New Taboos (12 page)

While I can see some virtue in some selfishness, and I believe in independent thinking and constantly critiquing government, I think we still have a profound need for a well-organized, democratic, centralized government. I have a streak of socialist in me, but I believe in a free market modified by regulation; capitalism modified by, for example, socialized medicine, social safety nets. It's not a choice between government and anarchy. It's about allowing some space for the anarchic in a structured society.

I'd like to see Elizabeth Warren run for president. We need a woman president next time. Hopefully, if it's not Warren, our woman president will be a progressive Independent, or a Democrat.

What was your intro to Left politics?

I think seeing the photos of the My Lai massacre, when I was a boy, influenced me to ask: What the
hell
is going on? Those grim, grisly color photos of murdered women and children radicalized me. Years later my radicalization was moderated by experiences on the street, back when I was a drug user. I came to appreciate a properly run police force.

Looking at history, I see some social progress—like the end of legal slavery and the beginning of empowering women. The rise of unions helped establish the middle class. Some of that's been undone, but the fight goes on. I appreciate the Occupy movement. It didn't have a clear message but no one else was doing anything that honest. Some of those people will in time develop a more effective political movement, and I'll welcome it.

What do you find most frustrating about the Left? Is the Right right about anything?

I find kneejerk political correctness frustrating; I find the Left's self-righteousness and lack of pragmatism frustrating. And the sheer cynicism of many who
were
on the Left and now just shrug and sneer—that, too, I find frustrating.

I think we need conservatives. It's a kind of thesis, antithesis, synthesis thing, and we need them to push back against us, within reason. But you know, even conservatives get “progressive” after a while. Few of them would consider taking the vote from women. They digested that much social evolution. They have digested some degree of environmentalism—and now in the age of global warming they're getting a real schooling.

And conservatives are correct that unions can be exploitative, and too expensive for a community if they become greedy. Only, that shouldn't mean getting
rid
of unions—it should mean
modifying
unions, a bit. It doesn't justify the kind of union-busting on a state level we're seeing now, in places like Michigan.

What do you mean by “reverse terraforming”?

Turning the habitable world into an uninhabitable world through world war or environmental irresponsibility. Like global warming.

Do you think writers have a particular social responsibility? What is it, then?

I only know that I personally have a sense of social responsibility—yet as a writer I also feel another kind of responsibility: to entertain. It's a balance. Dickens was powerfully entertaining—but he sure made his point, and a sharp, penetrating point it was. There were actual social reforms prodded into being by his novels. Steinbeck, Upton Sinclair—more than once, novelists have prompted reforms.

Yes, I know, we've gotten stuck with Fox News now, and the
Citizens United
decision, the Koch brothers. We're in danger of falling into a corporatist dictatorship. But we're not there yet, and books like
Brave New World
and
1984
and
Fahrenheit 451
have helped. So did books like
Catch-22.
Solzhenitsyn schooled us about the excesses of USSR-style communism.
Uncle Tom's Cabin
helped end slavery. Novels can be our social conscience.

Have you ever collaborated with anybody besides E.A. Poe? How did it work out?

The Poe collaboration was just finishing an unfinished story by him, in an anthology called
Poe's Lighthouse.
I hope he approves of my collaborative efforts but I haven't heard from him. Yet.

I've also collaborated on stories with Rudy Rucker, William Gibson, Marc Laidlaw, and Bruce Sterling. That's good shit, man.

Ever been attacked by wild monkeys?

Oh, you laugh. We'll likely all be attacked by them, and other tropical creatures, as global warming chases them north! The worst will be the diseases, though. Say hello to tsetse flies, Montana.

You wrote of drones (in
A Song Called Youth,
if I remember correctly) long before they flew into the consciousness of the public. Do you ever worry that the CIA is mining your books for ideas?

I was recently told by someone that he gave the early version of those novels (I've since revised and updated them) to people high in the U.S. military in the early '90s. However, I refuse to apologize to al-Qaeda.

The military has confessed to mining ideas from
Star Trek
and Arthur Clarke and Larry Niven. In
A Song Called Youth
the drones are basically a tool of the oppressors. The heroes of the novels are the resistance to a corporatist
neofascist theocracy—and drones represent danger. And some of that's coming true.

But I think drones can be used legitimately. Sometimes. Better get used to them. Police forces are buying them up.

What kind of car do you drive? (I ask this of everyone.)

A Toyota Echo on its last legs, if it had legs. I want to get a Chevy Volt next.

There's a legend that you introduced William Gibson to SF. True?

The legend has it backward. I introduced science fiction to Gibson. He was already a reader of SF (and a great deal more). He had already published one piece in an obscure SF zine called
UnEarth.
I showed his unpublished stories to the editors of
OMNI,
and to Terry Carr. Carr later bought his novel
Neuromancer.

But what really “introduced” Gibson was his excellence as a writer. When I read his stories I was immediately impressed by his wit and the beginning of what was to be a kind of literary mastery. It was like hearing Eric Clapton play guitar for the first time. “Yeah, man, he can play.”

Do you prefer writing short stories or novels? Does one ever morph into the other?

I have shamelessly woven short stories into novels for years and have developed novellas, like
Demons,
into novels. You
bet. I'm a pro, that's one thing pros do. No, “pro” there is not short for prostitute, it's short for professional.

R.A. Lafferty? Ayn Rand? Rudy Rucker? Hunter Thompson? Each in one sentence please.

Lafferty had an incomparable originality in his way of looking at the world, which showed me that good science fiction didn't have to be science-based. Ayn Rand ended her life on welfare. Rudy Rucker is a lead guitarist of ideas. Hunter Thompson was a huge talent who perhaps influences some writers too much.

Do you listen to music when you write?

I typically do, as it seems to soak up distractions, for me at least, and it creates atmosphere and even conveys energy—but it has to be music of a certain order. The lyrics can't be out in front or on top; I can't be listening to Dylan while writing or I'll start writing Dylanesquely. Instrumental music works if it has the right feel—if it feels like the “soundtrack” of what I'm writing. I can also listen to certain bands where the lyrics don't intrude. Mostly they don't intrude because they're embedded in a wall of sound. Like Motörhead, for example, or the Stooges'
Funhouse
album. Rammstein is ideal because it's high energy, the right mood, and the lyrics aren't distracting because they're mostly in German so they're just sounds to me.

What city is best for writers today? Tomorrow? If it were 2056, what city would you want to live in?

New York City is always best for novelists. That's where most of the publishers are, hello. I lived there for years and loved New York. I'd live there again in a hot second. I live in the next best place now—the San Francisco area, which is pretty agreeable to writers and artists. Lots of smart, stimulating people here. Stories on every corner.

If you're writing films, well, you don't
have
to be in LA but it can help. So it's about the people you interface with. However, for some people the best place to write might be deep in a redwood forest.

In 2056 I want to be under the dome that's protecting Seattle, maybe, or Toronto. Cooler, safer. The Black Winds will be blocked off by the dome. Defensible …

When they do the John Shirley biopic, who do you want to play yourself? (And don't say Johnny Depp; he doesn't have your looks.)

William Hurt could play me as I am now. Me as a young person, I don't know—some actor yet to be discovered who can play “out-of-control youth” and embody paradox. Good and bad, kind and selfish, hardworking and slothful. As a youth I was all those things at once.

I know you and your wife Micky take film seriously. What filmmakers do you watch? What bands or musicians? What writers?

These days I'm pretty eclectic about film. I like Peter Jackson's stuff and I enjoyed the
John Carter
movie and
Skyfall.
But I also like, say, Terrence Malick, and David
Fincher. I like certain Korean filmmakers, Bong Joon-ho or Park Chan-wook. I like the Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson. I think some really creative stuff is being done in science fiction films these days, like
Chronicle
and
Looper.

Did cyberpunk die … or do a butterfly?

It was eaten alive, co-opted. Today it shows up in film and television, it's in comics, it's even in some so-called “military” SF. But that's justice. We cyberpunks devoured and digested Philip Dick, Alfred Bester, Cordwainer Smith, Ellison, Delany, John Brunner …

My Jeopardy item: The answer is, Fox News. You provide the question.

What news channel should someone with a conscience and deep pockets buy? Please!

You seem to keep a line open to Hollywood. Ever tempted to live in LA?

I have lived in Los Angeles and would again if I had the right project there, something I needed to be on site for. I'd love to be hands-on, a producer on a show of my creation, so I could choose what really matter: the writers, the directors, the actors. In that order of importance.

If you are ever elected U.S. president, what will be your first executive order?

Not sure, probably something environmental. I will pick the one that will most annoy the Tea Party types.

Novels:

Transmaniacon
(New York: Zebra, 1979)

Dracula in Love
(New York: Zebra, 1979; 1990)

City ComeA-Walkin
(New York: Dell, 1980; Asheville, NC: Eyeball Press, 1996; New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2001)

Three-Ring Psychus
(New York: Zebra, 1980)

The Brigade
(New York: Avon, 1981)

Cellars
(New York: Avon, 1982; Akron, OH: Infrapress, 2006)

Eclipse (A Song Called Youth
Trilogy book one) (New York: Warner Books/Popular Library, 1985; Northridge, CA: Babbage Books, 2000)

In Darkness Waiting
(New York: Onyx/New American Library, 1988; Akron, OH: Infrapress, 2005)

Kamus of Kadizar: The Black Hole of Carcosa
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988)

Eclipse Penumbra (A Song Called Youth
Trilogy book two) (New York: Warner Books/Popular Library, 1988; Northridge, CA: Babbage Books, 2000)

A Splendid Chaos
(New York: Franklin Watts, 1988; Northridge, CA: Babbage Books, 2006)

Eclipse Corona (A Song Called Youth
Trilogy book three) (New York: Questar/Popular Library, 1990; Northridge, CA: Babbage Books, 2001)

Wetbones
(Shingletown, CA: Mark V. Ziesing, 1991; New York: Leisure, 1999)

Silicon Embrace
(Shingletown, CA: Mark V. Ziesing, 1996)

Demons
(Baltimore: Cemetery Dance Publications, 2000; New York: Ballantine Books, 2002)

The View from Hell
(Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2001)

Her Hunger,
short novel in
Night Visions 10,
edited by Richard Chizmar (Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2001).

… And the Angel with Television Eyes
(San Francisco: Night Shade, 2001)

Spider Moon
(Baltimore: Cemetery Dance Publications, 2002)

Demons,
new version with second novella
Undercurrents
(New York, Del Rey, 2002)

Crawlers
(New York: Del Rey, 2003)

Subterranean,
Constantine Hellblazer tie-in (New York: Pocket Star, 2006)

The Other End
(Baltimore: Cemetery Dance Publications, 2007)

Black Glass
(Chicago: Elder Signs Press, 2008)

Bleak History
(New York: Pocket Books, 2009)

BioShock: Rapture,
gaming tie-in novel (New York: Tor, 2011)

Everything Is Broken
(Rockville, MD: Prime Books, 2012)

A Song Called Youth,
complete trilogy, omnibus plus individual e-books of
Eclipse, Eclipse Penumbra,
and
Eclipse Corona
(Gaithersburg, MD: Prime Books, 2012)

Nonfiction:

Gurdjieff: An Introduction to His Life and Ideas
(New York: Tarcher, 2004)

Collections:

Heatseeker
(Los Angeles: Scream, 1989)

New Noir
(Boulder, CO: FC2/Black Ice, 1993)

The Exploded Heart
(Asheville, NC: Eyeball, 1996)

Black Butterflies
(Shingletown, CA: Mark V. Ziesing, 1998; New York: Leisure, 2001)

Really Really Really Really Weird Stories
(San Francisco: Night Shade Books, 1999)