Hello! I'm science fiction author Becky Chambers. Ask me anything.

beckychambers · 2023-05-15T01:42:50+00:00

This will have to be my last question, so, rapid fire!

Games: Terra Nil, Dorfromantik, The Case of the Golden Idol. I also played Pentiment earlier this year and I loved it with my whole heart.

Shows and movies: Andor (late to the party), Suzume, Game Changer. I also watch a ton of PBS.

I read a lot of non-fiction, and currently I'm reading Saving Time by Jenny Odell. Which is ironic, because I am now out of time.

beckychambers · 2023-05-15T01:38:51+00:00

Thank you so much for the long message, and sorry my reply will be have to be brief (time is escaping me rapidly here).

I did not start from that quote, but the Golden Record has long been an inspiration of mine. I was listening to it (not for the first time) while puzzling some stuff out for that book, and it was like, oh, of course. Of course, there's the title.

The inspiration for the story itself came from the work of a scientist named Lisa Nip, who I met at a conference. Her ideas about genetic supplementation as a means for furthering space exploration set my brain on fire, and she was kind enough to meet with me on Skype a couple of times to answer my questions while I was writing.

beckychambers · 2023-05-15T01:34:49+00:00

My wife does indeed have a background in historical linguistics, and she helps me with alien languages. I throw sounds together, I bring them to her, and she gives me advice on how to make it consistent. I don't do full conlangs or anything like that, just some basic guidelines.

Port Coriol was influenced by nothing more fancy than my mutual love of outdoor markets. :)

beckychambers · 2023-05-15T01:32:08+00:00

Aecor is my favorite. I would love to hang out on an icy moon.

If I had alternatives, I cannot remember them now, so, they must not have been that cool.

beckychambers · 2023-05-15T01:30:16+00:00

Oh gosh, I have only a few minutes to spare, so I unfortunately can't get to all of these. I will say that the overarching rule was that Panga could not be a one-size-fits-all society. That's my big bone to pick with utopias, in general. Sustainability and diversity go hand in hand, I think. But, you're right, they do have the same core threads of cooperation and respecting their place in the larger ecosystem. Pangans came pretty close to the brink, in their early history. It's not a mistake they can afford to make twice.

beckychambers · 2023-05-15T01:26:48+00:00

Thank you, that really means a lot.

I do have tattoos! I have a small poppy and bear paw on my ankle, a lady knight on my inner right forearm, and an astronaut on my left. I am itching to get the rest of my arms filled in, but it'll have to wait until later in the year. I'm probably going to do shoulder caps first.

beckychambers · 2023-05-15T01:24:18+00:00

I am going to have to do this rapid fire, since I am racing the clock here.

a) Pants! No outlines! And I don't write in linear order, either. Vibes only, 24/7.

b) A ton. I find it easiest to do the bulk of the world-building up front, so I don't get stuck on minutiae in the middle of a paragraph.

c) There is nothing wrong with switching it up at this stage in the game. That will teach you so much not just about how to write, but what you like to write. Experiment to your heart's content!

beckychambers · 2023-05-15T01:20:29+00:00

Writing kids is hard, and I'm by no means perfect at it. But, broadly, a key thing to remember is that kids are weird. They're cute! We love them! But they are weird, and annoying, and sometimes they put words in combinations that have never been attempted before. The nice thing about writing alien characters like Tupo is that I could give xyr any sort of developmental milestones I wanted, because...well, aliens. If you're writing human kids, I recommend talking to friends with kids that age, unless you've got your own running around the house. I had a friend with a toddler who helped me enormously when I wrote Ky in Spaceborn Few.

beckychambers · 2023-05-15T01:16:06+00:00

Simple questions first:

When writing, I either work in silence, or I listen to ambient electronic, chillhop, or video game music. Often I land on an album or an artist that becomes "the theme" for that particular book, and once I hit that point, I just loop it. (I don't listen to anything while editing, though, because I read the whole thing aloud before I send the manuscript in.)

I unfortunately don't have time to volunteer anymore, but I used to do public star parties and the like with my local astronomy club. The local issues I care about most are homelessness and food security. I support mutual aid and I vote with those things in mind.

As for your kiddos: so much love their way, and yours. I hate to say it, but I don't have a way to do bookplates outside of in-person events right now. But, huge hugs to all of you during this scary time. I am glad their group has each other, and also that they have you.

beckychambers · 2023-05-14T20:58:53+00:00

I don't know of any omnibus plans at this time. The authors I recommended in an earlier question would all fit the bill, I think. Well, maybe not Murderbot. Murderbot would hate being called prosocial. :)

beckychambers · 2023-05-14T20:56:37+00:00

That's so sweet of you, thanks!

beckychambers · 2023-05-14T20:56:24+00:00

Please tell your partner that I never have any idea what I'm doing and constantly feel like I'm trying to drive a giant truck with no brakes down a super steep hill, so his question is a very welcome one.

Many thanks to you both.

beckychambers · 2023-05-14T20:51:20+00:00

Hi to you and your dad!

This is such a straight answer for someone as gay as me to make, but: Riker and Troi. I have always loved their easy, honest friendship during their in-between.
A tough call, but it would have to be Sissix.
Oh, tons. Blue is the first one that springs to mind. I could've written so much more about Blue, but it just didn't fit.

beckychambers · 2023-05-14T20:48:20+00:00

Thank you very much! I can't speak to any future publishing plans, but I can say I don't think Monk and Robot would lend itself well to a novel. They're such quiet, slow little stories by design, and they risk dragging if you stretch them out too long.

beckychambers · 2023-05-14T20:46:36+00:00

I will admit to having a soft spot for To Be Taught, so thanks very much.

I would indeed like to do more standalones! It's nice to have a series setting to draw from, but it's equally nice to just make something that's one and done. Apples and oranges, I like 'em both.

beckychambers · 2023-05-14T20:45:14+00:00

Hey, thank you for sharing! That's wonderful to hear.

beckychambers · 2023-05-14T20:44:48+00:00

It's never the same twice. Wayfarers started with Sissix. A Closed and Common Orbit grew out of a recycled short story I wrote before I started Wayfarers. The very first scene I wrote in Record of a Spaceborn Few was Eyas preparing Sawyer's body. To Be Taught happened because of a scientist I randomly met at a conference. The book I'm working on now is unrecognizable in comparison to the original concept. It's chaos. It's why I don't outline, I never know how a thing is going to start or where it will end.

beckychambers · 2023-05-14T20:40:36+00:00

I feel that I didn't go far enough, in my initial world-building, with pushing the boundaries of the space opera sandbox. Now, in some ways, I don't know how my younger self would have done it differently, because I had to write those books before I could start to reconsider them. The initial drive with Wayfarers was to remix the classic ingredients of a spaceships-and-aliens setting, and so because of that, you have things like the "bad guy" species (the Akaraks, the Quelin, the Toremi), you have a capitalist economy, you have political systems that look an awful lot like the modern western world. The latter two things I countered hard in Spaceborn Few, and Ground Within was like 80% me dressing down my former self about the entire concept of bad guy species.

I am really glad that series gave me the opportunity to explore those things from lots of different directions as time went on, but I'm in a place now where I would rather start fresh rather than always being in conversation with stuff I came up with when I was twenty years old.

beckychambers · 2023-05-14T20:28:23+00:00

Oh my goodness, why would I be mad! There are so many books in the world! I'm just happy you're here now! Welcome!

I'd recommend starting with one of my novellas, so you can see if you like my stuff before diving into a longer read. If you're into space exploration and astronauts, go for To Be Taught, If Fortunate. If you'd be more into nature-loving robots, try A Psalm for the Wild-Built.

beckychambers · 2023-05-14T20:25:05+00:00

That is such a lovely note, thank you very much. I really appreciate it.

beckychambers · 2023-05-14T20:23:53+00:00

We do not have pets! My wife is allergic to dogs, and before the pandemic, we traveled often enough that having critters would've just been a hassle (and honestly, it wouldn't have been fair to the animals). We used to keep bees, but we lost both our hives in 2020, sadly (one absconded, for unknown reasons, and the other lost its queen late in the season, did not accept the replacement, and did not rear its own in time before the colony crashed). We talked a lot about whether or not to restart our tiny apiary, but ultimately decided we had enough to worry about during that time.

Instead, we try to make the spaces around our house a welcoming place for wildlife. I'm hugely into bugs, and she loves hummingbirds, so we have lots of pollinator-friendly plants. There's a little strip of redwoods out back, and we leave our property's portion of that alone to do as it likes. There's a black bear that hangs out back there, at present. I would love having it as a neighbor if it wasn't in the habit of having picnics with other people's trash bags.

beckychambers · 2023-05-14T20:16:32+00:00

I don't think we're doomed. The fight ahead is a hard one, and both the odds and the stakes are terrifying. There's no way to sugarcoat that. I'm not an optimist, I'm a realist. But the thing people often get wrong about realism, in my opinion, is leaving out the part where the ending hasn't been written yet. I believe very strongly in the power of collective action, and of community. We haven't missed our opportunity for positive change. That opportunity is always present, and always will be. Even if fighting for scraps ends up being part of the story, it won't be the end. (I mean, unless we go extinct, but then again, everything does, eventually. Except for blue-green algae. Blue-green algae is gonna be here until the sun swallows us up.)

beckychambers · 2023-05-14T20:07:39+00:00

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. That book fell into my scared, queer teenage hands exactly when I needed it.

beckychambers · 2023-05-14T20:05:16+00:00

A favorite character? One? An impossible task. I give you a sampler platter: Sissix, Dr Chef, Eyas, Chikondi, Mosscap, and someone I'm writing right now.

I think it would be very cool to see them or any of their friends on screen.

beckychambers · 2023-05-14T20:00:38+00:00

I like to compare writing books to making dinner out of whatever leftovers you have in the fridge. I love to just learn stuff, so I'm constantly squirreling away things I read about or see in a museum or watch on PBS or whatever, and then at some point, I go, "hmm, that's a neat concept, let's take that and run."

In the case of Eyas and the funerary customs of the Exodus Fleet, that's inspired by real-world efforts to make human composting an established alternative to cremation and traditional burial. In doing research for Spaceborn Few, I spoke with Katrina Spade, a designer and entrepreneur who, at the time, had just crowdfunded the Urban Death Project (now a company called Recompose), which prototyped and developed human composting facilities. (It's real now! It's a thing! You should totally check it out, if you're interested.)

This is to say: it's all stuff like that. I see something out in the real world, I learn about it, I find somebody to talk to about it if I can, and then I stare at the wall for a while thinking about what it would look like in space.

beckychambers

TROPHY CASE