Today we’re very pleased to interview Stephen Palmer, a regular on the SFFWorld Forums. He’s also an experienced writer, with more than seventeen novels to his name. However, with the republication of his first novel, we wanted to ask him about it!
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Hello Stephen! Thanks for this.
Thank you for asking me. Always glad to be part of SFF World.
We’re speaking as your first published book, Memory Seed, is being republished by Infinity Plus Books after its debut 25 years ago. Could you briefly tell us what the book is about?
It’s essentially an ecological catastrophe novel of the far future, following four main characters as they live out the final year of Kray, the only city remaining on the face of the planet. Kray is surrounded on three sides by impassable, deadly vegetation, and to the south by the sea – also deadly. It’s an ancient, gothic, dangerous place of wild plant/computer hybrids, of perilous tribes of women, of temples, and of prophetic serpents which can be accessed from street booths. This really is the End Time of humanity.
Zinina is one of the four lead characters, an escaped guard from the ruling Citadel who knows there are secrets beneath it, and who is determined to find them for her own salvation. Arrahaquen is the daughter of a member of the ruling Red Brigade, who is attempting a dangerous insurgency. Graaff-lin is a worshipper at the Dodspaat Temple, working with numerous prophecies made by the online serpents in an attempt to save herself and perhaps all Krayans.
Almost everybody in Kray is a woman or a girl. There are virtually no men, and most of them who do survive are firmly under female control. One man however, deKray, is a free independent, who becomes involved with Zinina, then the other two women. It transpires that his future and that of the three women are linked, though in a wholly unexpected way.
The main themes of the novel are twofold: the way humanity has mistreated, exploited and polluted the Earth, and the need to save yourself rather than allow somebody or something else to. Most Krayans expect their temples or the Red Brigade to save them. Only a handful believe the future lies with themselves.
Has the new edition changed from the original?
When I retrieved the rights to Memory Seed and Glass from Orbit in 2012, I was informed that they had lost the original files. So I had to buy a copy of each novel, tear out every page, then scan and OCR them, then reassemble the full text in Word. It was a mammoth job. Once I had the texts prepared, I re-read both books and gave them a light copy edit.
So Memory Seed is pretty much the same in the 25th anniversary edition as in its original form. I had an excellent editor at Orbit, and I remember asking him just before it was published whether or not it was a good book. He gave me a wry smile and said, “It’s as good as it can be.”
In 2012 I hadn’t read the book since it had been published, so, sixteen years on, it was a bit of a strange experience to be immersed once again in that foetid, damp, gothic environment. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. The world of Kray does represent me, in some indefinable, enigmatic way.
I suppose I’m attracted to the themes as well as the scenario. Two years ago I was thrilled to be asked by Ian Whates of Newcon Press if I’d consider writing a couple of new Kray stories to be added to three I’d had published earlier. Ian was a fan of Memory Seed and wanted to publish a new collection, Tales From The Spired Inn, so I had the considerable pleasure of returning one last time to Kray in order to write a couple of new tales – something I enjoyed immensely. I suppose that is the greatest change. I never expected to be returning to Kray in order to write!
25 years on, as a writer with some experience now, how do you look at your earlier work? Is there ever a temptation to rewrite things or do you prefer to leave it as a record of where you were then?
I think Memory Seed stands up to scrutiny as it was then. Glass is a little different in tone. Those two novels were part of a thematically linked trilogy, but for one reason and another Flowercrash was never published, and then I, like a lot of SF authors at the time, was dropped.
Personally, I would never re-write a former novel, because I neither have the time nor the motivation. Some of my early novels are mediocre at best. I think Memory Seed still works, and Muezzinland too, which was published small-time over in America in 2003. But the original version of that book wasn’t great, so I prepared a revised edition for Infinity Plus Books. In those days however I was in a different place in my life; a different man, and still a naïve author. My career proper began with Infinity Plus, and especially with The Girl With Two Souls. The Factory Girl trilogy was a defining moment for me as an author.
And where were you then? How did you get your first book published?
I was a very naïve man when in 1993 I wrote the third draft of Memory Seed. I was powered by imagination alone. My craft was basic, my technique too. I also had little idea about the publishing industry, promotion, marketing or any of that stuff. I remember being invited in 1995 to WorldCon in Glasgow, and being totally out of my depth because I didn’t know anybody. That was a fairly dispiriting experience, actually.
My route to publication was the one too few people talk about – pure chance. Random luck is a far larger player in getting published than most people realise, partly because writers don’t want to believe they have little or no agency in their own success, and partly because the odds against success are so huge nobody wants to face them. I was plucked off the slush pile because I sent in the right novel at the right time. Tim Holman remembered it when he and Colin Murray were seeking new British writers, and he contacted me. But it could have been so different. In December 1993 me and my then wife were about to move house, and for reasons too unpleasant to detail here we weren’t going to leave a forwarding address. A few days before we departed a letter popped through the letterbox. It was from Tim Holman, writing back to me a full year after I’d sent him an extract of Memory Seed, telling me he wanted to read more. If I’d moved a week earlier I might not be an author now…
With the benefit of hindsight, what do you wish you could tell your younger writing self from the vantage point of today?
So many things! I really didn’t have much of clue back in those days. Everything I did was powered by imagination and gut instinct. I had no idea of craft, and little technique. I think the vividness of the novel and its setting was what struck those early readers. I would tell my younger self to listen more to the music of prose.
I also wish I had known more about networking. I was a member of the BSFA back then, and knew of some Sf people via their three magazines, Matrix, Vector and Focus, but beyond that I was isolated. I would tell my younger self to get out more and meet the SF community, which I’ve discovered since the advent of the internet to be a friendly, welcoming place, in which I’ve made loads of friends.
Of course, since Memory Seed you have continued to be published and now have a number of books written. What are you currently working on and what can you tell us about it?
I have a few irons in the fire at the moment. My main work this year will be the Conjuror Girl trilogy, coming out in the autumn from my publisher Infinity Plus: Monique Orphan, Monica Orvan & Monica Hatherley. These are similar in some ways to my Factory Girl trilogy: slipstream steampunk, this time with a dash of fantasy, and set in an alternate, gothic version of my home town Shrewsbury. Monique is a young orphan living in a grim orphanage, who discovers through the agency of her best friend Lily that she has a power no girl or woman should have. It’s set in 1899/1900 and will be published all together – like Factory Girl, it’s one novel in three volumes.
I’ve also been working in the Hairy London universe, following the audiobook and podcast version of the original novel by narrator Roger Watson. I’ve written a couple of novellas and a clutch of short stories, which I hope will be out later in the year. Jeeni.com have expressed interest in working with me and Roger on the novella The Humour Mines, so that’s interesting and promising.
Because of lockdown I’ve made no progress since summer last year on my series of six short films Condition: Human, but I am hoping to return to that now the weather is improving and places are beginning to open up.
Thank you, Stephen. We wish you well with all the new work, of course!
Memory Seed is available now from Infinity Plus Books, from bookshops and all the usual online outlets.
