Check our interview with Robert Reed, an author who is no stranger to our pages. Here we discuss his writing history, his relationship with Asimov’s, and how he came up with the title of his latest story, “What>We>Will>Never>Be,” which you can read in our [July/August issue, on sale now!]
Asimov’s Editor: How did the title for this piece come to you?
Robert Reed: “Excavations” was my working title. The story existed for years as an empty folder on my Google Docs cloud—one of those maybe-projects that the author wants to get to eventually, but not today. The general idea was that an alien gentleman lived alone inside an unusual apartment. I didn’t know why he was alone or what made his home valuable, but one of the Great Ship’s rulers wanted to acquire that property for themself. And that ruler happened to be an !eech, which is why this could be a compelling tale.
The Great Ship is the linchpin of my professional life. Marrow and The Well of Stars are two novels about the world-sized starship, written more than two decades ago and both still in print. The Well ends with the !eech taking control of the mangled Ship, and “Excavations” was to occur hundreds or thousands of years later. I didn’t yet know how much later, and for that matter, I had no idea what an !eech was or what they might want with a harum-scarum’s abode.
Infinite sagas are exactly that. Boundless. The Great Ship will never be fully explored, and the multitudes living onboard will largely remain unnamed and unappreciated. But I did eventually figure out the !eech, at least well enough to write about them. In early 2022, I began three Great Ship novellas, each attempting to cover events just before and a little while after the !eech takeover. “Excavations” was the title for the first two drafts, and while a lot of work remained—most of the plot and action sequences weren’t obvious to me—the two habitats had very respectable names. “What>We>Will>Never>Be” was a typographical nightmare to produce on command. But it so perfectly fits the mood that I was trying for, familiar words bracketed what might be greater-than signs. Though I suspect that a more thorough translation would be more elaborate and beautiful than what weak little English can manage.
Twenty thousand word stories are probably my strong suit. Which helps and hurts. It helps because I can solve my writing problems without having to pound together a string of 100,000 word books. But it hurts because there were never many novella markets when I was starting in this business, and the situation has only gotten more dire. I’ve sold two of the novellas that I wrote last year. One way or another, the third story will be published, if in a slightly smaller form. But I’m well aware that when I do make a sale, a younger author loses their place in the table of contents.
AE: What is your history with Asimov’s?
RR: I have a long, enjoyable relationship with the magazine. More than thirty years, which includes several Hugo nominations and one Hugo win—for a novella, of course. “A Billion Eves.”
AE: What other projects are you currently working on?
RR: I consider myself semi-retired. Yet most mornings are spent working on something. For instance, last week and next week, and maybe until the end June, 2023, I’m building a series of collections to put up on Kindle. The first volume will be called The Esteemed and Strange Love. “The Esteemed” is another Reed novella first published in Asimov’s. It’s wrapped around a Ted Talk that I’ll never give, the 15 minutes where I name and define the five grave threats to civilization on the Earth, and perhaps to intelligence across the universe. The Strange Love portion will contain R. Reed stories about nukes running amok and other civilization-ending wars. Winter Dies is global warming. Polishing the Seed are my gene-engineering tales. Uncannies refers to the “uncanny valley” phrase that I keep seeing on the Web. You know, about AIs. And finally, two volumes about ETs that are with us and removed from us. About Us and On the Brink of That Bright New World.
By my count, I’ll republish around 700,000 words in five epub editions.
Which is probably not even one-fifth of my lifetime output.
“What>We>Will>Never>Be” was a typographical nightmare to produce on command. But it so perfectly fits the mood that I was trying for, familiar words bracketed what might be greater-than signs. Though I suspect that a more thorough translation would be more elaborate and beautiful than what weak little English can manage.
AE: Do you have any advice for up-and-coming authors?”
RR: First: “Up-and-coming” is a cliche, and it’s also a warning. All these years, and I feel like an “up-and-coming” writer. I’m always trying to prove myself, if only to myself. When I can’t do this anymore, I will retire, and the world will likely be a better place for my refusal to string words together.
Second, on the topic of stringing words together. Let’s mention large language models. Which aren’t AIs, but that doesn’t keep them from being profound and unsettling. Their sudden appearance in the public mind is one more proof that we live inside a science fiction universe. But this is a shared universe populated with many up-and-coming authors, each genius wanting to raise the stakes with every new work. Nukes. Climate change. Pandemics and UABs. Who knows what comes next? I sure don’t. But I have strong doubts that writing will survive long in its current form. I halfway expect Amazon to eventually fire all of its human authors, including me, employing large language models that have read and mastered the millions of works already available on the Kindle platform. This won’t happen tomorrow. Probably not. But eventually, there will be meetings with coffee and doughnuts, and teams will be assembled to plan this kind of apocalypse.
And my third attempt at advice: I was a youngster in my twenties, and I hadn’t sold shit. Writing meant a typewriter and ribbons, and in the earliest days, carbon paper to make your only copy. My brother came to visit, and I showed him what I was doing with my evenings. On a board covered with hexagons, I was the Wehrmacht invading the Soviet Union, and I was the Siberian reinforcements defending Moscow from the Nazis. Both at once, and it was great fun.
My brother, who was never shy about offering advice, suggested that I stop playing games and spend more time writing. But that’s a deeply mistaken attitude common to nonwriters. I was in the throes of something huge, imagining two great forces clashing on an epic landscape. In that case, it was the Germans and the Russians. How do they move, how do they survive? And my main goal? I wanted to find the best possible outcome, which was both sides being exhausted and useless, allowing room for something a little better to come into the world.
From Earth to the Stars 