Jack McDevitt 2009 Interview Interview
Jack McDevitt is nominated for his novel, Cauldron.
Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. Cauldron is the sixth book in the Academy series. What’s the appeal of Priscilla Hutchins to you?
I grew up watching Dale Arden faint every time she and Flash Gordon got into trouble. She was nothing like the girls in my school or, in later years, like the women in my life. I conducted management programs for the US Customs Service for ten years. We used to divide people into groups and provide life-and-death simulations that required smart responses. All-female teams survived more often than anybody. All-male groups usually did pretty well. The mixed groups, though, died on a regular basis. Why? Because they fell back into their social roles. Testosterone took over. The males assumed the lead and made foolhardy decisions that would never have been considered seriously in the all-male teams. The women got in line with hardly a murmur. And they’d leave the crashed plane --or whatever-- and start walking across the desert. Hutch is fun to work with because she’s her own woman.
Is it a challenge when writing these novels to both make it accessible to new readers in addition to building upon what you’ve already established before? How do you strike a balance?
Right: It’s a challenge. I’ve tried to make every series novel a stand-alone. Continuing characters against a constant setting. But eventually you may get to a wrap-up novel, where there will be a general climax, requiring some sense of what has gone before. My approach has been that each novel is its own narrative. Even with Cauldron, which is a wrap-up of sorts of the Academy series, I’ve tried to let the reader see, as the story progressed, what has come before, rather than tell him. It helps that SF readers are quick to figure things out.
You tend to have a solid supporting cast and recurring characters from the previous books. Do you keep track of them in a notebook or are they all in your head? Is it easy or difficulty for you to find their “voice?”
Combination of both. I keep notes on details. (E.g., the name of the Academy’s director, and the color of Chase Kolpath’s eyes.) But the more abstract stuff --like MacAllister’s conviction that women were meant to be cheerleaders-- is locked in the vault somewhere. Finding their voices is easy enough, because I’ve gotten to know them pretty well over the years.
In last year’s interview, you cited Walt Cuirle, a physicist, as the inspiration for Odyssey. How about for Cauldron, what was the inspiration for the book?
It was a question of finding a resolution for the cosmic clouds that were drifting, over thousands of years, into the Orion Arm, creating havoc. They’d been the background threat during the first five novels. Theories had been advanced by various characters trying to account for them. A runaway weapon left over from an ancient war, maybe. Or equipment used originally in some sort of galactic slum clearance. Hutch thought she had the answer: The march of clouds was intended as a galactic work of art. But who really knew? I’d planned to leave it simply as a mystery. (In fact, I had originally intended no sequels of any kind. That was a dumb idea, but it took me a while to realize it.)
Readers, however, insisted on an explanation. So eventually, I was confronted with trying to come up with one that didn’t fit any of the theories. I don’t recall the origin of the idea that became the resolution. It probably happened in the middle of the night. I can say that I was struggling with it for about three years before the lights finally went on.
Subterranean recently released your short story collection, Cryptic. How did they end up publishing the book?
Subterranean publishes a magazine of the same name. Bill Schafer, the man behind the enterprise, invited me to contribute a story, and at the same time asked whether I would be interested in doing a ‘best-of’ collection. He sent copies of a George R. R. Martin retrospective, and Phases of the Moon, a Robert Silverberg collection. The packaging for both was exquisite. At the time, ISFiC had just published Outbound, a collection of my stories. We didn’t want to glut the market, so we waited three years. When Outbound sold out and became unavailable, we decided we could go ahead with Cryptic.
Did you choose the stories to be included there or was it Subterranean? What was the criteria for the selection?
Bill asked me to make the recommendations. I presented them to him, we made a couple of changes, and we had our text. I’d be hard pressed to delineate a set of criteria. Fiction, at heart, is an emotional ride. So I wanted stories that would succeed, in my mind at least, in grabbing the reader. That’s a cliche, but I don’t know a better way to say it. I guess the reality is that after almost thirty years, I still don’t know the formula.
If you could travel back in time to over a decade ago, what advice would you give to your former self?
My first three books were separated by eight years. I’d have issued a stern warning that a writer needs more consistency to build a base of readers. You can’t do a novel every few years and expect very much to happen. Unless, of course, you’re loaded with talent. If I could go farther, where I could really do some good, I’d show up during my college years. I won the freshman short story contest at LaSalle. They published my story, “A Pound of Cure,” in the school’s literary magazine. And I decided I was on my way. But shortly afterward I read David Copperfield, and concluded I could never compete with Dickens. If I could go back, I’d tell myself, ‘You don’t have to compete with Charles Dickens. Just write good stuff.’ Anyhow, nobody was there to give me that advice. So I gave up. And made no effort to write anything more for twenty-five years.
What are you reading? Who are some of the modern authors that you admire?
I’m currently reading Barbara Tuchmann’s The Guns of August, Richard Dawkins’ A Devil’s Chaplain, and Mike Resnick’s The Branch. Getting ready to start The Modern Mind, by Peter Watson. I recently enjoyed Douglas Preston’s Blasphemy, which was not marketed as science fiction, but nevertheless qualifies. Modern authors I admire? Arthur Clarke and Ray Bradbury among a host of others. Outside the field: Herman Wouk and Irwin Shaw. I don’t have time to read much mainstream fiction anymore. Among nonfiction writers: Paul Davies, James Flexner, Dumas Malone, Timothy Ferris and Steven Weinberg. And a special favorite who doesn’t quite qualify as ‘modern’ any more: H. L. Mencken.
What projects are you currently working on?
I’ve handed in Time Travelers Never Die, which will be released by Ace in November. And am currently working on Sanctum, an Alex Benedict mystery in which a man with a starship who spends a lifetime trying to find an alien civilization somewhere, anywhere, eventually gives up, retires, and ultimately dies. Forty years later, evidence surfaces that he had indeed found something. But what? And why did he keep it quiet?
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 for several 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 A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Comics Village. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
2 comments so far.
I greatly enjoy your work. I have just finished reading “Cryptic”. The collection also includes “Time Travelers Never Die”. Will your forthcoming publication be an extended version of that novella ?
1. Anthony Johnson, MD on 30th March 2009 at 1:40 pm
I enjoy many of your works, when will the sequel to the devils eye be published?