Jack McDevitt Interview
Since 1996, Jack McDevitt has been an almost annual presence on the Nebula finalist ballots, receiving 12 nominations in various categories and finally winning in 2006 with his novel, Seeker
In 2007, Mr. McDevitt received a nomination for his novel, Odyssey
Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. Your novels pretty much stand well on their own but for unfamiliar readers, which of your novels would you recommend they start with?
Priscilla Hutchins’s career begins with The Engines of God
When you start working on a novel, do you know the outcome right from the very start or does it change during your writing process? Similarly, how do you determine whether it’ll include Priscilla Hutchins, Alex Benedict, or someone entirely new?
Alex operates in the far future, where he solves mysteries. How did a half-dozen people, sixty years ago, disappear out of the starship Polaris? No evidence of aliens. No place they could go. Priscilla Hutchins, on the other hand, lives at a time when interstellar travel is just getting started. We have some people stuck on a world that’s about to be swallowed by a gas giant? Call Hutch. And obviously if the plot idea doesn’t fit into either universe, it goes elsewhere.
Do I know the outcome from the start? I usually think I do, but I’m not always right. Sometimes I get a better idea, sometimes I discover my solution, for one reason or another, is dumb. Sometimes the book just goes in a different direction.
What was the inspiration for Odyssey
Walt Cuirle, a physicist who writes occasional science fiction, was talking to me one day about colliders. So what might the ultimate collider be? Walt described what it might look like, what it might be able to do, and the narrative took hold. The subplot in the novel, the hellfire trial, features MacAllister, who is based on H.L. Mencken. Mencken, of course, was a major force when Darwin and Scopes went to court in Tennessee. MacAllister’s been a recurring character in the Hutch novels and I thought it was time to give him his own version of the Monkey Trial.
Do I sympathize with his views? Sometimes. Probably more often not. But I love writing the character.
What kind of research do you do for your stories?
I don’t have any formal scientific training. I don’t trust myself to read about, say, aspects of particle physics, and then get it right in a novel. So I do it the easy—and reliable—way. When I’ve a question I call a physicist or a specialist. They seem always happy to help, especially since the questions tend to be off the wall. ‘Tell me, Doctor, how can i blow up a star?’
What’s the appeal of science fiction for you? How about first contact stories? Mysteries?
It’s all sense of wonder. Science fiction caught me when I was about four. Inspired me to look above the South Philadelphia rooftops. I can remember a time, during the 50’s, when UFO’s were hot, when the kids in my neighborhood hoped a UFO would land on the vacant lot at the north end of the street. The UFO never came. But if it does show up, I hope to be there. Sure, what could be more compelling than seeing real alien lights in the sky, than sitting down with someone from Procyon over a pizza?
I also have a passion for mysteries. I think it took hold from the old radio show I Love a Mystery. I know of no better way to draw a reader into a novel. What did the Tenandrome see out there that they came back and refused to talk about? What happened to the Seeker, which carried hundreds of malcontents away from Earth 7,000 years ago, and was never heard from again? We all love mysteries. What happened to the Mary Celeste? Was there really an Atlantis?
On your website, you make a distinction between your “ten best” and “ten favorite"* science fiction novels. Since you’ve already given us a list of your favorite books, what are some of the novels that you consider “the best”? How about favorite books outside of the genre?
(*To view Jack McDevitt’s Ten Favorite SF novels: click on Author Comments, in the left hand sidebar of his website. Click, Ten Favorite Novels).
SF:
1. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
2. The Demolished Man
3. Kindred
4. Childhood’s End
5. The Man in the High Castle
6. Brave New World
7. The Left Hand of Darkness
8. Solaris
9. 1984
10. Gravity’s Rainbow
Among my favorite books (in no particular order):
The Brothers Karamazov
The Sherlock Holmes Canon
The Poems of A. E. Housman
Any collection of Mark Twain’s essays
David Copperfield
Any James Thurber collection
War and Peace
War and Remembrance
Mencken Chrestomathy
Any collection of Irwin Shaw’s short stories
Lately, you’ve made a name for yourself with your novels but you’ve written a couple of short stories as well. How important was the latter to your career? Which format are you more comfortable writing?
Actually, I’ve written more than 70 stories. Without the short fiction, I doubt I’d ever have written a novel. My first was The Hercules Text, which I wrote because Terry Carr wanted a contribution for the Ace Specials. I wasn’t inclined to try it on my own. Life was busy, and I didn’t want to spend a year on a project that I thought would have little chance of selling. I was happy doing short fiction.
How do you feel getting nominated for all these awards?
I’ve never gotten used to it. Probably never will. I was old enough when I started—in my 40’s—to realize how fortunate I’d been. You start when you’re 22, I think you take everything for granted. But I have no preference. I’m happy writing either short or long fiction. As long as I have a good idea.
At what point did you consider yourself a professional author? What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome?
I never thought of it that way. To me, it was simply a matter of seeing my byline on a piece of fiction. I was driving through Mexico in the summer of 1965, while Harlan Ellison was being interviewed on a Texas radio station. I recall his saying that, once he’d sold his first story, he knew he could do it, could do anything, and there’d be no stopping him. That’s pretty much the way I’ve thought of my own career. T.E.D. Klein bought “The Emerson Effect” for the Twilight Zone Magazine, and I was on my way. I never quite reached Harlan’s stage where I concluded anything was possible, but I’d discovered miracles do happen. So I kept writing stories. My second big moment came about two years later when Cryptic made the final Nebula ballot. I suppose if you want to decide on a ‘professional’ moment, that was it.
The biggest challenge was simply that I never believed I could write at a competitive level. You read Clarke and Benford and Bova and the rest and it simply seems so far out of reach that you don’t even want to try it. The only reason I wrote “The Emerson Effect” was to mollify my wife. She talked me into it. The story, by the way, was about a guy who’d fallen in love but couldn’t bring himself to go after the woman because he was convinced she wouldn’t take him seriously.
What in your opinion are the biggest changes that have occurred (either in the industry or otherwise) since your first published novel?
I started with an electric typewriter. People writing with word processing software have no idea how much easier it is. I can’t help wondering what we’d have from Dickens if he could have traded in that quill. The internet, of course, is bringing a lot of changes. And maybe we’re going to lose paper books. I don’t know. We live in an era with a lot of flux. I’ll be interested in seeing how it turns out.
What projects are you currently working on?
Next novel is a fourth Alex Benedict mystery: The Devil’s Eye
When he looks into it, he sees that nobody in her life is dead, or, as far as anyone can tell, in danger. She’s just back from a vacation on one of the rim worlds. And everything’s quiet there. So Alex is off once again. It’s due in November.
I’m currently working on Time Travelers Never Die. Several years ago, I wrote a novella of that name. It ended on the final ballot for both the Hugo and the Nebula. I’d always felt there was a lot more I could have done with it. So a novel version will be out next year. It provides the reader with a chance to talk about the Inquisition with Galileo, enjoy a few drinks in a restaurant in 1937 Durham NC where the piano is played by Dick Nixon, watch opening night for Hamlet. and shake hands with Molly Pitcher. He will also spend an evening with the unsinkable Molly Brown, paddle the Yukon with Bob Service, visit the Alexandrian Library, watch Babe Ruth call his shot, and buy a round of whiskey for Calamity Jane.
JACK MCDEVITT is a former naval officer, English teacher, and customs officer. He was for ten years stationed at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center , where he conducted management and leadership seminars for the US Customs Service.
He has been a Nebula finalist in eleven of the last twelve years, and finally won for his novel Seeker
McDevitt is probably best known for his Academy novels, featuring Priscilla Hutchins providing transportation and occasional rescues for teams of interstellar archeologists on the hunt for traces of aliens; and the Alex Benedict series, with a futuristic antiquarian who consistently finds himself confronted with historical mysteries.
A Philadelphia native, McDevitt lives in Georgia with his wife Maureen.
CHARLES TAN is a speculative fiction fan from the Philippines. He has lots of online doppelgangers, including a Singaporean politician and a Filipino basketball player, but people should be warned that the “real” Charles Tan is a bibliophile who stalks his favorite authors. His blog, Bibliophile Stalker is updated with daily content including book reviews, interviews, and essays. He is also a contributor for SFF Audio.
