The Big Question with Dr. Catherine Asaro: 12-07-01
The Big Quesiton with Dr. Catherine Asaro
Interview with: Li Rapkin
In which Li has coffee with the lovely and talented Dr. Catherine Asaro — physicist, dancer, mother, and award-winning science fiction author.
THE BIG Q&A
Your father, Frank Asaro, was one of the scientists who discovered high levels of iridium in the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, which is now considered evidence of the meteor impact that killed off the dinosaurs.
That’s right. My dad is a nuclear chemist. He worked at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab, which is associated with the University of California. He’s still an Emeritus up there now.
Luis Alvarez, who was an astronomer, asked him if he would analyze a sample of material from the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, and he was particularly interested to know if it had iridium in it. My father, who pioneered a neutron activation technique, thought there wouldn’t be enough iridium in there to register. But eventually my Dad gave it a look. Lo and behold, he came up with he thought was a mistake — way too much iridium appeared in there.
So he investigated further, trying to find if it had been a mistake. He checked the results carefully. Finally, they realized what they had found was real. Then, they tried to understand what could have caused it. The model that best fit the data was that something extraterrestrial had hit the earth.
A lot of modern paleontology is based on the whole idea that a meteor hit the earth about 65 million years ago.
It is now. It’s pretty well accepted now, because the probable impact site has been found — Chixulub crater, off the coast of the Yucatan peninsula. But when it first came out, it was controversial. It’s ironic, because my father is such a conservative, careful scientist. People were saying, “What is this crazy idea?” He is the last person to come up with a crazy idea.
Four people worked on the impact theory, Luis, his son (Walter Alvarez), my father (Frank Asaro), and his colleague (Helen Michael). Luis Alvarez had a Nobel Prize, but in astronomy. Walter is a geologist and my father and Helen are chemists. So in a sense, they were trespassing on another field. The experts in that field were saying, “No, this isn’t how we do things.” It took a lot of convincing.
Did your father’s experience give you an early interest in cross-disciplinary work?
It was a good example for me. Or it may just be that Asaros have a genetic predisposition for pushing boundaries [laughs].
I notice that you haven’t written any dinosaur stories.
Well, not yet. You never know. [smiles] I hope to do a popular science book about my father’s work, not only on the impact theories, but the other fascinating projects he has been involved with. So far I have about ten hours of interviews with him.
You used to be a professional dancer and dance teacher — are you still teaching?
Yes, I still teach. I also take classes. My daughter dances now, too.
Do you have a favorite ballet?
I love the classics. I love Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, all of those, for the beauty of the dancing. I also like jazz and jazz ballet. The Dance Theater of Harlem is a good one, as is Alvin Ailey. ABT [American Ballet Theater] is also one of my favorites.
I love watching dance. I’m not as big a fan of modern, because I don’t enjoy doing it as much as the other forms, but I like all kinds of dance. In my youth I learned some flamenco, which I enjoyed, and I’ve done a great deal of jazz.
Nancy Kress wrote a story about biologically enhanced dancer, which is in her new collection, Beaker’s Dozen. In the introduction to the story, she says that it seems like the science fiction world and the ballet world rarely intersect.
Certainly not as often as we would like! My first published short story, “Dance in Blue,” was about a ballet dancer, though, as is my book The Veiled Web.
Nancy writes great stories. She is a good friend, and in honor of her writing science fiction about ballet dancers, I did what we call “tuckerizarion” in SF; I named a character after her in The Veiled Web. She would be a beautiful dancer, so in The Veiled Web a world famous dancer known as Nancilla Kress has a cameo appearance.
One of the things Nancy addresses in her novella is that academic education gets interrupted when you’re a dancer in training.
Good ballet schools are conscientious about helping students balance the rest of their life with their ballet training. For any serious student, it is still a tremendous amount of work. How much time they spend with it depends a lot on the student, the school where the dancer studies, and what she wants to do.
My daughter studies at a good pre-professional school, the Caryl Maxwell School of Classical Ballet. They give the students an excellent foundation in ballet at a pre-professional level. My daughter, who is eleven, recently auditioned for the School of the Washington Ballet and was offered the chance to take classes there. She is excited about the opportunity and will start in January.
My daughter started home schooling last year, when she was ten, partly because she’s advanced in her learning; academically, we’ve been told she is ready to begin college, but she is too young to actually attend such a school. She also wanted to home school because of her dedication to ballet and piano. Plus she loves math, and wants to spend time with that. But at the level of her interest and dedication, these all require daily practices, and a day only has so many hours! Home schooling was her idea, and it turned out to be an excellent solution. She can continue her studies in ballet, piano, and math, work on her other subjects, and still have time with his friends, time to enjoy her childhood.
I suppose that being ahead academically is helpful for her, in light of the fact that so many dance careers end early due to injury.
It doesn’t have to be that way for dancers. It is similar to sports; although some careers may end due to injury, many don’t. But it is important to be careful. Last year my daughter pulled a ligament in her knee, so she took extra care not to strain it, to give it a chance to heal. We also had a specialist see her, just in case any problems arose. When a child spends that many hours training a week, it is important to watch their development carefully.
I’d like to ask you about both arts education and science education, because you’ve taught both. With the growing importance of the web, it seem that visual literacy is as important as scientific literacy.
Yes! Web-based education has a lot of potential and can adapt to a wide variety of students. I think we are looking at the wave of the future.
My daughter takes some of her classes through the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth. She has participated in both their summer camps and their distance-learning courses. They have good programs. Their web-based honors courses in the math are wonderful. For example, a lesson may show, say, an equation plotting out, along with clever sound effects. You can plot the equations, have them appear, and manipulate them as you want.
The courses are also self-paced. She isn’t held back when she is ready to move on, but at the same time she has flexibility in how she times the course. So during, say, tech week for a ballet show, when they rehearse for hours most nights, she can ease up on the math.
She was doing an algebra course when she was ten, and it was hard to find a school that would let her take it as part of their curriculum. Most fifth grades don’t have the flexibility for a student to do algebra and other similarly advanced subjects, at least not at the schools we looked at. They were good schools, too, with wonderful teachers. But my daughter was growing increasingly frustrated, more and more angry that they wanted to hold her back. The web-based learning/homeschooling turned out to be an excellent solution. They also give the course work at a depth that she couldn’t have received in a regular school.
You think the future of education will be computer-based home-schooling?
I suspect that eventually we will see a combination of classroom and home options. I do expect that computer learning will become more incorporated in education. And the home school — I had no idea what a big movement it is. When we started, all the sudden, people were coming out of the woodwork who also homeschooled their children.
I don’t think computers will replace teachers, though. Students will always need interaction with either a parent or instructor. In my case it was very natural, because I’m a teacher anyway and I’ve specialized in gifted students. I had at first wondered how my daughter would have as much of social interaction she enjoys so much, but I needn’t have worried. She interacts more now with other children than before, in part because of her extra activities, but also because she has more time.
The movement certainly seems to be growing a lot; it seems far more popular than it was when I was school age.
That is my impression also. I had no idea. My daughter found out about it and wanted to do it. She went to a good elementary school, Clemens Crossing, and we appreciated their excellent teachers. They are part of why she enjoys learning so much. But even a school that good wasn’t able to take care of her needs. She was the one who figured out the solution.
That’s very perceptive for someone who’s nine or ten years old.
It was amazing, once she made her decision. Usually she is soft-spoken and a little shy. But she also has a great deal of determination, when she makes up her mind. She presented her case and convinced me, then her dad, then her principal, and everybody.
It works well because I’m at home anyway, since I write full time now. Most of the appearances I do are on the weekends, when she doesn’t have school.
What types of appearances do you do?
I go to a lot of science fiction conventions. I really enjoy them. The fans are wonderful. I’m also often asked to do talks at places like the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, at writers’ workshops, colleges, book festivals, and romance conferences.
Let’s talk about romance novels — I know you like to read them, and you incorporate those themes in your own work. Maybe I’ve been reading the wrong ones, but it seems to me that in a lot of them, the hero is a jerk. If he were dating your friend, you’d tell her “Dump him and go for the nice, stable guy who’s wrong for you — you’ll be happier!!”
(Laughs) Well, they’re not all like that. Romance is a diverse field. It’s like science fiction. We have the great works, we have a lot of average works, and we have the gadawful stuff we wouldn’t give people outside the genre to read. Romance has all that, too. Some people like the story of the guy who’s a jerk and learns to be a nice guy through the love of a good woman. It’s not my thing, but it does have a limited audience.
It seems to me that it can foster unrealistic expectations, though.
I disagree with that. All fiction tells a story. It puzzles me that of all forms of fiction, romance is the only one criticized as unrealistic. Look at science fiction, with its space ships, babes in bronze bras, and non-humans! This is realism? [grins]
The basic theme of a romance is simple: a woman deserves emotional fulfillment. When critics say, “Romance is so unrealistic,” I have to wonder why they consider it unrealistic for women to achieve emotional fulfillment. I mean, good Lord, what does that say about our culture?
Romance isn’t just emotional fulfillment for women; by definition, a happy relationship involves fulfillment for both partners. That is probably why many men also enjoy fiction that includes romantic themes, even if romance novels aren’t their cup of tea. But the assumption of male fulfillment with a desirable, attractive woman is common throughout our literature. The same can’t be said for the portrayal of women’s fulfillment — except in romance. It’s no coincidence that sixty percent of the fiction paperbacks sold in this country are romance novels.
Some romances have a different style of writing, one that feels less precise to science fiction readers, and that may be another reason why some of them feel unrealistic to SF readers. Also, romances tend to concentrate more on the love story and less on other aspects of the plot, so it may seem to a non-romance readers as if the story is glossing over some aspects of the plot, just as SF sometimes seems to concentrate on ideas and tech, with characterization glossed over. That is why science fiction often feels unrealistic to non-SF readers. They perceive it as more interested in things than in people.
Some romance authors I enjoy are Mary Jo Putney, Jo Beverly, Susan King, and Amanda Quick (who also writes as Jayne Anne Krentz). Judith Ivory is another good author. Her book, The Proposition, is a role reversal of the “My Fair Lady” story. I also liked Susan Carroll’s The Bride Finder. Susan Grant. Lynn Kurland. Diana Gabaldon. R. Garcia y Robertson wrote a wonderful time travel romance too.
If it is done well, and doesn’t annoy my feminist sensibilities, I enjoy a good romance. I do tend to look for more in a story than just the love story, though. I like to see the development of more characters than the central two and more themes. And heck, when I write, sometimes I just want to blow up a spaceship or something. (Laughs).
So, you say that Sturgeon’s Law applies across genres?
Certainly. Actually, I’m not sure I agree with Sturgeon’s Law [“Ninety percent of everything is crap”]. I think the more accurate statement for most people is, “Ninety percent of everything isn’t my cup of tea.” We tend to define what we like as what has quality.
In a lot of your work, you like to turn the tables around [with gender roles], but you have to make everything else consistent with that, or it doesn’t work.
Yes, exactly. The Last Hawk takes place in a matriarchal culture. Basically I reversed the roles in various cultures on our world. I had to think carefully and pay attention to details. It’s not just big things, like the fact that some of the men are in husband harems. It’s all the little things too.
For example, in many cities on the world of The Last Hawk, the men are becoming more adamant about equality. They talk about the way that the women address the men and how women in power use different language with each other than with men. This one fellow is the protégé of a powerful woman in the local government. He is a doctor, which is unusual for a man, but their culture is more accepting of men in that role because doctors are nurturing.
So this fellow is talking to his mentor about the woman who governs the city-state. He says, “She doesn’t take me seriously. If I say something to her, she says ‘Oh, yes, that’s very nice,’ but if you say something, she says, ‘That is profound, a statement worthy of you.’”
His mentor, a woman, says, “Oh, come on; she doesn’t treat you like that.” That came from my watching (and experiencing) interactions in my field. Physics is a male-dominated field, and I wrote The Last Hawk when I was a graduate student in the Chemical Physics program at Harvard. So not only did I have a model for reversing roles, but also I knew women in the equivalent position as the men in my book.
I tried to keep a sense of humor about it, however, and make a good story. It doesn’t matter how good the social commentary of a book is if readers feel like they’re being hit over the head with a lecture.
What’s interesting about The Last Hawk is that I get more email about it from men than from women. I had wondered, because male reviewers were saying this is romance at its best. But The Last Hawk isn’t really romance in the genre sense. Then I realized I had role-reversed some classic romance tropes. Here the guy is being romanced, the guy is carried off. The warrior queen climbs the tower where he is secluded, tries to seduce him, gets caught, then comes back and absconds with the fellow. She hauls him off to her fortress and says, “Now you have to marry me.” (grins)
It’s a fun theme. In retrospect, thinking about it, I’m not surprised it appeals to both women and men. The idea of having a powerful, gorgeous person so enamored of you that they would launch a thousand ships, go to war, abdicate, or otherwise move heaven and earth to have you is an appealing fantasy. And fiction is about fantasy regardless of the genre.
It sounds like you’ve ventured into sociology — out of the hard sciences and into the so-called “soft” ones.
I do, sometimes. I was initially wary of being labeled a hard science fiction writer because I do a lot that traditionally isn’t considered hard science fiction, and I was afraid the hard SF label would scare off readers who might enjoy the books. But just like other genres, hard SF is much more diverse than its reputation says.
I didn’t know, when I wrote my first book, that hard SF existed. The Last Hawk was actually the first one I wrote, though I sent it to Tor third. The editor had seen it when he was at a previous house, but then he moved from one house to another. After I sold him Primary Inversion, my first book, he made an offer for another I had sent. Then he said, “Do you remember that one you sent me before? I would also like that one.” So that is why it came out third.
Because you write about relationships a lot, have you ever considered writing about gay characters?
I have, some. In Primary Inversion, one of the side characters, a woman in a star fighter squadron, is a lesbian. It didn’t seem unusual to me, given how open SF has become. But people kept asking me questions like, “What was the context? What was your message here?” and I don’t know; it was just part of the character.
In The Radiant Seas, the character Althor has a boyfriend. At one point Althor asks his father if it makes him uncomfortable. The father essentially says, “I would like to think I can see the best in any companion you choose.” That was pretty much it. I had more, but I was already 100,000 words over the limit the book was contracted for, so anything without bearing on the plot had to go. A few years later Cecilia Tan at Circlet press told me she was doing a literary erotica anthology about cultures and sensuality, and asked me to contribute. So I wrote a novelette about how Althor met his boyfriend and girlfriend both (it’s a three-way relationship). I do warn readers it’s on the risqué side, because not everyone is comfortable with erotica. The novelette is called “Soul of Light” and is in the anthology Sextopia.
Switching gears, I’d like to ask you about the business end of writing. I think a lot of people who want to become writers have no idea about the business end of things, and when you become a professional writer, there are probably all kinds of surprises that pop up, especially after you’ve made a sale for the first time.
The hardest part is not actually making the first sale; it’s the third or fourth. The publisher usually doesn’t pay you as much for that first one. You’re a new author, an unknown. As you become better known, your advances go up. By book three or four, they have an idea whether or not your books will hit. If the books don’t, then what the publishers earn from them doesn’t match the advances they pay you. So they may either offer a lower advance or reject the next book.
As the market condenses and shrinks, it is harder for everyone to keep selling. That’s why many authors think more about promotion now. So many books — so many good books — are out there that you have to get your name out.
To claw your way out of the mid-list?
It’s what many authors hope, to climb onto the bestseller lists. Ideally most of us would like to be paid obscene amounts of money to write literary masterpieces that everyone loves. (grins)
I received a lot of advice on what would make my books more saleable. Some said I should avoid the “hard SF” label, which was the first one attached to my work. Others advised me to avoid the “romance” label. I thought about it a lot and finally decided I was proud of both aspects in my work. So I don’t avoid either label. It hasn’t seemed to hurt the sales.
The controversy over my books took me by surprise. The role-reversal startled people, I’m not sure why. I’m certainly not the first to do it. I think it is because I write strong women in powerful positions who also have romantic relationships, often including families. Some readers twitch at it because it says, “Not only can a woman be strong, successful, and respected, but she can have emotional fulfillment as well. You don’t have to give up one for the other.”
Although the controversy was unsettling, I enjoy talking about the issues, now that I’m used to it. I’m often asked to speak on women’s issues and feminist themes in science fiction. I hadn’t thought I was doing anything unusual, writing hard SF space adventure with romantic and feminist themes. I’m a scientist, so science ends up in my work without my thinking much about it. I’m also a romantic, married to a wonderful man, my best friend, so I tend to gravitate toward romantic storylines.
I also have experience and training as a sexual harassment counselor, so I sometimes write about issues connection with those themes. It tends to make some readers uncomfortable. Although our culture has progressed a great deal in those areas, we still have a long way to go.
In terms of the other feminist themes, I’m a theoretical physicist, which is more of a male dominated field. I went through the whole business before I decided to write full time: school at Harvard and UCLA, postdoc at University of Toronto, professor at Kenyon College, visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institut in Germany and at the Institute for Theoretical Atomic and Molecular Physics at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. When you live in that world for years, you learn how to deal with being one of the few women. You don’t just theorize about women’s issues; you live them. You’re on the front lines of pushing the envelope. So it isn’t surprising those issues come up in my work too. Nor is it surprising that I write so much about women in what we consider non-traditional roles. I lived it for years.
[Your female characters] aren’t men in drag.
Exactly — which seems to have made them popular with both male and female readers. And I enjoy talking to readers about it. Even with the best of controversy, though, it can be hard. You read a review that says, “This is so unrealistic, that a woman could do these things,” and you think, “Yeah, right. I’m a figment of someone’s imagination.” (smiles) Or a review that says, “This story has romance. Argh! Catherine Asaro, what are you doing?! It isn’t worthy of you, to put romance in your science fiction.” Hello? Imagine that, writing about a woman’s emotional fulfillment from a woman’s point of view. Gads.
Do you think that all the crossover going on between the different genres — science fiction mysteries, science fiction romances, and so on — mitigates the shrinking market a little because you’re going into a new area?
The overall effect is probably positive. A book will sell as a crossover if readers like it regardless of genre. The covers can help. Julie Bell is great and has done a number of covers for my books. Ascendant Sun is provocative — it’s a sexy cover, a role reversal of the old babe-in-a bronze-bra cover. In this case, it is the golden fellow in bronze, uh … well, armbands. (smiles). I like the way it plays with conventions and expectations.
Heck, I liked some of those old babe-in-bronze covers too. It’s part of science fiction identity and history. I think it’s a hoot that reversing the roles on those old covers gives a romance look to the picture. It tells you something about the old science fiction!
SF has always had a strong tradition of romance. But in the past, it was more, “Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy has wild adventures out in space, saves universe, and gets back girl.” I write “Girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl has wild adventures out in space, saves universe, and gets back boy.” (grins)
It is always a balance what the publishers do with covers. The key is to find a way to capitalize on the crossover appeal without alienating your core market.
In your book, The Veiled Web, you show the inside view of a traditional Moroccan Muslim family. I thought it was a very positive portrayal, especially because it’s something you don’t see very often — when you go to the movies, there are plenty of Middle Eastern and Muslim terrorists — they’re always the bad guys.
I’m glad I’ve already written the book, because I’m not sure I could do it right now, and I would like it to be written.
On one level, it is a thriller about artificial intelligence. But it is also about the intersection of Islam and Christianity. It revolves around an interfaith, intercultural, interracial marriage between a devout Catholic ballet dancer from America and a devout Muslim man from Morocco. The story is about an idealistic dream, one the characters struggle with, that someday people of all religions, cultures, races, and backgrounds can come together at a crossroads, a place of peace and light, of acceptance and tolerance.
To write The Veiled Web, I spent two years researching both Islam and Morocco, everything from Islamic economic models to what flowers grow in the Atlas Mountains. I wanted a balance, an understanding of both cultures, why they clash, and how we might bridge the chasms that separate us. It wasn’t easy to write, but I felt pleased with the result.
I’m not sure I could write The Veiled Web now. I’m still too raw inside. Every time I tried to write certain parts of it, I think I would see those two towers falling, or the Pentagon smoking. That idealistic dream of peace seems much farther away. That is why I’m glad the book is already published, because I wouldn’t want to think the violence of a fanatic minority could destroy such a dream. The journey seems longer now, but I still hope that someday we can find a way to that crossroads, or if not us, then our children.
I wanted the central character to be a ballet dancer. The character is fictional, but what she feels about ballet came from my experience as a dancer.
When I started writing the book, I had no idea the male lead would be Muslim. Years ago, I was talking to Mike Resnick online, and I mentioned that I was thinking of writing an Internet thriller. And he said, “Catherine, do it. You’d do a great job.” In that same conversation, he talked about his trips to Morocco; how he liked the country, and how his daughter, Laura, had written a book about it. And I thought, OK, I’ll set my story in Morocco; it sounds like a great locale. I didn’t know at the time that 98 percent of the population of Morocco was Muslim.
As soon as I began my research, I realized the man would be a Muslim. Then came some soul-searching: could I, a feminist, write a book with a Muslim hero? I did a lot of research on Morocco, including the people on the Berber coast, and realized I could do it. I also had had a friend in college from the Middle East, and I remembered the conflicts he faced coming our country. The culture shock. It is a complicated situation for anyone, trying to balance different cultures. It makes for great story tension, especially given that the female character is a dancer.
To write the story, I needed to learn a lot, and also to unlearn preconceptions I had about Islamic culture. Morocco is a beautiful country. It tends to be more progressive toward women than many other Muslim cultures, and has been a leader in promoting education for girls. Writing that book helped me respect the culture … but it also made me glad I was born in this country.
When I started working on it, years ago, I went to some Morocco newsgroups on the Web and asked around for people to check my work. I wanted to get past stereotypes, to get it right. I got a few responses, but it took a while to sell the book, so I sort of forgot about it. Then my agent said, “Oh, I sold that.” A few days later, out of the blue, I received an email from someone who had seen the note I had put up about a year earlier. He knew it had been a long time, but he asked if I was still looking for readers. By that time, I couldn’t get back in touch the other people who’d contacted me. He was the only one, and I much appreciated his offer to help. It turned out that he was the director of the American Language Institute in Morocco, which is located near where the story takes place.
He was the ideal reader … very intelligent, very literate, a writer himself. He was detailed, thorough, and kind in his criticisms, but also thorough. He went through that book page by page. He caught many details I hadn’t known, things like I shouldn’t have had a devout Muslim man in Morocco wearing a silk tie. He told me such a man wouldn’t wear silk, only a woman. I had no idea.
All those little details that make it real.
Well, I tried. Part of the conflict in the book is that the woman is Catholic, the man is Muslim, they’re married, and neither plans to convert to the other religion. So I went to the interfaith center in the city where I live, and they put me in touch with both a Catholic and a Muslim group. One of my readers and his wife invited my husband and me to a Ramadan potluck dinner at the local community center. Part of the book is set during Ramadan, so it was a wonderful opportunity. He told me about the religious aspects, and they let us watch the prayers. It made a big difference to see and understand. They were very kind to us … I could tell sometimes, that I had said or done something at the dinner that wasn’t right — and they were always very kind about it.
First of all, I thought it was really unusual to see a positive portrayal of religion as it exists, as we know it, in science fiction…and second, I thought it was unusual to see a positive portrayal of Islam in particular.
Did you think it was positive? I thought I was being kind of critical.
Well, there’s objective criticism, and then there’s abusive. Nobody’s religion is perfect, and I don’t want to say that I think it is, but religion and science fiction are an uncomfortable pairing for a lot of people, I think, unless they’re Arthur C. Clarke.
It did raise some eyebrows, and it was harder to sell than some of my other books. But it did sell, and sell well.
In working on The Veiled Web, I discovered the works of an Islamic feminist Fatima Mernissi. She’s brilliant. Her work blows me away. It speaks to me as an American feminist.
Mernissi grew up in what’s called a domestic harem in Morocco, although they’re not harems like we think of. It’s the women of an extended family living in seclusion together. She wrote her memoirs in a book called Dreams of Trespass … just the sheer poetry in her writing makes it worth reading her book. She talks about growing up as a child in a domestic harem.
It’s odd, because when I decided to write The Veiled Web, I thought, “I need a book about what it’s like to grow up in one of these secluded families, but where would I find a book like that?” So, I go to the library and I found that book within minutes; I looked up the subject and there it was. Mernissi also wrote other books, like Beyond the Veil, about Islamic feminism, which makes for fascinating commentary.
Then I was thinking about the first scene of the book, which takes place at the White House, at a state dinner, where the two main characters meet. Well, I know zilch about the protocol for a state dinner. I’m thinking, “How am going to write this? It isn’t like I’m going to find a book that tells me step by step what happens when you go to a state dinner.” So, I looked it up at the library, and here is this book called At Ease in the White House, which is what happens when you go to a state dinner at the White House. It was incredible!
So, I’m driving home with all these books, and I’m thinking, “Now I need to talk to a Latina ballet dancer with a big company like American Ballet Theater. Where am I going to find that?” I come around the corner, and who is there, pushing her baby carriage, but a teacher I know, a Latina ballet dancer who used to dance with ABT. I knew her because we had both taught in the area. So I stop, and say, “Hey, Alice, how are you doing?”
That must have been a very good day.
Well, it turns out she lives only a few houses away from me. So we arranged to have lunch. Then I drove on, thinking, “I need one of those National Geographic articles about Morocco … one with good pictures, to help me visualize the scenes.” I went to the mailbox, and it had our National Geographic — with an article about Morocco. Part of it was about Marrakech, which is near where the story takes place. At that point, I thought, “If God exists, He really wants me to write this book!
He probably wanted to read it.
(Smiles) I told John Barnes, another science fiction author, about it online, and he said, “Catherine, the next thing you should have thought was, ‘I need a million-dollar contract for this book.’” (Laughs)
The domestic harems remind me of a custom from medieval Russia, before Peter the Great, called a terem, in which all the women of the aristocratic families lived in seclusion in separate parts of the palaces.
It’s very much like that. Mernissi even says, in Dreams of Trespass, it’s not what Westerners think of when they think of a harem.
What are you reading now?
I’m going through all my Asimov’s and Analog magazines, trying to catch up. Also, I just read a beautifully done fantasy by Carol Berg, Transformations. She’s a new author, and this book is excellent. It’s a character-driven fantasy.
I was on the Nebula novel jury last year; the year before I was on the Philip K. Dick jury and the short fiction jury … and I read hundreds of books. At one point, I thought I was just going to die. (Laughs) That was when I binged on the romance novels.
Dr. Asaro’s novel, The Veiled Web, is highly recommended (4½ bananas).
Websites:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/7439
http://www.space.com/sciencefiction/books/asaro_000204.html
http://www.sff.net/people/asaro
Born: Oakland, CA
Education: Royal Academy of Dance (London); B.S. with Highest Honors, Chemistry, UCLA; M.S. Physics, Harvard; Ph.D., Chemical Physics, Harvard
Family: Married to John Kendall Cannizzo, who is an astrophysicist at NASA. They have one daughter, Cathy.
Day Jobs: CEO & Owner, Molecudyne Research, speaker, and author
Former Day Jobs: Researcher, University of Toronto; Professor of Physics, Kenyon College; Visiting Scientist, Max Planck Institute_ für Astrophysik; ballet teacher Caryl Maxwell School of Classical Ballet; founder, Mainly Jazz Dancers & artistic director of Harvard University Ballet
Professional Organizations: Science Fiction Writers of America
Publisher: Tor Books, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
AWARDS & HONORS:
“A Roll of the Dice”
Analog Magazine’s AnLab Award for Best Novella; Finalist, Hugo Award for Best Novella; Second Place, Sapphire Award for Best Short Fiction; Finalist, Prism Award for Best Short Fiction
The Quantum Rose
Third Place, Sapphire Award for Best Long Fiction; Finalist, Best Futuristic/Fantasy Novel, Wisconsin Romance Writers of America Write Touch Readers’ Award; Finalist, National Readers’ Choice Award for Best Futuristic Fiction; Nominee, Best Paranormal Novel, Reviewers International Organization Dorothy Parker Award of Excellence; Honorable Mention, Paranormal Romance P.E.A.R.L. Award for Best Futuristic Fiction; Honorable Mention, Paranormal Romance P.E.A.R.L. Award for Best Novella; Mysterious Galaxy Bestseller List
The Phoenix Code
Finalist, Best Futuristic/Fantasy Novel, Wisconsin Romance Writers of America Write Touch Readers’ Award; Finalist, Prism Award for Best Futuristic/Fantasy; Nominee, Paranormal Romance P.E.A.R.L. Award for Best Science Fiction; Mysterious Galaxy Bestseller List
Ascendant Sun
Winner, Best Science Fiction Novel, Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award; Finalist, Greater Detroit Romance Writers of America Booksellers’ Best Award for Outstanding Futuristic Novel; Finalist, Paranormal Romance P.E.A.R.L. Award for Best Science Fiction
The Veiled Web
CompuServe Homer Award for Best Novel; National Readers’ Choice Award for Best Futuristic Fiction; Prism Award for Best Futuristic/Fantasy; Second Place, Sapphire Award for Best Long Fiction; Nominee, Paranormal Romance P.E.A.R.L. Award for Best Science Fiction; Nominee, Paranormal Romance P.E.A.R.L. Award for Favorite Overall Paranormal Fiction; Locus Magazine Bestseller List
“Aurora in Four Voices”
Finalist, Nebula Award for Best Novella; Finalist, Hugo Award for Best Novella; Sapphire Award for Best Short Fiction; Analog Magazine Reader’s Award for Best Novella; CompuServe Homer Award for Best Novella; Locus Magazine Recommended Reading List; Tangent Magazine Recommended Reading List
The Radiant Seas
Best Science Fiction Novel, Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award; Finalist, Sapphire Award for Best Long Fiction
The Last Hawk
Finalist, Nebula Award for Best Novel; Locus Magazine Bestseller List; Mysterious Galaxy Bestseller List
Catch the Lightning
Sapphire Award for Best Science Fiction Romance; Best Science Fiction Novel of 1997, Under the Covers Reviews; Preliminary Ballot, Nebula Award; Space-Crime Continuum Science Fiction Bestseller List (#1); Science Fiction Romance Newsletter Bestseller List (#1)
Primary Inversion
Finalist, Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel; Preliminary Ballot, Nebula Award; Finalist, Salt Lake County, UT Readers’ Choice Award; Locus Magazine Recommended Reading List; Locus Magazine Best First Novel List; Printers Inc. Bookstore Bestseller List
Thanks to Jackie Meeks from the Nancy Berland Agency for the lovely press kit, including the list of awards. Thanks to InConJunction for bringing Dr. Asaro to Indianapolis.
