Jim Baen's Universe

Notes From the Buffer Zone

Columns

Introductions and Hints of the Future

Written by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

At the World Science Fiction Convention in Denver this past August, I had a realization. I was sitting on a panel with four other writers, and I found myself talking on the past twenty years in both science fiction and mystery, the history of both genres (covering both movies and television programs), calling now-dead writers by their first names, and correcting the other panelists when they got something horribly wrong.

Midway through I nearly covered my mouth in alarm: I had turned into the panelist I used to hate. The know-it-all who sat at the end of the row and expounded on topics no one else seemed to understand or care about. I dialed down my rhetoric and made sure I didn’t sound like a blow-hard for the last half hour of the panel.

Afterwards, I checked with audience members and other professionals: Had I dominated the panel? Had I sounded like a pedantic idiot? One audience member said, Hell, no, you were the only one up there who was familiar with the topic. The remaining audience members standing nearby agreed.

Several writers pointed out that I was the only person on that panel with experience in both disciplines, and they reminded me that there was a difference between going on at insufferable length about something you don’t know, and talking about your own experiences.

And that’s when the realization hit me: I wasn’t just an established professional in the science fiction field; I was, at the ripe old age of 48, an old-timer. In fact, twice in the last year, someone had called me legendary to my face.

For those of you who don’t know, there are six stages to a writer’s career (and not every writer makes it to each stage). The stages are, in order: 1) wannabe; 2) hot young thing; 3) established professional; 4) old-timer; 5) legendary; and 6) I thought she was dead.

The first two and the last are self explanatory. The middle three are not. The established professional is someone who has professional credits but may still have to prove herself. The old-timer has been in the field as long as most of the professionals can remember. The legendary author is one whose reputation (good and bad) precedes her.

Readers experience these stages each time they pick up a book or story. Usually readers don’t encounter the wannabes. They may notice the hot young thing, particularly if the reader follows the field closely. Often though, a reader’s experience of a writer’s work falls into the middle three categories and depends entirely on the reader himself.

The established professional is someone who has a few books on the stand, but whom the reader hasn’t noticed before. The old-timer is someone the reader has heard of, but may or may not have read. The legendary writer is one of the reader’s favorites—someone whose work the reader picks up every single time that writer publishes something.

For example, Connie Willis—whose first publication in science fiction was sometime in the 1980s—may be an established professional to someone coming across her books for the first time. It’s clear she’s published more than one novel from the books on the store shelves, but not clear how long she’s been publishing. She may be an old-timer to a reader who follows the field (and may or may not have read her works). Connie is legendary to a lot of readers who buy her novels whenever they appear and the sf magazines whenever her name is on the cover.

My realization had been a long time in coming. I hadn’t made the convention circuit for quite a while, and hadn’t realized that there were readers who only saw me as a science fiction writer (and didn’t know that most of my novels in the genre were fantasy). At Worldcon, I could have gotten three different editing jobs—and I haven’t editing anything in ten years. (I turned them down.) And, yes, someone called me legendary, which made me nervous, since the next step is 6) I thought she was dead.

How did I get here—and, more importantly, why am I bringing all of this up in my first column for Jim Baen’s Universe? I’ll answer the second question first.

I’m talking about this in my first column to establish my credentials and to tell you why Eric and Mike hired yet another columnist. I belong to a cusp generation—one who has been relatively quiet on the essay front. In this magazine alone, two of the columnists—Barry and Mike—started publishing fiction around the time I was born. The other columnist—Eric—still seems like a hot young thing to me, but as I check his publishing credentials, I remember that I first became acquainted with him at my final Nebula award ceremony as an editor, over ten years ago. Back then he was already doing interesting and groundbreaking work. He’s doing more now.

Robert Silverberg, a grand master of science fiction, writes for Asimov’s, and most of the writers online, from Cory Doctorow to John Scalzi, belong to the generations of writers who came into the field in the last decade.

No one is writing a visible column from the point of view of the professionals whose careers began in the late 1980s. All of the columnists are best known for their work in science fiction (although Bob, Mike, and Barry have all ventured outside of the field at various points in their careers). And, if you’ll note, none of the columnists I’ve listed are female. (This is important, as you’ll find out from a later column, because the interminable debate about gender and sf publishing has yet again reared its ugly head.)

I sold my first professional short story in 1986 at the age of 25, right after my stint at the 1985 Clarion Writers Workshop. I was a hot young thing whose work was published rapidly enough to earn me the Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1990.

At the time, I was also co-founder and editor of Pulphouse Publishing, the largest specialty press (to that date) in the science fiction field. Along with my husband Dean Wesley Smith, I won a World Fantasy Award for my work there. In 1991, my first novel, The White Mists of Power, appeared—and I got hired as the first (and so far only) female editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I won the Best Editor Hugo (as it was called in them thar days) for my work at that magazine.

In 1997, I quit editing altogether—it was never my first love—and continued writing. Only I didn’t just publish novels in the sf field. In mystery, I am the acclaimed, Edgar-nominated writer, Kris Nelscott. In romance, I am the acclaimed Kristine Grayson who, before this current paranormal romance craze, was named the Queen of Paranormal Romance by several review sites.

I have won one Hugo for my writing, several Readers Choice Awards in both science fiction and mystery, have my work published in 13 languages and 14 countries, and—oh, yeah—have hit a number of bestseller lists.

When I put all of that down, I realize that, yes indeed, I can’t be anything but an old timer, especially since my fiction writing career spans more than two decades. Before that, I was a full-time non-fiction writer. And, before that, a journalist with a (nearly useless) history degree.

Okay, now that I’ve scared myself (and probably you, dear reader, if you’ve come this far), let me tell you why I’ve listed many (although not all) of my credentials.

I plan to cover a lot of topics in this column. Occasionally, I will examine how some trend fits into the science fiction field. Mostly, however, I see my mission as my small effort to expand the field. I’ll look at blogs, at the difference between paranormal romances and urban fantasies, at mystery’s resistance to science fiction (and yet who is publishing sf mystery novels or mystery sf novels), at television you might have missed, games we all need to follow, as well as trends you may not have noticed in science, technology, and the culture itself.

All of this from my perspective as a writer who straddles two rather vocal generations.

Let’s start, in the few hundred words I have left, with a few issues that have come up in the last part of this summer.

First, the generation gap in science fiction. Apparently, writers in the blogosphere have decided that people under forty aren’t reading or writing science fiction any more. I’ll deal with this one in depth later, but let me take on the measuring stick that one writer used: the birth dates of the Hugo winners in the past twenty years.

Most of the winners, with the exception of Elizabeth Bear this year, were born before 1970. So, does that prove that there’s a generation gap? Nope. To win a Hugo, you have to build a base of in-field voters and you need to establish name recognition. Both of which take time. If you had taken the same poll in the mid-90s with the same criterion, you would have found few Hugo winners born before 1950.

If this blog writer had taken the time to compute the birth dates of the nominees, he would come up with a different number. And if he’d taken into account—as readers do—that sf is more than just the books published under the genre headings “science fiction” and “fantasy,” he would see that people younger than forty are contributing to every single part of the sf field from gaming to comics to movies to romance.

My father was a mathematician and he taught me that you can use statistics to prove any damn fool thing. And you’ll see me use statistics a lot to disprove some damn fool things as this column progresses.

What else is causing controversy? How about this one? Do writers need to read the writers who came before them to produce their best work? Nope. Writers need to do what is best for the writer. And that’s all.

Besides, dear reader, do you quiz your favorite author on whether or not he has read Isaac Asimov or Ursula K. Le Guin? Of course not. It would never cross your mind to do so because what does it matter so long as your favorite writer tells a very good story?

Let’s move away from blogosphere arguments for a moment and note some coolness that comes from the world of science.

There’s water on Mars! It was the lead story on the news one day in July. Isn’t that great? We can now sustain life on the red planet. All those domed colonies we’ve read about we can build one someday, without trucking in our own water.

And here’s my favorite geek story of the summer because it combines three of my interests: swimming, technology, and outer space. Remember those one-piece racing suits the Olympic swimmers wore in Beijing? You know the ones that look like a 1920s men’s bathing costume? By now we all know that they increased speed and reduced drag so well that a swimmer, swimming naked, wouldn’t do as well as the same swimmer wearing the suit.

Well, those suits are based on technology developed by NASA for astronauts.

I find that exceptionally nifty. Just like I find the pen that sits beside my desk nifty. This pen, a gift to me and all of this year’s Hugo losers from next year’s worldcon in Montreal, is also a thumbdrive with more memory than all of the NASA computers from 1969 put together.

I feel like James Bond every time I use it.

I’m going to cover things like this as well as books and movies. I won’t always geek out with great joy over something new. Sometimes I’ll wade into the thicket of some hot argument—and point you to the opposite opinions lurking in the blogosphere.

So sit back and enjoy. I promise that, even though I’m an established professional, old-timer, and occasional legend, I’ll take you on a journey with each column—a journey we can all enjoy together.

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