We recently had chance to interview Stephen Palmer, SF writer. We discussed Artificial Intelligence, influences and thoughts on writing.
Hello, Stephen. Many thanks for doing this.
You’re welcome, thank you for asking me.
Q: We’re speaking as Beautiful Intelligence, your ninth novel, is being published. Can you tell us a little about it?
I think the novel is best described as a philosophical thriller. It’s set in 2092, interestingly far into the future but not so far that the world is unrecognisable. The story focuses on two groups of people, both following a particular line of artificial intelligence research. The leaders of these groups were at one point a couple, but having escaped from the Japanese research lab in which they worked they go their separate ways. The novel is a combination of action set-pieces that happen because there are Japanese chase teams on their heels, and more philosophical enquiry into the nature of AI.
I’ve been reading and thinking about human consciousness for decades, and the novel uses ideas of mine and of certain thinkers whose work has influenced me, most notably Nicholas Humphrey. My personal feeling is that the theme of AI in SF has been dealt with in a rather blundering fashion – that’s why I contrast the team creating a single AI with the team creating a social group. My bête noire is the notion that “parts” of our minds can be uploaded, downloaded, copied, or otherwise dealt with as though they had independent existence. This is a complete fantasy that derives from the idea that we have souls or spirits.
Q: How did the writing of the book come about?
I can’t remember to be honest – the first draft was written four years ago – but it’s not impossible that one of my occasional re-readings of William Gibson’s Neuromancer was the spark. As with a lot of authors my age, that novel felt like a bolt from the blue; very influential. One thing I do recall is that I wanted to return to Africa as a setting. Also, I had strong impressions of a few of the characters, especially the two “security” people, Hound and Pouncey. Vivid characters is where many things begin.
Q: You’ve said that your book deals with the philosophical aspect of the nature of Artificial Intelligence. I have noticed that the role that artificial intelligence in future societies could play seems to be an increasingly important topic of general discussion again at the moment. There’s also the Channel 4 TV series Humans, the recent film Ex Machina… whilst the idea isn’t all that new, have you any personal ideas why we’re attracted to the idea of AI again?
I think there are two main reasons. One is that, here in the West, and increasingly across the globe, we’re still obsessed with the idea of what we can make and do, regardless of the ethical reasons for such things and regardless of the consequences. Science, and therefore technology, remains wedded to capitalist ideas of economics, which in my opinion – and in the opinion of many ecologically oriented people – is a disaster waiting to happen. Erich Fromm pointed out as long ago as the mid ‘70s that giving companies and corporations carte blanche to do whatever they liked in the fields of science and technology was madness. Consequentially, they act regardless of human needs, and often in opposition to those needs.
The second reason is more nebulous, I think, and it is the whole concept of creating life in one form or another. We live in times where life itself could be changed or even created, and that is an intoxicating idea. But for as long as we pretend that consciousness is all about spirits or souls, or that it is some sort of quantifiable “thing” inside us, we are doomed to AI failure. There’s also a very strong male bias in AI research and thinking. It amazes me that, well over a century since Freud discovered the human unconscious, we still have no generally accepted scientific description of the human condition, including things like the existence of emotion, love, humour and so on. Most men aren’t comfortable talking about such things. So until we get that description we’re going to be wandering around in the dark, I suspect.
Q: Now that you have your novel written, what is the one thing that you’re most proud about it?
Mmm… I’m not sure. That’s not a question I’ve ever been asked before! I think the novel does have a coherent style and narrative voice. I’m a keen fan of choosing a voice appropriate to a setting, so the style is flecked with dialect and various imaginary buzz words from the future. I like to encourage my readers to do a little work themselves, so sometimes I’ll use completely made-up words that convey something better than real ones. I took that notion to its logical extreme in my surreal novel of last year, Hairy London.
Let’s move away from the current book a little.
How did you start writing? Was there a particular book or moment in your life that spurred you on?
I began in my mid twenties. I was always very creative, and just naturally slipped into having a go at a full-length work. My early novels have long since been destroyed, but after a decade or so I was getting somewhere, and a radical redraft of one of my early books got picked up off the Orbit slush pile. After a while I got the phone call that every aspiring author wants. That was in late 1994. In April 1996 my debut Memory Seed was published, with Glass coming out the following year.
Q: And at what point did you decide to take up writing professionally?
I’ve never earned enough to go pro, so I suppose I’m semi-professional. My career has imitated a rollercoaster. Currently I seem to be on the up, which is nice…
Q: What is it about the SF genre that you like?
For me it’s imagining the future of the planet. And of us humans. For me, the sad thing about only having a few decades of life is not finding out what happens a millennium, a million years, a hundred million years into the future. So I have to write those futures myself. One of my possible future projects is a work called the Green Trilogy, which is set 800 million years in the future, when carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is almost non-existent – with catastrophic consequences for plant, and thus animal life.
I used to be an optimist about human life on Earth, but now I’m much more pessimistic. I think you lose your optimism as you grow older because of the appalling things that continue to happen in the world.
I’m also extremely lucky to be with a publisher, Infinity Plus Books, who let me write pretty much whatever I like. Keith Brooke must have the patience of a saint, given the novel I presented to him last year – Hairy London. So that’s another bonus of SF – not only can my imagination range from near future to ultra far future, I can do it any way I like. Having said that, my fans are most used to my far future work – Memory Seed, Urbis Morpheos, novels like that. Though if ever I write the Green Trilogy I’m going to have to out-do Urbis Morpheos in terms of futuristic speculation, which isn’t going to be easy.
Q: Though most of your books, to my knowledge, seem to be SF-based, how are you with Fantasy and Horror? Would you like to write more of these?
Horror means nothing to me, but I do like some fantasy. I wrote a novel for Prime Books about ten years ago called The Rat & The Serpent which was a dark fantasy. As it was a rather gothic novel I wrote it entirely in black-and-white (as a film might be made in black-and-white). Generally though I stick with SF.
Q: What kind of books do you read for pleasure, any favourite authors?
Mostly I read nonfiction: life and evolution sciences, environmental science, psychology, philosophy and anthropology. I’m a particular fan of people like James Lovelock, Erich Fromm and Nicholas Humphrey, all of whom have had a huge impact on my thinking and my work.
In genre, my favourite authors of the past include Jack Vance, Gene Wolfe, Ursula LeGuin, Gwyneth Jones, Mervyn Peake, John Wyndham and Brian Aldiss. And as with many people, reading The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings was a formative experience for me.
Certain novels have had a big impact on me – Neuromancer I’ve already mentioned, but I was much taken with such books as Dune, The Book Of The New Sun and Helliconia. Another huge influence on me was a little known YA novel called The Weathermonger, Peter Dickinson’s first novel. It’s one of a tiny number of books I regularly re-read. The combination of the British setting, the scenario – a kind of return to Medieval times – and the travelogue plot really appeals to me.
Q: And what of newer authors? Are there any personal favourites?
I was a huge fan of China Mieville when he appeared, but I haven’t gelled with his recent novels. I like a lot of Jeff Vandermeer’s work too. I do also enjoy a good YA novel – often they are better than adult novels. With YA you have to focus on character and plot, with not a shred of waffle. (All authors should write YA for the experience – you learn so much about the craft of writing.) One of the greatest of the YA great is Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, but I also liked Sally Gardner’s early novels. I loved Steve Cockayne’s Wanderers & Islanders trilogy. I recently read Teresa Edgerton’s Goblin Moon, which is not the sort of book I normally read but which I really enjoyed. I liked all five of Nick Gifford’s YA books, and recently I enjoyed Neil Williamson’s The Moon King, which reminded me a little, in terms of setting anyway, of Memory Seed.
Q: How are you finding the e-book revolution? Are you happy with an e-reader these days, or do you still prefer ‘tree-books’?
Tree-books! That’s a great description. As opposed to silicon books… Well, I’m no fan of e-readers myself, I much prefer the feel and weight of paper. I have a nicely stocked library at home.
Q: Would you care to pass on any advice to writers starting out? What was the best advice you were ever given when starting out?
I was a sponge for advice in my early days because I was keen to be published. Of course, had I known the odds against me I would never have bothered. I was lucky that Memory Seed struck a chord with my editor, and he remembered it when some time later he was asked to find a new British SF author for Orbit. The best advice I found included: if you’re stuck, don’t think about words, imagine it better; a cliché is always better than the phrase which doesn’t work (Gene Wolfe); prose should be like music; write for yourself and hope it strikes a general chord.
Now I’m into my mid-50s and have thirty years of writing experience I have come to realise a few core truths about the authoring craft. Imagine characters first in your basic setting; don’t be afraid to experiment; be concerned about what people think of your work, but never take it seriously.
But the advice I’m keenest to get across is perhaps the most “controversial”. I think too many novice writers get hung up on technique. I would advise all authors to concentrate on their imagination – their characters, their worlds. Those have to be utterly vivid and unique: don’t think about words, imagine it better, as is mentioned above. And the moment you begin writing to a style, a sub-genre or to another author’s work, you’re sunk. Be a complete one-off even if it means you fail. Your persistence, and the vast amount of effort you’ll put into your work, will count for far more in the end.
Q: Sounds like sensible advice! And finally, what’s next?
I’m very excited about next year. I know authors shouldn’t evaluate their own work – we’re not well placed to do such a thing – but an insistent voice at the back of my mind is telling me that the trilogy I’ve just completed – The Girl With Two Souls/The Girl With One Friend/The Girl With No Soul – is the best thing I’ve ever done. The first volume was one of only a couple of novels in my writing career that sprang fully formed out of my imagination. (Memory Seed was also like that.) The main character Kora is an illegitimate mulatto girl of fourteen, whose father is the greatest industrialist of the Edwardian era, responsible for the automata that support the British Empire. But Kora holds a secret in her head relating to her terrible upbringing, and these three novels tell her story. There’s lots of steampunk action, a grandson of Charles Darwin as the second main character, philosophy about the non-existence of souls, and much else besides…
That sounds intriguing. We wish you well not only with Beautiful Intelligence, but also your future work as well. Many thanks for your time, Stephen.
Thank you!
Interview by Mark Yon – SFFWorld.com © 2015
