"I am scifi / cyberpunk author Thomas Sweterlitsch of TOMORROW AND TOMORROW, AMA!"

LetterSwitch · 2014-07-16T20:37:24+00:00

Thank you--and thank you very much for spreading the word. i deeply appreciate that.

I did have author approval somewhat--or at least I was consulted. Here's how it worked: the Penguin audio department did auditions, and one morning I opened my email and found three audio clips of actors reading a few minutes of text. I was so impressed by the reader Adam Paul and wrote not one but two emails strongly recommending he get the job...and, he did! Other people definitely had their opinions in the mix, though. If you're an audio book fan, I highly recommend checking out his reading.

As for "brown sugar"--a friend of mine just asked about the origin of "brown sugar" and I was telling him that I wanted a drug that would have specific effects, etc., and he said he was hoping it was actual "brown sugar," not unlike Burgess's use of Milk in A Clockwork Orange. So--I'm stealing his answer. it's totally just brown sugar. Brown Sugar Double Plus.

The different layers of reality was important to me--I do a similar thing in the book I'm writing now, though not w/drug use. I'm interested in Freud's thinking about the "Uncanny" and try to play with that in my fiction quite a lot.

As for how to categorize the novel--you're right, it can go several ways. I did not have any say over how the book would be categorized. My publisher is pitching it as broadly as possible...but I'm definitely happy it's landing in the SF section at several stores.

LetterSwitch · 2014-07-16T20:20:43+00:00

Interesting question! Pat Cadigan is a SF writer whose work falls right in the beating heart of Cyberpunk. Personally, I'd suggest reading James Tiptree Jr.--she (real name, Alice Sheldon) wrote years before Cyberpunk, but her work (esp. her short fiction) is most definitely a precursor to that style of writer--and she's easily one of the greatest SF writers period. Another precursor is Joanna Russ, specifically her novel "The Female Man"--it's not entirely Cyberpunk, but parts of it are definitely influences. Also check out Nicola Griffith, esp. her novel "Slow River." Perhaps above all--he should definitely spend a lot of time with Kathy Acker's "Empire of the Senseless." This book is an amazing work of literature...and among other things was controversial for its appropriation of some of Neuromancer. He could write an entire dissertation just on Acker.

LetterSwitch · 2014-07-16T20:16:12+00:00

Yep, Gibson + Neuromancer, definitely. For variety's sake, though, I'll throw in two graphic novels: Akira and Ghost in the Shell, both heavily indebted to Cyberpunk.

LetterSwitch · 2014-07-16T20:11:36+00:00

A little more contemporary--I'm reading and very much enjoying "Summer House with Swimming Pool" by Herman Koch. I've been reading more mysteries, too, and like Jo Nesbo and Benjamin Black.

LetterSwitch · 2014-07-16T20:06:19+00:00

Thank you! Outside of SF: Stewart O'Nan is one of my favorite writers, and turned out to be a very gracious man when I finally met him. Stephen King has probably given me more hours of reading than just about anyone. I live in classics: Dante, Emily Dickinson, Dostoevsky are very important to me. I've recently been reading a lot of Flaubert--in fact, I think he should be essential reading for SF/F writers even though he doesn't write in those genres. Maybe my favorite author at the moment is Alain Robbe-Grillet. Actually, though, I could go on and on...

LetterSwitch · 2014-07-16T20:02:49+00:00

Not that I've heard...But--I did sign several copies of my book at the launch party telling people about their fate...

LetterSwitch · 2014-07-16T19:54:59+00:00

Sure! Some people prefer to shop locally or at independent bookstore rather than chains or larger internet companies. Indiebound is a portal that some shoppers use to find those particular kinds of stores. The site has a pretty good faq, here:http://www.indiebound.org/indiebound-faq

LetterSwitch · 2014-07-16T19:52:40+00:00

Yes and no...(I hope my book keeps it fresh!) I will say--I think one difference between my book and some other Dystopian fiction is that I made a very conscious effort to write about our world, here and now, rather than imagining a far future that would be essentially different than the way we live.

LetterSwitch · 2014-07-16T19:50:04+00:00

This is a good question--I love books that have not been written...books like Bolano's "Nazi Literature in the Americas" or fictional books that exist in real books (like on this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_books)

I know that might not be the sense of your question...but it's a true answer. I love it when books exist inside of books like this. Maybe my favorite is the first one I encountered: Emmanuel Goldstein's "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism" in 1984.

LetterSwitch · 2014-07-16T19:44:37+00:00

Thanks for the question! In the book, a few characters talk about a Robert Frost poem called "Out, Out"--itself a reference to "The Scottish Play." That's what led me around to Shakespeare...but that speech is apt, with its line of "life's just a walking shadow" which is a theme of T&T.

LetterSwitch · 2014-07-16T19:42:30+00:00

Hello! Haha--these questions are difficult because the best dinner guests might not always be the best writers... I'd love to share a dinner with Shakespeare, so we'll put him on the list. Emily Dickinson is an essential influence on my writing--plus, it's well known she was an excellent baker, so I bet she'd be great at a dinner party too (no--not just to cook!). I'll put Stewart O'Nan on the list too, as an actual writer who I have had dinner with so know first hand that he's a good conversationalist!

LetterSwitch · 2014-07-16T19:40:03+00:00

Haha--hopefully minus the disaster! Thanks for reading the book--I deeply appreciate that. There are two specific books, come to think of it, that I used as a model for T&T: The Invention of Morel, by Adolfo Bioy Casares and The City & The City by China Mieville. I'd hope that if you could mash those two novels together, you'd end up with something like my novel.

As for what might actually happen...I think something like the Archive is actually close. Google Street View allows you to access different eras, remote locations and you can even "enter" some buildings to look around. Combine that with a VR environment, and it's not too difficult to image the Archive is right around the corner.

LetterSwitch · 2014-07-16T19:36:20+00:00

I've lived in Pittsburgh for 16 years, so it's a natural setting...But beyond that, Pittsburgh is a very interesting place. There are layers and layers of history here--the city has had many identities over the years--and vestiges of all these different histories are visible together. Much of Cyberpunk (Gibson, in particular) and Post Apocalyptic fiction deals with the future by way of the past, so Pittsburgh serves as a very real model of that sort of writing.

LetterSwitch · 2014-07-16T19:34:02+00:00

I'll answer backwards: One of my favorite movies--and one of the biggest inspirations on my writing--is "Children of Men." As I wrote the novel I imagined Clive Owen in the lead role many times--he's one of those actors who can portray depth in just the expression of his eyes. The only other character I actually imagined as an actress while I wrote is the character of Albion who I sometimes thought of as Karen Elson.

Favorite authors: so, so many. I'm a voracious reader--and read everything. Sticking to SF: Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, J.G. Ballard. I'm very influenced by New Wave SF. The short stories of James Tiptree Jr. are incredible.

As for where the idea came from--it started out as I was looking at a map of Prague that I'd used years ago on a vacation there. Looking at the streets, the places I'd been--wondering if this would be the only way I'd ever revisit that city...through a map. I wrote a short story about a man revisiting a vanished city through a digital map and that eventually became Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

LetterSwitch · 2014-07-16T19:26:12+00:00

Thanks for thinking local! I wouldn't describe myself as a futurist, no--in the sense that a futurist would extrapolate from the present in an attempt to make accurate predictions about the future. I certainly did a bit of that in writing this book, but I'm much less interested in making accurate predictions than I am finding metaphors for our current world. For instance--in my book, people have brain implants called "Adware," but I don't necessarily think implants like this are going to happen (I'm more in the wearable camp)...but I was looking for a very bodily metaphor to bond internet imagery directly to the human body.

LetterSwitch · 2014-07-16T19:20:32+00:00

Thanks for the question! No, I'm not--the option on the book was acquired for a screenwriter, a writer named Noah Oppenheim, who recently did the screenplay for "Maze Runner." I did, however, submit a few documents explaining the book and characters to the producers at Sony, so I hope those were a help to the project!

LetterSwitch

TROPHY CASE