“She Was the Universe” is a beautiful ode to what makes life worth living, even as the universe caves in around us. Stockli’s characters come alive in the desolate aftermath of a cosmic-scale event that leaves Iceland isolated and growing ever colder. Heartbreaking and resonant, “She Was the Universe” will haunt you into the lonely night.
Read it in Metaphorosis: Best of 2023 now available on Amazon!
1. The Craft Question: There are hundreds and hundreds of books on writing out there. Do you have one that you especially cherish?
I’m probably not the only person with this answer, but the first book on writing I read was Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions for Writing and Life, and it’s the only one that I consistently return to. You can find a hundred books on the technical side of writing, and a hundred different approaches to the technical side of writing; those are useful, but what I appreciate so much about Bird by Bird is its emphasis on the emotional life of a writer and mental hygiene. When I’m frustrated with my writing I usually need something in that vein, not another manual on structure.
2. The SF Question: What is your biggest pet peeve in SF/fantasy/horror? Any inaccuracy or trope that just drives you crazy when you encounter it?
This one has been popular recently: humanoid robots as an allegory for civil rights, class conflict, or wartime injustice. From a hard speculative standpoint, I think this is always absurd. Limiting each individual A.I. to a single body, so that something like a “race” of robots is possible is impractical and ridiculous. So many assumptions are implicit in this creative move. From an artistic standpoint as well, it always feels in bad taste—what does the replacement of marginalized people with robots do other than re-present historical violence without representing the people who actually experienced it? David Cage’s game Detroit: Become Human was an egregious example of this. Another recent offender is Gareth Edwards’s film The Creator. I just find this stuff unimaginative and offensive. A counterexample that is both speculatively and artistically rich would be Ted Chiang’s novella The Lifecycle of Software Objects.
3. The Random Question: What was/were the best book(s) you read in the last year?
Last year I finally read Borges’s collected fictions as well as Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris! I think both will stick with me for a long time, especially as I write speculative. On the more literary side, Elaine Castillo’s America is Not the Heart and Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day were very pleasant surprises for me!
Damian Stockli is a writer and graduate student from the Hudson Valley, in New York State. Visit his website at https://damianstockli.wixsite.com/stockliblog.