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I often feel like I might have been more comfortable in another time in the past. Mind you, I say that while typing on my laptop, sitting in a comfortably-heated house, having just driven back from an appointment ten miles away in our Toyota Prius over (mostly) decently-paved roads, and understanding fully that in nearly all of those pasts, I’d already be dead, and probably would have died rather early given my asthma, near-sightedness, lousy teeth, and so on.
Yesterday, I was listening to Terry Gross interviewing Timothy Spall about his role as the title character in Mike Leigh’s new film “Mr. Turner” -- which takes place in Georgian England, and found myself musing about living in that place and time, with all the interesting movements in fine art, music, and literature at the time. Definitely a film I want to see.
But… While sitting there listening, I realized that part of me feels out of time in this world and this time. I think this predilection shows in my fiction. Even when I wrote science fiction -- purportedly in some future -- the worlds I created were largely informed by my reading of historical textbooks and the societies and cultures there were more backward-looking than forward. The ‘Alliance’ universe where most of my sf was placed was emerging from a “dark ages” collapse, where contact between worlds was lost, where much technology was forgotten, and where stratified, almost medieval cultures arose on various planets.
Since the turn of our current century, I’ve mostly written fantasy rather than sf, and there I’ve been mining Celtic culture (with the Cloudmages series and also with THE CROW OF CONNEMARA) the Renaissance (with the Nessantico cycle), and the historical arts past (with IMMORTAL MUSE). My current work-in-progress is set in a faux first century C.E. England. I’m fascinated by cultures and societies of the past far more than I’m interested in what might happen in the future. I often imagine myself in one of those pasts, and wonder how I might have fared there.
Mind you, as I said above, the present suits me just fine and has done well for me. I like indoor plumbing and electricity and the rest. Still...
What about you? Are you forward- or backward-looking? Have you ever felt out of place in this world of ours?
Yesterday, I was listening to Terry Gross interviewing Timothy Spall about his role as the title character in Mike Leigh’s new film “Mr. Turner” -- which takes place in Georgian England, and found myself musing about living in that place and time, with all the interesting movements in fine art, music, and literature at the time. Definitely a film I want to see.
But… While sitting there listening, I realized that part of me feels out of time in this world and this time. I think this predilection shows in my fiction. Even when I wrote science fiction -- purportedly in some future -- the worlds I created were largely informed by my reading of historical textbooks and the societies and cultures there were more backward-looking than forward. The ‘Alliance’ universe where most of my sf was placed was emerging from a “dark ages” collapse, where contact between worlds was lost, where much technology was forgotten, and where stratified, almost medieval cultures arose on various planets.
Since the turn of our current century, I’ve mostly written fantasy rather than sf, and there I’ve been mining Celtic culture (with the Cloudmages series and also with THE CROW OF CONNEMARA) the Renaissance (with the Nessantico cycle), and the historical arts past (with IMMORTAL MUSE). My current work-in-progress is set in a faux first century C.E. England. I’m fascinated by cultures and societies of the past far more than I’m interested in what might happen in the future. I often imagine myself in one of those pasts, and wonder how I might have fared there.
Mind you, as I said above, the present suits me just fine and has done well for me. I like indoor plumbing and electricity and the rest. Still...
What about you? Are you forward- or backward-looking? Have you ever felt out of place in this world of ours?