This year Mike Resnick has been nominated for the Hugo for the short story "The 43 Antarean Dynasties" which was published in Asimov's, December 1997 issue.
This is not the first nomination or award he's received and won't be the last. A look at his bibliography, biography and selected stories on his home page show the quality and quantity of work that have made this man a consistant winner of awards and respected force in the SF field.
Widely known as the editor of many "alternate" anthologies, Resnick is a novelist whose work is sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic and always compelling.
Gardner asks: When are you going to send us another story.
MikeResnick Probably as soon as I get the photos of Gardner, the three teen-aged girls and the dead chicken.
KaTT Asks: You have often focused on Africa in your writings, are there any reasons except that you want to write about it?
MikeResnick That's the very best reason. If we are to build alien societies on things that we know, that's the most alien society I've ever come across. I think everybody will agree that if we can reach the stars, we'll colonize them and Africa offers 51 separate and distinct examples of the effects of colonization on the colonizers and the colonized.
Sheila asks: Mike, congratulations on your Hugo nomination for "43 Antarean Dynasties" and on winning the Asimov Readers award with that story. Can you tell us about your inspiration for it.?
MikeResnick Yeah...we took a trip to Egypt and the narrator of the story is just a science fictional analog of our Egyptian guide.
Gardner asks: Are you going to write any more about Africa now that you've finished the Kirinyaga series.
MikeResnick Absolutely!
KaTT asks: Any advice for aspiring writers? besides writealotandyou'llgetbetter?
MikeResnick Not really. Writers write. Dilettantes talk about writing.
Gardner asks: Describe your next African project.
MikeResnick Yes. It's called a HUNGER IN THE SOUL. It's available for $22 from TOR books. And it's a science fictional allegory of Stanley and Livingstone, was published in May. Please tell 700 close friends and relations to buy it!
JanCyberC And I'll add here, that you can get the book from Amazon and there's a link to Amazon on Mike's page here in Cybling...
Sheila asks: Will you be taking any more exotic trips for research on your next project?
MikeResnick When we go to Aussiecon next year we'll be taking an around-the-world trip. We plan to hit Bora Bora and Fiji on the way out and the Seychelles and So. Africa on the way back.
Gardner asks: What about upcoming African stories? Any in the works?
MikeResnick The one that Gardner has been nagging me for but he's not going to get it for a little while.
KaTT asks: Was there some pivotal decision that made you want to become a writer? Or was it a gradual process?
MikeResnick My mother was a writer and I never seriously considered any other form of occupation. I started selling at 15 and I was writing full-time at 22 and have been doing it 34 years now. I like sleeping till noon and dressing like a bum.
Gardner asks: Have you ever written a story set in Ohio, where you currently live? Or in Orlando, where you're moving?
MikeResnick No.
MikeResnick Oh yes wait I have. I set a mystery novel called DOG IN THE MANGER in Cincinnati where I live. And I set a SF novel, THE BRANCH, in Chicago where I used to live. Nothing in Orlando. LOL.
Gardner asks: What kind of stuff did your mother write. Any books?
MikeResnick No books, only articles and poems. She never made a living from it and in fact was very jealous of me when I managed to.
Sheila says: So writing has been running in the family for at least three generations?
MikeResnick Right. My daughter Laura, won the Campbell award despite the fact that I make her wear a chastity belt whenever Gardner is around. Her first fantasy novel IN LEGEND BORN, comes out in August and has gotten sensational pre-publication reviews.
Gardner Asks: Did she encourage you to be a writer? Most of the rest of us were discouraged by our parents from being writers.
MikeResnick Ah...I really can't recall ever not wanting to be a writer....I don't know if I assumed that was the only profession in the world. Make that 3 and a half generations. Carol my wife collaborates on screenplays with me.
KaTT asks: What are your favorite science fiction writers?
MikeResnick Barry Malzberg. Olaf Staplevon, C. L. Moore, R. A. Lafferty, James White, Robert Sheckley, Alfred Bester, Cyril Kornbluth, George Alec Effinger...
Sheila asks: Mike, what novel are you working on now?
MikeResnick I'm working on a novel called OUTPOST for Del Rey, and I owe one that I haven't started yet called AN AMBIGUOUS CLAY for TOR.
Gardner asks: You've worked a good deal as an editor, too. What young writers have you helped discover, and what young writers would you recommend?
MikeResnick Okay. The 3 best young writers I've worked with are Nick DiChario, Barbara Delaplace, and (surprise!) Laura Resnick.
CR RIK Asks: Is SF declining? Ellison and Chalker are complaining about publishers.
MikeResnick There is more money than ever before in the field, but thanks to the computer, it's going to the people who deserve it rather than the people with the best hype. And I think in general the quality of writing improves almost every decade.
Jedd Asks: Have you developed a rigorous writing ritual over the years? Who are your favorite non-SF writers?
MikeResnick I'm a lot less rigorous now than I was when I was hungrier, but I still put in 4 or 5 hours a day 4 or 5 days a week, more when I'm facing deadlines. My favorite writer is... Nikos Kazantzakis.
KaTT asks: Have you heard of Norman Spinrad's offer to publishers to give them his book for a single buck if they publish it "right". And if so, what do you think of it?
MikeResnick I think his notion of "right" could come to half a million dollars, with a 20 city tour, and a huge print run, and may not be cost effective. On the other hand, the guy who publishes it will probably get tons of free publicity for being so bold and liberal.
RIK asks: Once Read (Hyperion) Literacy has been a decline ever since Guttenburg developed the printing press. Comment?
MikeResnick Rubbish.
Sheila asks: Mike, how does the computer improve things? Better communication?
MikeResnick It makes it easier to revise. For those of us who fear and distrust all new technology it also complicates life immeasurably.
Gardner asks: How long does it takes you to finish a novel, on average. What kind of stuff does Nikos Kazantzakis write?
MikeResnick Gardner you subliterate oaf. He's written ZORBA THE GREEK, THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST and a dozen other brilliant works. It takes me on average, 4 months to write a novel if I'm doing nothing else, but since I am usually working simultaneously on a movie script and some short stories it usually takes me about 8 months to deliver on a novel these days.
Gardner says: Oh, THAT Nikos Kazantzakis! I thought you meant the OTHER one.
MikeResnick The other one played 3rd base for the old St. Louis Browns. I'm surprised you remember him.
Starlit asks: What was your intent when you wrote the "Antares" story?
MikeResnick Just a second....
MikeResnick I wanted the reader to feel the same empathy and compassion for the narrator that I felt for my Cairo guide and for the same reasons.
Gardner asks: What about your movie work? How many properties have you sold to the movies now? When are they coming out?
MikeResnick We've optioned 9 properties. We've sold 2. We've scripted 2 and been paid for them -- SANTIAGO and THE WIDOWMAKER. I have no idea when they will be made. I am only the writer. That puts me lower on the totem pole than the men's room attendant.
Gardner asks: Are you actually going to write the screenplays for any of those? Or did they just buy the rights to film the books?
MikeResnick They didn't BUY anything. They optioned 9 properties. They bought 2 others and we wrote the scripts for them. Until an option is picked up I have no idea who will do the script. I imagine it will be someone else in most cases.
Jed Asks: What do you do when you're not writing?
MikeResnick Sleep, travel, read.
Starlit asks: I meant, why that story? I felt "reflections" of Egypt therein. Was that deliberate?
MikeResnick Absolutely. Many of my stories are only allegories of the present, especially my African experiences. I feel that past present or future there is a universality to human experience that translates very well as science fiction.
Sheila asks: "Antares" reminded me of Herotodus' description of Babylon. No matter how great the civilization, it's going to pass.
MikeResnick Ah...I felt enormous sympathy for my guide who was showing us 5,000 year old monuments that were created when my ancestors were living in dirt huts and suddenly he's reduced to showing off former glories of a 3rd world power for tips.
Gardner asks: Are you going to do walk-on bit parts in any of them, like Stephen King? (the movies)
MikeResnick No I was offered one in SANTIAGO and turned it down. Looking at me is almost as much of a turnoff as looking at Gardner. Why ruin the box office if I don't have to.
Dreamer asks: Why write SF if you are really interested in human history?
MikeResnick I feel that what I write are moral parables. If you will go to your local bookstore you will find very little shelf space devoted to moral parables but a whole lot devoted to SF. I have to make a living --- and SF lets me use all of time and space to tell my parables.
Sheila asks: Can Gardner be in the movies too?
MikeResnick You mean he wasn't? I could swear he starred in Creature from the Black Lagoon!
RIK asks: As a former bartender I judge people on their favorite libations, What are yours?:)
MikeResnick Iced Coffee. I don't drink whiskey or wine and I drink beer only in Africa where the water's not safe.
KaTT asks: In your "Limerick History of Science Fiction" you say that science fiction is back to where it literally started (forgive my puny pun). Do you really think so or were you just being funny?
MikeResnick Look at the best seller list, and you will find nothing but Trekbooks and Wookiebooks. I was just being tragic.
Gardner says: That was my Evil Twin. The good-looking one.
MikeResnick Gardner...I'll write a sequel...creature from the Mauve Lagoon, just for you.
Jed Asks: What's the main differences between dealing with publishers and movie producers?
MikeResnick The dumbest producer I've ever met is 5 times as smart and 10 times as bloodthirsty as the smartest most mendacious publisher.
Starlit asks: Re: the Hugo nominated short story: Why do you think it was Hugo-nominated?
MikeResnick I'd like to think that it was one of the 5 best short stories to appear last year.
Sheila asks: Will you be in Baltimore for World Con?
MikeResnick Absolutely. I've been going to WorldCon since 1963...
Gardner asks: What about horse racing as something you do?
MikeResnick I wrote a weekly column on horse racing for 17 years. I've written a number of articles on horse racing. I don't bet, but I've been known to fly 2000 miles to watch a major race in person.
Gardner adds: What about a plaid lagoon.
MikeResnick If you don't want Mauve we'll make it puce.
Gardner asks: You're one of three authors I know who've written SF or Fantasy about horse-racing. Do you know who the others are?
MikeResnick Barry Malzberg for sure and probably Josepha Sherman. BTW, Gardner Walter Farley wrote a novel called THE ISLAND STALLION RACES...it had aliens.
RIK asks: Are you British?
MikeResnick No. I was born in Chicago.
KaTT asks: In your "Roots and a Few Vines" on your website, you seem terribly nostalgic for the good ol' worldcons. Do you think that such a time will ever return?
MikeResnick No. They may not get any bigger, but they're not going to get smaller.
Gardner says: The one I had in mind was Walter T. Farley, but you're right about Sherman. George Alec Effinger did one too. The Farley is Vonda McIntyre's favorite kid's book. I read it too when I was a kid.
MikeResnick Malzberg wrote 2 SF stories about horseracing...Overlay and Underlay.
Gardner says: Horses AND aliens. What's not to like?
Sheila asks: Have you written fiction about racing?
MikeResnick Only Science Fiction.
Gardner asks: What's your favorite SF Magazine?
MikeResnick Asimov's of course! (How about that $10 you promised me for the plug?)
Gardner says: He did write fantasy about racing too, short stories at least. There was one about racing elephants, and a deal-with-the-devil story. Your $10 is in the mail!
Sheila says: Mike you have great taste in mags, even if we do have to bribe you.
MikeResnick Folks...I want to thank you very much for having me. I regret that my ancient computer doesn't allow me to speak to you directly. I'm moving over to Delphi in a few moments... Gardner will tell you how to get there...if you'd care to join me.
JanCyberC Thank you very much for joining us tonight.
MikeResnick Goodnight!
MIKE RESNICK'S NOVELS & ANTHOLOGIES
designed and maintained by
CyberSecretary
![[A Hunger in the Soul by Mike Resnick]](./art/resnick.jpg)
