"That's sci-fi for sci-fi's sake. No, thank you," says NYT bestselling sci-fi author

Blazing Reader,

The October issue of Locus Magazine features an interview with Daniel H. Wilson, discussing how great stories possess the "magic trick of invoking emotion." He describes his journey going from a non-fiction science writer with a PhD in robotics to a science fiction novelist who mines emotions:

"As I've gotten farther along in my career and had kids and lived life, I see that emotion is what it's all about. In fact, I've re-oriented my whole writing perspective. I write for the emotion; the sci-fi exists to support the emotion. I don't start with the future I think we're going to have and then write a story there. That's crazy. That's sci-fi for sci-fi's sake. No, thank you. Usually, in my own life, I'll have something that's making me feel emotion, and I think, 'Ooh, I need to mine this, this is useful: Why am I feeling this, and how can I get my finger under the seams of it and peel it off and stick it in whatever I'm writing and analyze it and figure it out?' That's what I tend to do now with my books. The feeling is the point." 

I think Daniel Wilson just clarified why some science fiction has zero appeal for me (it has the emotional depth of a toaster manual) and other science fiction I can't get enough of (it uses a speculative outer world as an analogy for our psycho-spiritual inner world).

Wilson's perspective makes me eager to read his latest book, Hole in the Sky — about Native Americans on a reservation making first contact with aliens from outer space. If you're into sci-fi with an emotional undercurrent then head on over to DanielHWilson.com to find out more about him and his novels.

John C.A. Manley

P.S. And for the full Locus Interview: Daniel H. Wilson: Through the Unknown

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.