{"id":4632,"date":"2018-01-29T17:42:59","date_gmt":"2018-01-29T22:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.e357.net\/beingernest\/?p=4632"},"modified":"2018-03-05T16:05:51","modified_gmt":"2018-03-05T21:05:51","slug":"sue-burke-interview-semiosis-spanish-sf-and-what-comes-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/sue-burke-interview-semiosis-spanish-sf-and-what-comes-next\/","title":{"rendered":"Sue Burke Interview: Semiosis, Spanish SF, and What Comes Next"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SueBurke\"<\/a>SFRevu:<\/strong> How did Semiosis<\/strong> come about? Did it spring from a short story? Did it come before or after your Clarion experience, and what did you think of that?<\/p>\n

Sue Burke: <\/strong>It started with real life. A couple of my houseplants got into fights with other houseplants. A pothos wrapped around another plant and killed it, and a philodendron tried to sink its roots into a neighbor. That seemed suspicious, so I did some research and discovered that all plants in a given place are, as one botanist put it, \u201cin a state of war with regard to each other.\u201d (War on my windowsills!) That seemed like a good source of conflict for a story, but how?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Then I attended Clarion in 1996, and Gregory Frost, one of the instructors, gave us a writing prompt involving a wall separating two warring factions. I thought of a human colony appearing between two warring factions of plants. Based on that, I wrote a short story, which was published in the now-defunct magazine LC-39<\/em>. A few years later, I reread that story and thought it could be expanded into a novel, so I did some more research and began writing.<\/p>\n

Selling the novel was a long project with a lot of dead ends, but I never gave up, and finally I succeeded.<\/p>\n

\"Semiosis\"<\/a>SFRevu:<\/strong> The science in Semiosis<\/strong> seems quite solid. What did you use for sources for the idea of plant intelligences and the human neurobiology?<\/p>\n

Sue Burke: <\/strong>I have a shelf of books and research materials, in addition to online research. Four books I recommend: Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth,<\/em> by Richard Fortey; The Rose\u2019s Kiss: A Natural History of Flowers,<\/em> by Peter Bernhardt; What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses,<\/em> by Daniel Chamovitz; and The Ants,<\/em> by Bert H\u00f6lldobler and Edward O. Wilson. A Dictionary of Plant Sciences,<\/em> edited by Jill Bailey, also helped, along with Worldbuilding,<\/em> by Stephen L. Gillett.<\/p>\n

SFRevu:<\/strong> The idea that language and the way people see the world are interrelated is well established, going back to one of my heroes of psycholinguistics, Benjamin Lee Whorf. How did that play out in Semiosis, and where has it shown up in your work translating Spanish to English?<\/p>\n

Sue Burke: <\/strong>It shows up everywhere. Language and world view are deeply linked. I think the significant difference between languages isn\u2019t what you can<\/em> say. Nothing is untranslatable, although it may take a lot more words to say something in one language than another. Meaning can always be conveyed across languages and cultures with enough time and effort.<\/p>\n

Languages differ in what you must<\/em> say.<\/p>\n

As a simple example, in Spanish, I must specify the way I address other people \u2013 two forms of \u201cyou,\u201d either the familiar \u201ct\u00fa\u201d or the formal \u201custed.\u201d I have to think about people in that way when I think in Spanish. I must also specify gender, for example either \u201cel presidente\u201d or \u201cla presidenta\u201d when talking about a head of state. When I translate, I have to compensate for that and other, more subtle differences, and make the English in the translation seem natural. Translators are schooled in a variety of techniques, and knowing when and how to apply them is the trick.<\/p>\n

For plants, their life experience would give them different references from humans. A seed would mean something different to them, or sunshine, or sugar. I tried to weave that into the story.<\/p>\n

In the end, though, it was hard to convey the depth of differences among languages without having to invest more time and effort into those differences than the narrative had time for. The language of Glassmade isn\u2019t represented as being very divergent from English, but it would be in real life.<\/p>\n

SFRevu:<\/strong> An early plot point that never seemed to get followed up on was that the colony ship\u2019s AI wound up choosing a different system than the one they\u2019d been shooting for. Was there any significance in that?<\/p>\n

Sue Burke: <\/strong>I wanted to suggest that what happened was not ordained. Another story was possible. Perhaps a sequel? Or fan fiction?<\/p>\n

SFRevu:<\/strong> Although Semiosis<\/strong> is your debut novel, you\u2019ve published many short stories, including your story \u201cSpiders\u201d in the Hartwell\/Cramer Year’s Best SF 14, which is set on the world in Semiosis<\/strong>. Are any of your stories available online, and do you have a bibliography?<\/p>\n