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Allen Steele became a full-time science fiction writer in 1988, following publication of his first short story, "Live From The Mars Hotel" (Asimov's, mid-Dec. `88). Since then he has become a prolific author of novels, short stories, and essays, with his work appearing in England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Russia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Japan.

Steele was born in Nashville, Tennessee. He received his B.A. in Communications from New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire, and his M.A. in Journalism from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. Before turning to SF, he worked for as a staff writer for daily and weekly newspapers in Tennessee, Missouri, and Massachusetts, freelanced for business and general-interest magazines in the Northeast, and spent a short tenure as a Washington correspondent, covering politics on Capitol Hill.

His books include Orbital Decay, Clarke County, Space, Lunar Descent, Labyrinth of Night, The Jericho Iteration, The Tranquillity Alternative, A King of Infinite Space, Oceanspace, Chronospace, and Coyote: A Novel of Interstellar Exploration. He has also published two collections of short fiction, Rude Astronauts and All-American Alien Boy. His work has appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, Analog, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Omni, Science Fiction Age, Absolute Magnitude, Journal Wired, Pirate Writngs, and The New York Review of Science Fiction, as well as in many anthologies.

His novella "The Death Of Captain Future" (Asimov's, Oct.`95; The Year's Best Science Fiction, 13th Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois) received the 1996 Hugo Award for Best Novella, won a 1996 Science Fiction Weekly Reader Appreciation Award, and was nominated for a 1997 Nebula Award by the Science Fiction Writers of America. His novelette "The Good Rat" (Analog, mid-Dec.`95) was nominated for a Hugo in 1996. Orbital Decay received the 1990 Locus Award for Best First Novel, and Clarke County, Space was nominated for the 1991 Phillip K. Dick Award. Steele was First Runner-Up for the 1990 John W. Campbell Award, and received the Donald A. Wollheim Award in 1993 and the Phoenix Award in 2002.

His novella "...Where Angels Fear to Tread" was nominated for the Nebula award and won the Hugo and the annual Reader's Poll of Asimov's Science Fiction as Best Novella of the Year.

His new novel, Coyote, available now, contains the Hugo-nominated stories "Stealing Alabama" and "The Days Between"; this is one of Steele's first ficitonal forays outside of our solar system.

Steele lives in western Massachusetts. He is now writing Coyote Rising, the sequel to Coyote. .

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Cybling Welcome to Cybling, AllenSteele ! Folks...please meet Hugo Award winning Author Allen Steele. Allen's latest book CHRONOSPACE is on the bookshelves.
Allen Steele Good evening, folks. Nice to be here.
Cybling Allen, glad to have you here this evening. Now, first off ... CHRONOSPACE started out as a Novella? Can you tell us a little about that?
Allen Steele Okay. CHRONOSPACE was meant to be a novel all along, but in order to do it right, I'd have to travel to Germany to do research. Since I was unable to make the trip at the time (1), I opted instead to take what I thought was the most interesting part of the story and turn it into a novella. That was "`...Where Angels Fear to Tread,'" which was published in the Oct./Nov. `98 issue of "Asimov's Science Fiction." Much to my surprise, the novella was a huge success. It won the Hugo, the Locus, the Asimov's Readers Award, and the SF Chronicle Readers' Poll and was also nominated for the Nebula and the Sturgeon Awards. So a couple of years ago, I decided to tell the rest of the story. By then, I was able to afford to go to Germany to do research, and well, now the book is out.
Cybling Excellent. Your last book is also coming out in paperback this month too, isn't it?
Allen Steele OCEANSPACE has been simultaneously released in paperback, yes. There's an excerpt from CHRONOSPACE in the back of the book, so readers can get a taste of it that way.
Elysia Allen, how old were you when you became interested in sci fi and what about it caught your eye?
Allen Steele I've been reading SF since I was able to read, really...probably in the third or fourth grade. It's always been my favorite genre, and when I decided to become a writer, it was only natural that I would write SF. Sort of like playing Little League as a kid, and growing up to be a major league shortstop.
Cybling Didn't you do a stint as a reporter first though?
Allen Steele I became a journalist as a means of supporting myself, yes. I worked for newspapers in Tennessee, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, and was a Washington correspondent for awhile. For a little while, I thought I might stay in journalism, but then my first novel, ORBITAL DECAY, was sold, and by then I was sick of being a newspaperman, so I bailed out of journalism and became a full-time SF writer instead.
Raistlin Allen, what inspires you to write and where do you come up with ideas?
Allen Steele That's always a tricky one, but mainly I get interested in a particular subject -- in the case of CHRONOSPACE, it was the question of whether time travel would really work -- and then I follow through on it. So part of the time, I'm still thinking like a journalist...only this time I'm writing SF, not non-fiction.
Elysia What advise would you give to a young writer that would help assist them in getting their writings noticed?
Allen Steele Try to think in original terms. I often read the slush pile for a small-press SF magazine, "Absolute Magnitude," and what I notice is that many novice writers do the same stories over and over again. In other words, they copy the style, characters, plot, etc. of a favorite (or bestselling) author, hoping that they can break in that way. But editors *don't* want to see the same things over and over again. They want to read something they haven't read before. So it behooves a new writer to either (a) come up with a totally fresh concept (which is very hard to do) or (b.) find a fresh angle on an older concept.
Kras_Wolf I'm interested in reading some of your work; Could you suggest a good place to start?
Allen Steele I point new readers to my short fiction...because, to be quite honest, I think I'm a better short-story writer than I am a novelist. Since CHRONOSPACE is based on a novella, that's one place but I also have three collections out there (RUDE ASTRONAUTS, ALL-AMERICAN ALIEN BOY, and SEX AND VIOLENCE IN ZERO-G), and I've also got a series of stories currently appearing in "Asimov's."
Elysia Definitions for SF vary from person to person, what is your definition of SF?
Allen Steele Science fiction is literature which takes the probable and treats it as if it's possible. This is different from fantasy, which takes the impossible and treats it as if it's probable.
Atvar How do you have Sex in Zero G?
Allen Steele Carefully. Very, very carefully.
Elysia What are some elements that a true sci fi story can not go without?
Atvar You gonna be at Phil Con this year?
Gandalara I've been looking for _Sex and Violence in Zero G_ for about 2 years now. Got the others :)
Allen Steele First question: well, first and foremost, you should have a story which will interest your reader. That may seem obvious, but I think too much SF is mainly stylistic exercises, without much of a story beneath it. So the result is that they're a mile wide and an inch deep. Second, there should be a true speculative element... a "what if?" question that is raised and eventually answered. Much SF published today lacks this; they're mainly shoot-`em-ups in space, not much different than any other genre (war stories, romance stories, etc.) except that the locale is different. A good SF story, though, digs much deeper than that. And third, I think there's got to be...um, a certain element of mystery. A kind of edginess. Something weird. Perhaps not flat-out bizarre, but just ... strange.
Allen Steele Second question: yes, I'll be at the Philadelphia Worldcon. I love going to worldcons. Best fun you can have that's still legal.
Atvar Woo-Hoo
Naomi Getting back to your point about totally fresh concepts in SF - what books would you point to as having that quality, especially long after they were originally published?
Allen Steele Let's see... MORE THAN HUMAN, by Theodore Sturgeon. TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE, by Robert A. Heinlein. DYING INSIDE, by Robert Silvberberg. THE LATHE OF HEAVEN, by Ursula K. LeGuin. THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU by H.G. Wells...these are a few which have stood the test of time, and remain unique even today.
Cybling Quite a list. Allen." ...Where Angles Fear to Tread," the story on which CHRONOSPACE is based, involves time travel. What science principles do you employ to make time travel possible in this book?
Allen Steele I *really* had to work hard to make time travel work in that novel, Jan. For a while, the answer stumped me until I had dinner with two physicists, Gregory Benford (who, of course, is also an SF writer) and Matt Visser and they told me about some concepts involving the creation of wormholes that scientists like Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne had been writing about. So I looked into their work, and came up with a form of time travel which *might* work, based upon their theoretical work. Mind you, I don't know whether my timeships would actually work in real life, but at least it was a form of time travel which wasn't dependent upon what I call "magic tech" (i.e., technology which is unexplained, but just works like magic ... Clarke's Law in reverse).
Cybling Okay Allen, that leads me to my next question. If you can use time travel, does this mean that your feelings about using FTL (Faster-Than-Light), have loosened up a little?
Allen Steele Yeah, I guess so. There's inference in CHRONOSPACE that my 24th century chrononauts have developed time travel as a spin-off from hyperspace travel, so that's there. And the story I'm writing now postulates hyperspace starships. So I've finally come around and, kicking and screaming, allowed myself to use hyperspace as a means of getting around the light-barrier. But that's *still* not FTL travel, or at least technically speaking.
Elysia What was your first publication and how old were you at that time?
Allen Steele My first SF story was published in 1988: "Live from the Mars Hotel," in Asimov's. I was 30 then. But I had published a lot of newspaper articles, reviews, etc. long before then.
Cybling Thanks for the kicking and screaming Allen. I've always found your writing refreshing because you take your science seriously.
Allen Steele Well, if you don't take the science seriously in SF, then it ain't SF. It's fantasy with rivets.
Mandy [g]
Naomi Besides Worldcon, what conventions are on your schedule?
Allen Steele Readercon in July is the only other convention I'm doing this year. I'm staying home to concentrate on my current project, the "Coyote" series...which is almost complete, by the way. I've started work on the final story in the series.
Cybling Just got my July Asimov's and "Coming to Coyote" is the featured story.
Allen Steele You did? Damn! You beat me to it! Yes, that's the third story in the series...there will be eight by the time I'm through. It's a novel-in-progress, my longest and most ambitious yet. It's about the first interstellar colony.
ConLady Will you ever go back to the Clarke County Space Station universe?
Allen Steele No, "Near Space" is done. Or at least I think so. Never trust the author when he or she says that they're through with something.
ConLady Hee
Cybling LOL
Allen Steele Maybe my issue of "Asimov's" will be in the mailbox tomorrow. I can't wait to see my own story.
Elysia have you ever written any other type of story besides SF?
Allen Steele I've written a couple of spy stories (one of them under psuedonym) and a psychological-horror story which made it into THE YEAR'S BEST MYSTERY STORIES a few years ago. I may write a spy novel in another year or so. I've been doing a lot of research in that direction, and I've got a good story in mind. It's mainly a matter of finding the time.
Naomi You said the Coyote series was almost finished. When can we hope to see it in novel form?
Allen Steele I haven't a clue, really. It's been sold to Ace, but the last story won't be published in Asimov's until sometime next year. So it'll be a while before they're collected in book form...
Allen Steele Hey, Naomi. Congratulations on winning the DUFF competition. I'm sure you and Pat must be excited.
Naomi Thanks - Australia was great.
Allen Steele You've already gone?
Naomi Yup - spent a month over there, and went to the Australian National Convention.
Allen Steele Cool! I'm envious...I'd planned to go to Australia a couple of years ago for the worldcon, but our plans fell through.
Elysia is jealous with all this aussie talk
Naomi Well, we put in a few good words about you being a good guest to the SwanCon folks... :->
Mandy I heard it takes a month to get over the jetlag
Allen Steele Why, thank you!
Naomi Nah, Mandy, you just need to stay awake long enough to go to sleep on the local schedule. We didn't have any jetlag to speak of.
Allen Steele Yeah... 18 hours on a plane must be murder!
Mandy oh
Elysia i usually sleep 18 hours...... so it would be a natural trip for me.....
Mandy oh I thought it was 24 hours
ConLady I'll wait for teleporters.
Allen Steele How long was the flight, Naomi?
Naomi 4 hours to LA, 14 hours to Sydney, 4 hours to Perth.
Elysia lol ConLady
Allen Steele 22 hours...okay, we'll split the difference. You're right...no jetlag. Just a really sore butt.
Mandy teehee
Elysia personally i call it asslag. jetlag doesn't cover it.
Allen Steele LOL!! I'm writing that one down!
* Elysia giggles
Mandy lag means behind..wouldn't that make asslag redundent..?
Cybling Okay....Allen...why did you feel it was necessary to go to Germany to do research for the full (CHRONOSPACE) Novel?
Allen Steele Yeah,but asslag means you've left your behind in the U.S. while the rest of you has arrived in Australia.
Mandy [G]
Elysia that would explain the month to recouperate then...... :D
Naomi Actually, to get back to Cybling's question...
Allen Steele I needed to get a feeling for what Frankfurt was like, particularly in 1938. This was something I couldn't get through library research. As it turns out, the places I needed to visit -- the Grand Opera, the Cityring, the Frankfurter Hoff hotel, etc. -- were still intact and hadn't been destroyed by the Allied bombing raids. So I spent a week in Frankfurt visiting these places, taking a lot of notes, and also doing research in the Jewish Museum, which was the only museum which displayed pictures from the Nazi period. It worked out very well. The Frankfurt scenes in the novel are drop-dead accurate, and some of my favorites in the novel.
Naomi What other trips have turned into fruitful research or inspiration?
Allen Steele When I researched OCEANSPACE, I spent time in the Caribbean, learning how to scuba dive. Unexpectantly, I also found a good character there, a scientist whom I loosely based upon a Dominican cab driver. Whenever I can, I try to visit the locations I'm writing about...or at least when they're on Earth. It's more fun to do research this way, rather than simply relying on maps and travel guides.
Allen Steele If there's no other questions, I may retire as well. It's been a long day, and I get up early.
Elysia Thank you Allen it was a pleasure visiting with you.
ConLady Thanks Allen and see you at MilPhil :)
Atvar Yeah, see you in Philly!
Cybling Allen, I ran into Erin Murphy (she was assistant editor at OMNI for a while) online today, and she asked that I say hi, and that she's already picked up your latest novel.
Cybling Are there any last questions?
Naomi Thanks Allen. We'll be at Philadelphia too.
eCats Thank you, Allen.
Cybling Folks...let's thank Allen for coming out tonight and joining us online.
* Cybling applauds
ConLady Can't wait for CHRONOSPACE....
Pathia thank you =)
Allen Steele It's been my pleasure. Y'all have been a great audience...hey, tell Erin I said hi!
* ConLady applauds wildly
Cybling I sure will.
Allen Steele Yeah, I'll see everyone in Philadelphia...thank you, everyone!
JELEINEN Was interesting to "listen" to. Thanks.

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