Monday, April 9, 2018

Kelly Robson

Kelly Robson’s new time travel adventure is Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach. From her Q&A with Ilana C. Myer at B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy blog:

Many readers, including me, get excited at the idea of time travel. In Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach, time travel is a vehicle for the exploration of themes about past and future, and what each owes the other. Can you talk about how this idea developed?

I’m a big Connie Willis fan, and her time travel stories have been a major influence on me. The great thing about time travel is concept is wide open. Every writer creates their own time travel rules to suit the stories they want to tell.

Connie’s really interested in the role of fate in the daily lives of people, so her time travel stories contain a lot of misplaced messages and calls for help that aren’t heard until the very last moment. I’m interested in something different.

What really gets me going is economics, in the broadest sense. When I say “economics” I don’t mean money. I mean what we owe to each other. This can take a lot of forms, from person to person, group to group, generation to generation, nation to nation, culture to culture, or between the past, present, and future. How do we interact? How do we behave responsibly, care for others, ensure our actions are moral and ethical, even under the most complex circumstances?

In our world right now, the biggest illustration of a failure to care for each other, or to recognize the humanity of others, is...[read on]
--Marshal Zeringue