Paul:
Spider, obviously your writing style has changed and evolved as
you've grown older. How have you kept the child-like optimism that you
started out with through all these changes?
Spider:
-
Half of it is reliance on roughly equal portions of books by Donald
Westlake, Lawrence Block, Thomas Perry and Lawrence Shames; Old Bushmills'
Black Bush, Tanzania Peaberry coffee, marijuana, and Newtons peach apricot
Full Fruit bars; and music by people like Louis Armstrong, Hoagy
Carmichael, Duke Ellington, Sir Paul McCartney, Lenny Breau, Chris Cornell,
and India Arie. The other half is Jeanne, and our daughter Terri.
-
I notice that the picture on your web site shows you wearing a NASA
cap. Are you distressed that NASA has chosen to postpone manned space
exploration and concentrate on projects in low Earth orbit?
Spider:
-
Low Earth Orbit *is* manned space exploration. It isn't about setting
distance records, or collecting interesting souvenirs. It's about becoming
comfortable in the universe -- the whole thing, not just the incredibly
tiny portion of it that constitutes the surface of planets. Low orbit or
high--or no orbit at all--either way you're in conditions that basically
match those of 99.999999999+% of reality, i.e. empty space. Lessons
learned a mere 200 miles above Earth will one day come in very handy for
the first explorers who pass the orbit of Neptune. And they will,
inevitably. Equally useful to those brave men and women will be lessons
learned by the robot probes that passed through there first. It's easy to
take shots at NASA. I think it's fighting--beautifully--for survival right
now. And if it fails, if Congress were to break it up tomorrow, it would
still have kept ignorant savages paying for space R&D for over half a
century--a stunning achievement. An awful lot of other Good Things the 60s
produced have disappeared completely, and will have to be painfully
reinvented.
-
The problem is, a century of science fiction led us to believe that the
conquest of the universe would go *quickly*. We sf writers did this not so
much because we believed it, necessarily (at least not at first), but
because it allowed us to write stories about travel to the more interesting
parts of the solar system and beyond, *by members of a society so near in
time to ours that it had not yet evolved beyond recognition.* It allowed
us to imagine people "just like us," people of our own time and even our
own generation, exploring Mars or disrupting the Galactic Council meeting
or entering the wormhole. It ain't gonna really happen that way, and we've
had our noses rubbed in that. But that's okay: it was never meant to be
more than a dramatic convenience, a writer's shortcut. In reality, Mars
may well end up being settled by people who have never known fear or hunger
or pain, who don't know what poverty *is*, who *expect* to live for
centuries--people no contemporary reader can possibly identify with, any
more than Thomas Jefferson could have comprehended MTV or internet worms.
That's okay. They'll be our descendants, and they'll remember us with
bafflement and fond contempt, just the way we remember our own forebears.
-
Cut NASA some slack. As James Taylor sings, ". . . it's enough to be on your
way/it's enough just to cover ground . . ."
-
We know that you wanted to get out of the sewer, but what other
inspiration was there for Callahan's Place?
Spider:
-
This is a puzzlement. I was inspired by a Charles Boyer/Claudette Colbert
movie I saw on TV, called "Tovarisch," I believe, in which they were exiled
Russian aristocrats who'd been forced to take employment as butler and maid
to a couple of Brit aristocrats. All day they'd bow and scrape, and
secretly fix their pompous-twit employers' tangled lives . . . then there was a
scene where, at night, alone in the servants' quarters, they dressed in
their old Russian finery, drank toasts of vodka, and smashed their glasses
in the fireplace in the grand style. It looked like a lot of fun. Be fun,
I thought, if there was a bar that would let you do that. But of course it
could never work: within a week there'd be fistfights, eyes put out, and
multiple lawsuits. A shame; it really would be fun . . .
-
The thought-train kept resonating for a day or so: "It'd be really
fun/it'd never be practical/boy it'd be so much fun, though/yeah but it
could never work . . . " Then that night at work (night watchman, guarding a
sewer, don't ask: see the diary page at www.spiderrobinson.com if you want
the whole twisted saga) I flung a book away from me, and said aloud, "*I*
could write better than that jerk," and thought, oh yeah? write about
*what*? And the thought train went through my head again -- ". . . so much
fun/never work . . . " -- and suddenly it jumped the track: ". . . it would never
work . . . ..*unless* the bartender, *and* all the patrons, were unusual
people . . . " And as I pondered the question, ". . . unusual in what way,
exactly?" the answer kept coming back, ". . . more . . . well, more *sane*." The
next thing I knew I was typing.
-
Why this is a puzzlement is, I have since tracked down and rented
"Tovarisch," and watched it all the way through with some care, and the
scene I described above just isn't there. Maybe it was cut for the video;
maybe I hallucinated it in the first place. It was, after all, 1972. But
I remember it to this day--the power and glory of Charles and Claudette,
undefeated by Fate, exuberantly flinging their empty glasses into the
flames. Go figure. If it was a hallucination, it was a great one, for I
got a career out of it.
-
I can't get to Suffolk County to find out -- for the
Spider:
-
I'm afraid it was destroyed by a small nuclear weapon, many years ago. You
must have missed Callahan's Secret. Its successor, Mary's Place, *did*
last for another year or two, depicted in The Callahan Touch . . . but then it
too was destroyed, by something much more malignant than a mere atom bomb,
in Callahan's Legacy. Happily, however, Jake Stonebender then moved the
whole operation lock stock and barrel to Key West, Florida--as chronicled
in Callahan's Key, the new novel that happens to have *just* come out in
Bantam paperback as we speak (having been a Locus Bestseller in hardcover),
and thanks for asking.
-
If there's anything more you need to know on the subject of "is there
really a Callahan's?" I recommend that you visit the Usenet newsgroup
alt.callahans. You'll find out . . .
-
Your fans are really glad that Jim Baen is reprinting a lot of your
older short stories. How do you feel about seeing them in print again
after all this time?
Spider:
-
Great.
-
Many of us have heard about your relationship with Robert A.
Heinlein. Could you tell us about your relationship?
Spider:
-
Pretty much everything I'm comfortable discussing about my relationship
with Robert is already in print, in Yoji Kondo's splendid collection
REQUIEM. I'm afraid I haven't time to either xerox or retype it, and I'm
sure not going to rewrite it from memory.
-
Interviewer's Note:
Here Spider cites the very book, REQUIEM, where I got the notion that he knew Robert Heinlein. So I dragged out the book and read Mr. Robinson's fine tribute to Robert A. Heinlein again. And cried again. I, of course, then realized how unlikely it was that Spider would have forgotten to include anything significant in that tribute. My mistake.
-
How did your wife Jeanne become involved in your writing?
Spider:
-
Again, a twice-told tale. This question is already answered in great
detail online--on the "diary" page of my website,
.
-
Do you intend to concentrate on novels now, or will you still write
the occasional short story?
Spider:
-
I'd *love* to write more short stories. They're a hell of lot less work,
and much closer to instant gratification. I just haven't had an *idea* for
one in years. I'm not sure why, and am not spending much time analyzing
it. If I think of any, I'll write 'em.
-
Jim Baen says you're one helluva folk singer. Just how good are you?
Spider:
-
Good enough to share a stage with Amos Garrett and Ron Casat without
stinking up the joint. (Remember Maria Muldaur's "Midnight At The
Oasis" -- that demonic guitar break? *That* Amos Garrett . . . ) People can
decide for themselves, of course, by going to the "Music" page at
,
and listening to the MP3 samples there of my new CD, "Belaboring the Obvious,"
on which I sing and play 4 of my original songs with a full band including
Amos on lead guitar, and thanks again for asking.
Spider performed the song "Belaboring the Obvious" live at the San Diego ComicCon for us (although background, including the guitar-work was recorded and not live). He did, indeed, NOT "stink up the joint." I'll probably buy the CD myself.
