing.

Is all science fiction predictive, even allegorically so? No, nor does most SF even try to be. Is SF then (in the words of colleague David Brin) a self-denying prophecy, like Brave New World or 1984? Seldom that, either. Most SF is simply Good Fun, stories free to consider times, places, species, and extrapolations of science beyond the ken of non-SF. I’d put most of my writing in that for-entertainment category.

Are there any themes that are consistent through all your stories?

Some themes certainly recur, if seldom in the same way, but no theme spans all my writing. Take First Contact. Moonstruck, early on, has an alien starship announcing itself to, and then landing on, Earth. InterstellarNet: Origins—which launched what became the three-novel InterstellarNet series —opens with the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and astronomers finding evidence in a radio signal. Déjà Doomed begins with ancient archaeological traces of aliens— encountered on the Moon.

Artificial intelligence is another theme I’ve explored in many guises, in several books and stories. Computer technology overall is also a favored topic—though not in the downer/ dystopic/cyberpunk way so often seen. Time travel is yet one more.

What is your most recent release and what can readers expect to find between the pages?

That would be the aforementioned Déjà Doomed, released on May 25.

After the archaeological surprise to which I’ve alluded, readers can expect: small groups of lunar explorers, Russian and American, each distrustful of the other, to scheme for national advantage from the recovery of alien technology. For both sides’ efforts to go terribly, catastrophically wrong. For the survivors to undertake desperate measures, venturing where no human has gone before, to just maybe save … everyone.

However dismal their odds ….

What writing adventures do you have planned for the future?

In the back of any author’s mind, something’s always churning. The likeliest projects to emerge next, I believe, are yet another twist on the First Contact theme and an unrelated look at colonizing Mars.

Interview provided by: Award-winning Canadian authors, Jenna Greene (YA Fantasy) and Miranda Oh (Contemporary Chick lit) pair up to provide you with engaging interviews with authors from all genres to give you a sneak peak into their lives and writing styles.

Read the complete interview with Edward M. Lerner at: www.TopShelfMagazine.net