[Xfire] Scatteox:

Hello! We are very pleased to welcome everyone to chat with Spider Robinson Please join me in welcoming our special guest!

 

Our guest will now open with a few words and start taking your questions!

spiderrobinson: Hi, folks-I am Spider Robinson, the Theodore Sturgeon of the Stone Age! I started writing in 1972, have 33 books of science fiction in print, and have made original music with David Crosby, Amos Garrett and Todd Butler. I’m honored to say my latest novel VARIABLE STAR is a posthumous collaboration with the greatest science fiction writer who ever lived, Robert A. Heinlein; it will be out in paperback in late November, and there are still a few copies of the third hardcover printing available.

My principal interest for gamers would probably be Josh Mandel’s great game CALLAHAN’S CROSSTIME SALOON for Legend Entertainment (available online), and perhaps Steve Jackson Games’s GURPS game also based on Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon…..which is just a bar where, if a Martian walked in and ordered a beer, he’d get one with no bullshit. A place where ANYTHING is tolerated except rudeness…

spiderrobinson: My latest solo novel is VERY BAD DEATHS,

 

spiderrobinson: Question: entilza678: What first got you interested in writing?

Answer: spiderrobinson: the collapse of folk music. that's what I wanted to be when I grew up...but before I could, America turned to disco instead. Writing was the next best way to avoid honest work....

 

Question: {FAF}W@ppy(NL): why Scifi ?

Answer: spiderrobinson: Because it's the only art form that addresses the future...and that's where change might take place

spiderrobinson: because it loves to ask the NEXT question....the one nobody has thought of yet

 

Question: tallgeeseIII: was not winning the audie award with callahan's legacy a disappointment?

Answer: spiderrobinson: are you kidding? With my debut effort? Just to make the ballot was a big thrill...

 

Question: [Xfire] Artaxs: How do you deal with the sometimes harsh criticisms of Variable Star from rabid, die-hard Heinlein fans?

Answer: spiderrobinson: honest, I haven't received ONE. I am aware there are a few people online who’ve exchanged considerable bile and vituperation about the book and me personally….but not one of them has had the stones to address me personally, so I can’t comment. With two exceptions, every one of the HUNDREDS of reader letters I have received about VARIABLE STAR so far has been positive. (And the two exceptions were so polite about it, we’re still exchanging friendly emails, months later.) You can read a selection at my site.

(www.spiderrobinson.com)

 

Question: FallenReign: So with all your various awards and countless novels and short stories do you feel pressured to meet a high standard in your books, and if so is this detrimental to your writing?

Answer: spiderrobinson: The only high standard I care about is, my wife has to smile when she reads it....

 

Question: Professer: Did you have any one who inspired you to be a sci-fi writer?

Answer: spiderrobinson: Robert A. Heinlein. the first book I ever read was ROCKET SHIP GALILEO--which I just got to read aloud for Blackstone Audiobooks.....

 

Question: BFM_Knight┌╦╤─ iPwn™: Do you think playing too much video games is a 'waste of time'?

Answer: spiderrobinson: It's one of the best things about them!

 

Question: entilza678: Has your family played a large part in your success?

Answer: spiderrobinson: absolutely. Last night I was introduced onstage here on Bowen Island as a man who had made his wife a CULT. And the purpose of the cult is to worship our daughter, now an exec with Ogilvy in NYC...

 

Question: tallgeeseIII: how would you advise a young writer to find exposure?

Answer: spiderrobinson: Give your first book away online. It worked for John Scalzi: within 2 weeks he got an offer from Tor Books....

 

Question: Wusifitz: what do you consider the best book you've written?

Answer: spiderrobinson: It's a tie between THE LIFEHOUSE TRILOGY (due out from Baen in December) and THE STARDANCE TRILOGY (out NOW from Baen.) I know that's six books....but it IS my favorite!

 

Question: FallenReign: Do you feel the internet has given you a broader audience or a new market niche?

Answer: spiderrobinson: Well, I'm praying it will. The one I had is getting older, losing its eyesight...

 

Question: tallgeeseIII: have you ever based characters in your books on people you knew or used to know?

Answer: spiderrobinson: Almost never. It's not fair: they have no way to shoot back. But I often do name a character after someone I love or respect a lot

 

Question: akcipitrokulo: you describe the chord changes beautifully in conservation of pain... is there anywhere that you can get the music for it? (both songs!) I'd love to hear them.

Answer: spiderrobinson: write to me through my site, www.spiderrobinson.com

 

spiderrobinson: Question: akcipitrokulo: I heard you were trying to get cash together to do stardancers for real... is that true, and if so, how's it going?

Answer: spiderrobinson: My wife Jeanne is a choreographer and former modern dancer, who ran her own dance company Nova Dance Theatre for over a decade in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and has choreographed over 30 works for performance.

spiderrobinson: In 1976 we wrote a novella together called “Stardance” about the first zero gravity dancer, and the importance of zero-g dance in communicating with other space-going races. “Stardance” won all the field’s top honours that year: the Hugo (voted by anybody who wants to bother; google it!) and the Nebula (voted only by working SF writers), the Locus Poll, and several others.

We ultimately expanded the novella into three novels, which are now available in a single omnibus from Baen Books, THE STARDANCE TRILOGY. Portions of the other books were also Hugo finalists and nominees.

spiderrobinson: We ultimately expanded the novella into three novels, which are now available in a single omnibus from Baen Books, THE STARDANCE TRILOGY. Portions of the other books were also Hugo finalists and nominees.

spiderrobinson: As one side effect, following a performance of her dance “Higher Ground” in the Grand Ballroom of the Boston Sheraton at the 1980 Boskone (which drew a 5-minute standing ovation from 1,000 SF fans), Jeanne was asked by NASA to dance on the Space Shuttle, as part of the Civilian In Space Program….and would have done, if the CISP had not been canceled after the death of the first civilian they sent up, Christa McCauliffe, in the Challenger Tragedy.

spiderrobinson: ever since, Jeanne has dreamed of at least making a zero-g dance FILM, using CGI special effects. And thanks to new technology, now she’s finally on the way to doing it—with financial support from David Crosby, Dr. Peter Diamandis, and dozens and dozens of our fans and friends. It may even turn out to be an Imax film! To learn more visit www.stardanceproject.com

spiderrobinson: I have a healthy ego. I think I’m a pretty good writer. But Jeanne is the real ARTIST in our family. I have long stood in awe of her talent, and she has been an uncredited co-author of all the books I’ve produced since we met. And the three she has been willing to let me put her name on are the three best books that have ever left the family printer—out of 33 so far!

spiderrobinson: Jeanne says her purpose in the Stardance film is to try and show ordinary civilians—taxpayers, voters—something they haven’t yet been shown about space: its astonishing BEAUTY, its heart-stopping grandeur and majesty, its SPIRITUAL power and profundity. Space is a place of GRACE, no matter what spin you put on that word—and it’s time people realized it is a desirable destination for all humans, not just jocks and scientists. Space is where you get to look the Allegedly Intelligent Designer square in the eye, and plug into something larger and deeper and older than human concerns. Space is not just the place that will make our species wealthy and secure forever, it is a place where Art will be made that will astonish the stars themselves one day. Time we got started. To help, visit www.stardanceproject.com ….

 

Question: Anti: What do you find to be the most frustrating thing about being a writer?

Answer: spiderrobinson: the loneliness....the rotten pay......the LONG delay-lag between writing and getting reader response.....the total absence of pension or unemployment or ANY bennies.....but on the other hand, I can go to work naked if i want to....

 

Question: BFM_Knight┌╦╤─ iPwn™: When you write books, do you record them first? Type them out? What’s the process?

Answer: spiderrobinson: I basically stare at a blank screen until beads of blood form on my forehead. Anybody can do it! I listen to tons of music, and hope inspiration comes to me

spiderrobinson: Doctoreau once said writing a novel is like driving at night. You can only see as far ahead as your headlights reach.....but with luck you can make it to the coast that way...

 

Question: tallgeeseIII: do you regularly play video games/online games?

Answer: spiderrobinson: almost never, I blush to confess. Writing just takes too much time. And I'm a Mac guy, which doesn't help.

 

Question: [SOS] sjk: What do you do right after a successful publication of a new book or receiving an award, like do you have a special thing that you do with your family whenever a big thing happens?

Answer: spiderrobinson: Just kissing Jeanne. And maybe a nice dinner out. I'm not much of a party animal....

 

Question: Moosehead: If you were not a writer, what would you be doing today?

Answer: spiderrobinson: I'd be trying to make it as an acoustic musician, God help me. (I just wrote the liner notes for a fabulous new album of acoustic blues, BLUES FROM FORBIDDEN PLATEAU, by Doug Cox (dobro) and Sam Hurrie (guitar). See www.dougcox.com for details as they become available. I also wrote the notes for their last album together, HUNGRY GHOSTS.)

 

Question: BFM_Knight┌╦╤─ iPwn™: Do you listen to any music while you write ?

Answer: spiderrobinson: Constantly. Compulsively. Ideally instrumental music--the kind that rewards close attention, but will let you have your attention back when you need it. Frank Zappa guitar instrumentals are perfect.....as is anything by pianists Kenny Rankin and Gonzalo Rubalcaba

spiderrobinson: sorry, meant to say Kenny BARRON. Kenny Rankin is a superb singer of the old school, now sadly overlooked. Kenny BARRON has played with EVERYBODY, and was Stan Getz's favorite accompanist.

spiderrobinson: I also love CPR, the new group David Crosby formed with his son James Raymond and Jeff Pevar. STUNNING harmonies, even for David Crosby! And brilliant songwriting by James

 

Question: tallgeeseIII: what is your favorite tv series?

Answer: spiderrobinson: no question: THE WIRE, by David Simon and Ed Burns. best TV of all time: SMOKES the Sopranos. After that, I guess THE WEST WING (the last gasp of hope in America), and lately DEADWOOD. And of course BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, one of whose stars is a neighbor of mine. And I loved Joss Wheedon's SERENITY/FIREFLY sequence a lot, too....

 

Question: FallenReign: Do you aspire to be anyone but yourself?

Answer: spiderrobinson: By God......no. It surprises me a bit to type this....but I am the single happiest man I know. I would not change places with anybody on earth. Lots of people INSPIRE me....but I aspire to keep being married to Jeanne for ANOTHER thirty years, and that's the height of my aspiration: to keep seeming interesting for her....

 

Question: FAF}W@ppy(NL): if it where possible, would u like to live in a different time ?

Answer: spiderrobinson: No. I think I was one of the luckiest humans ever born--got one of the best educations, got to have the most fun, see the most ASTONISHING shit, and get some of the very first tastes of human freedom EVER. I got to see men walk on the moon, and see PERFECT music reproduction become trivially cheap. I have no complaints at all. Except it might be nice to live in a time with better more equitable distribution of our amazing wealth. Which is one reason I live in Canada and have for over 30 years

 

Question: entilza678: do you generally find the beginning, middle or end thirds of a novel the most difficult to write?

Answer: spiderrobinson: yes.

 

Question: {FAF}W@ppy(NL): what’s your favorite quote ?

Answer: spiderrobinson: two:

spiderrobinson: "Love is the condition in which the welfare and happiness of another become essential to your own.

spiderrobinson: and

spiderrobinson: "It's amazing how much mature wisdom resembles being too tired...."

spiderrobinson: both quotes by Robert Heinlein

 

spiderrobinson: Question: Funkytown322: Why do you like mac's?

Answer: spiderrobinson: A million reasons, but chiefly because every writer, musician, artist, TV or movie person I know uses them. I got a celebrity discount on a Fat Mac back in 1984, and never looked back. Why use a cheap copy when you can use the original everyone else ripped off?

 

Question: {Gnome}<:{)_Sniper: What impact has winning a Hugo had on your writing? Has it opened any other opportunities for you?

Answer: spiderrobinson: winning Hugos makes the difference between survival and failure in this business. Winning my first one established me; winning two others has kept me in print when many of my contemporaries had to go get jobs involving the wearing of neckties. I am eternally grateful to Hugo voters.....and if any of you don't know what a Hugo is, PLEASE go google it! It is YOUR chance to tell the nice publishers what you want to see more of: ANYONE can nominate and vote for Hugos, cheap.

 

Question: entilza678: how long does it usually take you to write a novel?

Answer: spiderrobinson: On average, a year to a year and a half. My record is a bit over three years of staring into space....before one day I suddenly slapped my forehead and said, "I GOT it: just kill the narrator!" (That one is just about to be reprinted as part of THE LIFEHOUSE TRILOGY)

 

Question: iyougotpwned: Is it hard to come up with the first chapter?

Answer: spiderrobinson: It's agony, for weeks. Then one day you sit down, and blink, and it's done. I can't explain it any better. I'm just glad it works.

 

Question: 5r ~ ïmķřǻžịә: What activities do you enjoy while your not writing?

Answer: spiderrobinson: making music, walking the woods of Bowen Island with Jeanne, surfing around online getting my mind blown....and of course, I usually read about a book a day. When I'm not writing it can be more.

 

spiderrobinson: To anticipate the obvious next question, among my own favorite writers are: Donald E. Westlake, Lawrence Block, Thomas Perry and Lee Child. Among SF writers, John Varley, Allen Steele, David Gerrold, John Scalzi, Joe Haldeman, Frederik Pohl, and Lois McMaster Bujold. to name but a few. I read about half sf, half mysteries, and half nonfiction.....

 

Question: akcipitrokulo: Have you ever been tempted to open a bar & see if it gets the same results?

Answer: spiderrobinson: not even remotely....MY drunks are imaginary....

 

Question: [Vadeka Deathsong]: Have you written any books that never got published?

Answer: spiderrobinson: No, I'm happy to say that so far every word I've written has eventually reached print. I do have one or two novel ideas I was never able to sell...but therefore I never wrote those.

 

Question: FallenReign: If you could instil but one value in all the people here today at the chat what would it be?

Answer: spiderrobinson: I guess I'd go with Bill and Ted: be excellent to one another. Be compassionate and kind at every opportunity. FORGIVE.

 

Question: Funkytown322: What's your favorite thing about canada?

Answer: spiderrobinson: our compassion. ALL our people have medical care. We treat each other with respect and politeness. Our gay people can get married. Our cancer patients are allowed to have pot. Even as a percentage of population we have WAY fewer handgun deaths, because they're illegal. I'll always be an American in my heart...but I like living here a lot.

 

Question: entilza678: do you have any pets?

Answer: spiderrobinson: I have one and a half cats.

 

Question: iyougotpwned: Are you currently working on any new works/books?

Answer: spiderrobinson: I just delivered to Baen Books a sequel to VERY BAD DEATHS called VERY HARD CHOICES, due out next summer. I'm not sure what will be next. but perhaps one called CALLAHAN'S RETURN.

 

Question: BFM_Knight┌╦╤─ iPwn™: Have you used any social networking programs such as MySpace to help promote your publications?

Answer: spiderrobinson: I would LOVE to...but where the hell do all you folks find the TIME for that stuff? I haven't even been able to READ blogs, much less write one, much less network on a deeper level. Honest, writing takes up so much time and skullsweat, there not only isn't TIME for networking, I can't face the keyboard long enough.

 

spiderrobinson: I'd like to get a lot of questions out of the way at once with a series of pastes

spiderrobinson: In 1955, when I was seven years old, Robert A. Heinlein sat down at his desk in Colorado Springs and wrote an outline for a novel he called THE STARS ARE A CLOCK, with several variant titles. For whatever reasons, he never wrote it. I had read my first Heinlein novel—literally my very first book!—the year before, at age six. (ROCKET SHIP GALILEO.)

Robert left us in 1988, and last month I attended his 100th birthday in Kansas City, MO, attended by hundreds of us who loved him.

spiderrobinson: Robert left us in 1988, and last month I attended his 100th birthday in Kansas City, MO, attended by hundreds of us who loved him.

In 2004 Robert’s estate discovered the outline in his papers, and—to make a long story short—at the suggestion of fans, I was asked to complete the novel. It was the greatest honour of my life: like a musician being asked to produce an entire album from some home demo cassettes left by John Lennon.

Nothing but marrying my wife has ever pleased me more. Writing it helped me bring back something of my dead friend and mentor, if only for a moment. And as Diz said of Bird: “No him, no me.”

spiderrobinson: VARIABLE STAR involves a young man (a sax player/composer) so spectacularly unlucky in love he ends up fleeing the solar system altogether, to join a colony heading for another star 85 light years away. And THEN things start to get INTERESTING….

VARIABLE STAR will be out in paperback at the end of this November, after having been through three sellout printings in hardcover.

Chapter One contains lyrics to a song, “On The Way To The Stars,” for which a tune has been written by David Crosby, of the bands CPR and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; see my website www.spiderrobinson.com or the site www.variablestarbook.com to learn how you can hear it, and to see a TV interview David and I did together about Robert.

And all of the above is explained in considerably more detail in the Afterword of VARIABLE STAR.

spiderrobinson: You’ll find reviews of the hardcover at my website—and I’m happy to report that so far, they have all been favorable—some of them effusively so.

I am aware there are a few people online who’ve exchanged considerable bile and vituperation about the book and me personally….but not one of them has had the stones to address me personally, so I can’t comment. With two exceptions, every one of the HUNDREDS of reader letters I have received about VARIABLE STAR so far has been positive. (And the two exceptions were so polite about it, we’re still exchanging friendly emails, months later.) You can read a selection at my site.

spiderrobinson: My friend and webmaster Colin MacDonald, by the way, is a gifted saxophonist and composer—though MUCH luckier in love than my hero Joel Johnston was. He was my source for all sax lore in VARIABLE STAR, including the circular breathing, at which he is expert. I cannot recommend his music highly enough: what science fiction is to ordinary fiction, his music is to contemporary serious music. The cutting edge. He also works with an extraordinary Vancouver saxophone quartet called Saxophilia—and is, like my wife Jeanne, a lay-ordained Soto Zen Buddhist monk. Check him out at www.crypticmusic.ca.

 

Question: BFM_Knight┌╦╤─ iPwn™: Are you into any political topics and have a strong say in them?

Answer: spiderrobinson: I spent over six years mouthing off about politics; check either the collection, THE CRAZY YEARS....or go to http://spiderrobinson.com/ where a new column is reprinted every week. I got a LOT to say.

spiderrobinson: Also please check out some essays I've posted at the site of vancouver's HR MacMillan Space Centre http://www.hrmacmillanspacecentre.com/ where I was Writer In Residence this last year; all the essays are about space and space travel-related topics....which inevitably brings in politics.

spiderrobinson: Here I'll just say that I wish America had not decided to abandon the Constitution, Bill Of Rights and Geneva Convention, out of fear of 19 dead guys. Those were valuable documents. And I do wish we weren't spending trillions we don't have and thousands of our childrens' lives and hundreds of thousands of other peoples' lives for no reason at all. But no, I'm not very political.....

 

Question: BFM_Knight┌╦╤─ iPwn™: Will there be an apocalypse in your book where nature overcomes man or will man die out?

Answer: spiderrobinson: it is certainly conceivable that the human race could go extinct--probably NOT, as everyone wants to think, by our own hand, but what difference does that make? But I don't intend to write stories in which that happens. What you put your attention on prospers. If we expect doom, we stop trying. I think the human race should do what I'm trying to do: LIVE FOREVER, OR DIE TRYING.

 

Question: [Xfire] Artaxs: I loved Variable Star, but what made you decide to include references to post-Heinlein events outside of the Future History, like 9/11?

Answer: spiderrobinson: I felt like they needed to be addressed. and if you recall the rules of Pantheistic Solipsism explained in THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST, there isn't ANYTHING outside the Future History. My direct inspiration was re-reading, while I was working on VARIABLE STAR, a flat prediction Robert made in 1950, repeated in 1965, and confirmed in 1980: "Under NO circumstances will America EVER fight a preventive war." I read that and realized the America Robert knew and loved is gone, as dead as the Geneva Convention....and knew that a new Robert Heinlein novel would HAVE to address that, at least peripherally.

 

Question: Bram1337: Do you plan on quitting writing some day?

Answer: spiderrobinson: the moment I get out of debt, I'll start thinking about it. But there is no pension plan, no retirement fund, no unemployment.

 

Question: akcipitrokulo: The main theme that I feel running through your books is exactly what you said earlier - be excellent to each other, love people, forgive... how much of an effect do you think the books have on people who read them, and do you ever find it difficult?

Answer: spiderrobinson: as John said, "we're all doin' what we can.

 

Question: Boojangels: how many WPMs can you type? From the looks of it you can type pretty darn fast.

Answer: spiderrobinson: you know, I haven't tested myself in decades. When my mom trained as a secretary for RCA she asked, and what do I do if I make a mistake? they said, take the page out, throw it away and start over. She said, but say it's on the very last line? They said, throw it away and start over. And she was expected to AVERAGE 65 mpm!!! I'm sure computers have made me sloppier, and I was NEVER that fast.

 

Question: BFM_Knight┌╦╤─ iPwn™: Has writing sci-fi changed your state of mind to a point where ppl say your a bit 'mad'?

Answer: spiderrobinson: Just the other way round: it was madness that led me to think there might be a living in science fiction. Too late now, I'm afraid...

 

Question: Boojangels: Favortie brand of beer?

Answer: spiderrobinson: Rickard's Red, from Canada. Although Cooper's from Oz is lovely too...

 

spiderrobinson: It would appear that our flippin' hour is up, and I'm done. thank you all for your sympathy--hope to see you at www.spiderrobinson.com--where you will find free music by Amos Garrett! And some free fiction about copyright, the Hugo-winning "Melancholy Elephants"!

[Xfire] Scatteox: That concludes the chat with author Spider Robinson! Thank you very much to our special guest for joining us on Xfire, and thank you everyone for participating.

 

Now on to prizes!

[Xfire] Scatteox: The following 10 people will receive a prize pack containing "Very Bad Deaths" and The "Stardance Trilogy":

 

1. panamadog

2. BFM_Knight┌╦╤─ iPwn™

3. 5r ~ ïmķřǻžịә

4. Funkytown322

5. rtwman

6. Professer

7. ~FA~Maj.VersuS HD

8. Pilot_51

9. Anti

10. G2Wolf

 

If you are one of the winners PM me for instructions on how to claim your prize!

 

Thanks again for your participation!

 

Transcripts will be posted on the Xfire Sci-Fi Week site as soon we’re able to get them out.