Top 18 Sarah Zettel Quotes

I feel SF is going through an experimental phase right now.

Fortunately, many people also enjoy a stand-alone as a sample of something new, like trying the special at a favourite restaurant one night instead of going for the usual.

I graduated from the University of Michigan with a BA in Communications and left formal education behind.

Now, of course, the great thing about the solar system as a frontier is that there are no Indians, so you can have all the glory of the myth of the American westward expansion without any of the guilt.

Octavia Butler, of course, is brilliant and disturbing.

I have a better internal and intuitive understanding of folklore and myth than science and technology, so in that way fantasy is easier.

Then, I realized that there is an indigenous presence in the Solar System. It’s us. So, then, I got to wondering what would happen if a more technologically advanced society moved next door to us, the way we moved next door to the American Indians.

I describe my plots as follows; A character is walking down the street when all of a sudden a piano falls on them. They spend the rest of the story digging out from under that piano. How they dig, how long and how well, this all depends entirely on the character.

So, one of the things I was doing with the aliens in The Quiet Invasion was creating that advanced society which had ideas about morality and proper use of natural resources that were radically different from ours, as the Europeans were from the American Indians.

I suppose if I was to have to pick a few, Ursula LeGuin would have to top the list. It was while reading her work that I decided I wanted to be an author.

I myself was born in Sacramento, California in 1966.

All of this got me thinking about the history of the westward expansion, and got me to wondering how the exploration of the Solar System would be changed if there were an indigenous presence out there.

First and foremost, The Quiet Invasion is a first contact story. What would we do if we actually found evidence of alien life out there? It’s also about politics.

My joking answer to this question is that I leave a bowl of milk out on the back porch every night for the Idea Fairy. In the morning, the milk is gone and there’s a brand-new shiny idea by the bowl.

I think people enjoy a series. When you like a story, many readers want more of the same, which is dandy, if the author and the characters have more to say.

Now, Venus is an extremely hostile environment, and as such presents a lot of challenges for a science fiction author who wants to create life there. However, as I began to research it more thoroughly, I found myself intrigued by the possibilities the world offers.

Becoming a mother cannot help but change things. An author’s life is reflected in their writing, whether they want it to be or not, and parenthood is one of the biggest life changes there is.

Fantasy is, of course, booming, and I think it’s beginning to stretch its range as well.