I think the repetitive quality of the story is similar to certain fables or folk stories, which often feature an element that repeats and gets worse every time.

My child, your Elder will now tell you of a time long, long before you were born, an age of darkness, in which our People of the Sci-fi had no women. Among the People were only men. The men did all things well and bravely. They went where no man had gone before. But women they knew not, except as depicted upon the covers of their magazines, having large breasts and screaming.

Years ago, in one of my creative writing classes, another student asked what the plural of “nemesis” was, and it sparked this big debate, not just about the correct word, but if you could ever have more than one nemesis and if a word like nemesis should even have a plural form. So I start thinking about superheroes, naturally, because I’m a geek, and that’s kind of what I do, and I start wondering if a superhero could just decide to replace his nemesis if he ever actually succeeded in killing him.

The story was inspired by a picture of a ship I found and carried around with me for ages. I often use pictures for prompts, and I always knew I wanted to write about this ship because it just looked so alive and spectacular in the picture, with its sails and flags blowing in the wind and people rushing about on deck.

The theme of knowing your own death isn’t one I’d explored before […] but I find it fascinating. Knowing how but not when, and knowing that “how” could easily only make sense after you’ve died (yay, ironic interpretations of words): that’s awesome. What’s most interesting about the book [This is How You Die] is, unexpectedly, how the stories aren’t mostly morbid and sad. “Cancer” is (hopefully) a funny story, and there’re lots more that approach it in the same way.

I’m in the process of clearing the decks of contracted stories. I think I need to take a deep breath and write a few stories that are not on demand and not to deadline. I’ve had a few years of taking on a lot of short-story commitments, and I need to just write a few stories that arise naturally, that insist on being written for their own sake. I have no idea what they will be.

It seemed a beautiful image of sunlight made solid, of the fact that food is sunlight. At the beginning of the story, Alan reflects that the light of the sun is still present, even in the darkness, in the energy that’s fuelling his and Jan’s bodies as they break into the lab. In a way, he’s already made of light.

I think that ultra-specialization will continue to be the trend until advances in AI/robotics begin to surpass all human abilities, at which point we will all be generalists again because there will be no point in devoting your life to a single narrow occupation (like writing!) just to be half as good as a machine. I’d also note that the benefits of specialization may outweigh the costs. My short story is a dystopia, but that may only be because it doesn’t show all of the benefits of specialization.

I wrote the first paragraph last. It was important to get the reader grounded quickly: This is genre, this is about women, this is not going to have a happy ending. I wanted to instil the reader with a sense of foreboding, because the narrator already knows what she’s about to tell you.