Apparently WISB was two years old last month on the 3rd. Yeah. I’ve been around for 2 years on this blog. That’s incredibly, if you ask me. I’ve stuck with this for 2 years and I’m still going strong. Okay, pointless post, I know, but I just thought you all should know. Anywho!
Israel Del Rio is the author of Honeycomb, a book I reviewed here some time ago. And now I have an interview with him. You can find more information about Israel at his website. Thanks again to Israel for his time and I hope you all enjoy it! Here goes: First, tell us a little about yourself: who you are, etc.I was born in Mexico City and have lived in the US working as a computer engineer and executive since 1983. Essentially empty nesters, my wife, Rita, and I reside in Atlanta. Our daughter, Tania lives in California with her husband, where they both work as graphic designers and comic book artists, our son Derek works as a software programmer, and our youngest son, Alex, has just started college. What got you interested in writing fiction in the first place? Who are some of your influences? Also, who are some of your favorite writers, past and present? Also, what are some of your favorite novels of all time? During my youth I went through a period of reading fiction, but I then took a hiatus when I began college and had to maintain a part time job as well as attend to other hobbies such as girls and playing gigs in a band. Once I allegedly matured, I resumed reading, but my focus then was mostly around physics and history. My interest in fiction was rekindled after I got married and was done with the honeymoon. I have always enjoyed the magical realism found in books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and I also like reading David Lodge, and more recently Jose Saramago. Among my favorite novels are “A Hundred Years of Solitude”; and Dostoyesky’s “Brothers Karamasov,” and “Crime & Punishment.” What are you currently reading, what have you just finished, and what do you plan to read next? I’ve just finished reading Supreme Courtship by Christopher Buckley. Actually this is the first novel written by this author that I have managed to finish. I didn’t particularly care for two of his previous novels, Boomsday and Florence of Arabia (although I did enjoy the movie based on his novel “Thank you for Smoking”). I am also attracted to the field of Artificial Intelligence, and so I do like to read books on linguistics. In this genre, I am particularly appreciative of the books by Steve Pinker. For my next book, I’m reading The Nine, and Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks. Do you plot first, then write, or write and come up with the plot as you go? What are some of your writing habits/rituals? First I outline the general idea in my mind, and then I fill in the plot details and twists as I go along with the writing. I tend to be more of a binge writer, writing in frantic bursts and then taking it easy for a day or two until I feel the impulse to once again reach for my keyboard. This style fits my temperament mainly because writing is not my primary occupation (although, I wish it were!). I have also learned that the first draft of a novel usually represents only about 5% of the total effort. I now subscribe to the dictum that “writing is re-writing.” Honeycomb is a novel revolving around a very interesting form of reincarnation. Can you talk a little about this and where you came up with the honeycomb? Actually, the idea emerged as a result of two memories of mine. In one, I recalled being given the choice to select my next life, and in the other memory I was told some details from my previous life. I felt these memories could be presented in book form and used as the anchor for the telling of an interesting story. Since the honeycomb deals with a religious idea–or at least one that is represented heavily in religion. How much did current and past religions–stories and all–influence your presentation of the honeycomb? I realize that the concept of reincarnation is one held by many eastern religions; however my idea was to approach the possibility of life after death, reincarnation, and our global connectedness more from a scientific perspective. Rather than following religious traditional view that God created the Universe, I think recent discoveries in physics and cosmology leave room for the opposite possibility, that it is God who is being created by the evolution of the Universe; and not the other way around. Continuing with religion, I think the one thing you’ve managed to do rather well with honeycomb is bring a little understanding of religion as a whole. It seems like you aren’t trying to paint a picture of any particular religion. True, there are elements that might be seen as part of religions that exist today, but you ground your “world” in the reality of inter-connectivity. Can you talk a little more about religion, not in how it influences your work, but in how it is woven into Honeycomb and perhaps the world around us, and how you are presenting it to the reader? Even though I was born into a Catholic family, I’ve never really subscribed to any particular religion. Respectfully to those who believe otherwise, I am not a big fan of religion and in particular I am especially turned off by those who use religion to espouse extremist worldviews. There seems to be this belief that God has to be connected to some form of religion. I don’t see the two as intertwined. If one defines religion as the observance of certain rituals and the belief in certain religious canons; whether codified in the form of books or chants or other traditional means, then I believe it is possible to believe in the possibility of God without the necessity of following any particular religion. One of the things I found really interesting about Honeycomb is how the narrative moves in a circle. Your main character–who remains a nameless spirit of sorts–begins where he ends up. How
Finding an article about something you’re interested in: Worth $5 Finding a funny video that brings you back to your youth: Worth $50 Finding a Craigslist ad in Los Angeles that’s looking for a Sarah Palin look-a-like for an adult film, which specifically says “No anal required”: Priceless. There’s some things that fictional money and time can buy, for everything else, just go to Craigslist. If you don’t find that funny, then clearly we’re on two different wavelengths. Thanks to Zombified at YWO for pointing it out. This is definitely a welcome moment of hilarity. (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
Well, yet another blogger question thing has graced the interwebs, and it can be found here. This time we were asked about our ideal reading environment. Looking back I don’t think I have an ideal reading environment. Lovely. What about you? Do you have an ideal reading environment?
This list is going to be based entirely upon my personal tastes. I’m not basing it on the top ten most influential shows or the top ten shows that spawned the most spin-offs. This list is about the shows I like the most and still do to this day. So, if you get mad at me for not including Star Trek or some old show that you think is one of the greatest shows ever, consider this a disclaimer. Here goes (in no particular order except that this is the order they came to me in my head): Battlestar Galactica (the new one)I’ve been playing catchup on this show for a while now. I never watched it when it was on the Sci Fi channel and that’s mostly because I’ve been disappointed in the direction of that station and have found many of their shows to be of poor quality both in visuals and writing. BSG is one of the big exceptions and it’s probably a good thing that it’s on Sci Fi instead of Fox, because it wouldn’t have survived past its first season with anyone else (especially not Fox, who would have shoved it in the “sci fi death slot” all so they can tell us that sci fi doesn’t sell…). This isn’t to say that BSG isn’t a good show, it’s simply a reflection on how the major networks treat science fiction. It’s entirely possible that if BSG had been on NBC or ABC, or even Fox, and was given an excellent time slot with adequate advertising and support, this show would have become the best science fiction show on a network in a long time. Moving on…What makes BSG a great show isn’t that it’s packed full of action or that it’s bringing back all the original BSG geeks who have clung to their old time love like a bacterial infection clings to a dirty child. No. What makes BSG a great show is that it’s not afraid to tackle all the issues of humanity. It is the sci fi equivalent of today, only with spaceships and evil robots. This show has touched on abortion, discrimination, humanity, deviant sexual perverts, and much more. And it never ceases to amaze. I’ve been watching the show from start to finish the last few weeks (minus a few episodes I had seen some months back) and, like Firefly, I am hooked. It’s gripping in every way and throughout the first three-and-a-half seasons, including the miniseries that preceded them, there has rarely been a dull moment. It is, in my opinion, one of the greatest sci fi shows to ever grace the small screen. Disagree if you want, but you’re wrong and should probably have your right to vote taken away from you. BSG is everything a sci fi epic should be and more. SlidersCampy? Sure. Completely ridiculous at times? Absolutely. Totally awesome? Yes, well, mostly. Sliders was an awesome network show that had a good thing going for it before the Sci Fi channel killed it. But, for Sliders purists, we can at least ignore the non-network seasons (4 and 5 I believe) and take the first three for what they were. What I particularly like about Sliders is that it gave us a great view into all those “what if” scenarios crazy people have been coming up with and writing about in sci fi books for so long (and no doubt what equally crazy historical people such as Nostradamus came up with too). You know, truly cool alternate history stuff. And not just alternate history in the sense of, say, Hitler winning the war or the Soviets beating us in the Cold War, but dinosaurs as extinct species, but still very much alive, or humanity put on the brink of destruction in a universe where rogue pulsars are within striking distance of the Earth. And we all remember that episode where some mean country released a virus that nearly sterilized males all across the globe and Quinn and his male pals turn out to be the next best thing to Elvis, right? There’s a gold mine here and it’s too bad the show was killed with crappy writing and the loss of much of the original cast. It was bad enough when the Professor died, but as soon as you got rid of Quinn and his lady friend, it was over. You can’t do the damned show without them (and don’t get me started about the relatively unresolved love fest between them…we all wanted to have Quinn/Wade babies).And yes, I’m aware that they had Quinn get put into someone else’s body or some crap, but were any of us even slightly fooled by that bit of nonsense? It was just a nice way of dropping Jerry O’Connell from the show so he could finally do real shows, since his one good show got murdered by a station that claimed to know sci fi. Thankfully, it wasn’t nearly as bad as what Fox has done to the world of sci fi. Earth 2This is one of those shows that makes me wonder what the hell they were thinking when they cancelled it. Not only is it visually stunning, but it’s got decent writing and music. None of that crappy electronic nonsense that was so annoyingly prevalent within television for so long. Real instruments were put in this show.And then add to the fact that frakking Tim Curry is in this and you should be wondering what the hell is wrong with people too. Earth 2 was truly an amazing piece of work. It had its flaws, sure–such as the annoying repetitive cry of “TRUE!” whenever that annoying, selfish girl went off on her own–but it never had a chance to soar. The show was killed without resolution after the first season, which is unfortunate. Most of us realize that any good show usually takes more than a season to really bloom. Even BSG had a lot of growing
For those of you who totally geek-out to the awesomeness of A-ha like I do, Matt Staggs has brought to my attention the following video: Enjoy! (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
