Reflection's Edge

Interview: Michael A. Burstein

by Sharon Dodge

Michael A. Burstein is a science fiction writer with over thirty stories in print. His first published story, TeleAbsence, which appeared in the July 1995 issue of Analog, was nominated for the Hugo Award and was chosen by the readers of Analog as the best short story published by the magazine in 1995. Two years later, he won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the 1997 World Science Fiction Convention, LoneStarCon2. He has also received Hugo nominations for Broken Symmetry, Cosmic Corkscrew, Kaddish for the Last Survivor, Spaceships, and Paying It Forward; a Nebula and Sturgeon nomination for his novella Reality Check; and a Nebula nomination for Kaddish for the Last Survivor. From 1998 to 2000, he served as Secretary of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. In addition, he holds physics degrees from Harvard and Boston University. His website can be found at www.mabfan.com.

Reflection's Edge: Unlike many authors, your struggle to be published seems rather limited, what with your first piece landing in the prestigious magazine Analog. That's quite impressive, even without the subsequent Hugo nomination. How long had you been writing before that first submission to Analog, and what do you think contributed to that rapid success?

Michael A. Burstein: It's interesting to me to hear someone tell me how my career looks from the outside. I assure you that a lot of work went into it before my first story ever appeared in print!

To begin with, the answer to how long I was writing depends on how you mean the question. As a child, I was always writing something, but to be honest, starting around the age of nine or so my focus was much more on becoming a scientist. When I was twelve years old, I did what a lot of science fiction fans do, which is submit to the science fiction magazines.

Naturally that didn't get anywhere. I remember getting personal rejections notes from George Scithers at Amazing Stories, but then again, he sent everyone personal notes.

And frankly, the stories were bad. They were mostly three or four page short-shorts where I had thought of some clever idea and written it down, without real thought to story mechanics at all. Most of those stories are destroyed now, which is a good thing.

But I was still interested in being a writer. For example, in ninth grade I formed a school club called Bookwriters. Our goal was to work together as a group to write a novel by the end of the school year. We never managed it, but we did learn a bit about writing.

I mostly gave up thoughts of fiction writing when I entered college, although I did submit a crime story to both Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Neither magazine took it. I think I was influenced by my high school friend Charles Ardai, who had started publishing mystery stories in both places while he was in college. But for the most part, I spent my college career intent on becoming a physicist, and figured that writing would fall by the wayside.

Then I hit graduate school, and discovered that the life of a scientist wasn't really for me. I hated problem sets, and soon discovered that I hated research as well. On the other hand, I rediscovered a love of writing. And my desire to write again was sparked by attending my first convention, Arisia '92. I had known very little about conventions and fandom, but I had just met the woman who would eventually become my wife, and she brought me into that wonderful world. As I sat in on panels, where people discussed topics from the science of time travel to preparing yourself for a career in space, I floated around wondering where this had been all my life. And I decided that I wanted to be a part of it as a writer of science fiction.

So for about three years, as I completed my Master's in Physics and entered the workforce, I also studied the craft of fiction. I bought every book on fiction writing that seemed remotely useful; all of them still sit on a bookcase in my office, for quick reference. I wrote story after story after story, and sent them off to all the major markets, earning a whole stack of form rejection letters.

And then finally, success! Or success as only an aspiring writer would think of it. Stanley Schmidt, the editor of Analog, sent me a personal rejection note. I had learned by then that if an editor showed any interest at all in your work, you should send every story you could to that editor. So Analog became my primary market. Stan continued to send me personal rejection notes, until one day he sent a note about my story "TeleAbsence," which seemed to imply that he'd like to see it again if I rewrote it. The note was vague, though; he gave me suggestions to improve the story but didn't specifically say he wanted to see it again. Fortunately, we were both going to be at Lunacon that weekend. I approached him, introduced myself, and asked him about the note. He smiled and confirmed that he wanted to see a rewrite, and told me that he had had a similar experience when submitting to John W. Campbell. Campbell had also been vague in a note that seemed to be requesting a rewrite, and it took Stan a day or two to get up the courage to call him and ask.

My second version of "TeleAbsence" was also weak, but by that point I had been accepted to the 1994 Clarion Workshop. I brought the story with me and got feedback from my teachers and fellow students. Based on that feedback, I rewrote the story again, and it was this third version that appeared in the July 1995 Analog as my first published fiction.

I think what makes my career seem less like a struggle was what happened after my first story appeared. "TeleAbsence" seemed to strike a chord in many fans; it won the AnLab, it was nominated for a Hugo and lost by only ten votes, and in 1997 it won me the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer over four novelists. Since then, I've managed to publish about thirty stories, mostly in Analog, and a lot of people seem to like them, for which I am grateful.

In short, I can think of three things that have contributed to my success: hard work, luck, and an editor who forces me to rewrite stories when they're not up to his standards. I'd say that about half my award nominees are stories which Stanley Schmidt sent back to me, requesting revision.

RE: Your prose is exceptionally journalistic in your earlier works - short, clean, direct, the themes clearly outlined. "Paying It Forward," on the other hand, is comparatively wordy, even mysterious. Was that a conscious choice, limited to the story, or do you find your style changing as you mature as a writer?

MAB: I imagine that all writers hope their writing matures as they grow older and keep at it. My first favorite writer was Isaac Asimov, and I consciously tried to imitate his clear, simplistic writing style. I think I succeeded; I remember one of my Clarion classmates telling me that what he liked about my writing was that he didn't have to "fight" me when reading one of my stories. He knew that I would just present the story as simply as I could.

On the other hand, I also felt self-conscious about my style whenever I read prose that just seemed to dazzle me with its brilliance. I aim for that bar on occasion, but I know that it's not necessarily my natural way of writing. So in general, although I've tried to lace my writing with a more ornate style, I've also tried to play to my strengths and aim for readability. After all, if I don't enjoy reading my own stories, why should I bother writing them?

"Paying It Forward" was one of those rare stories that writers consider a gift. It felt like I was writing "above" my abilities. Here's how it came about.

Charles Sheffield, a delightful and charming writer who always encouraged and helped out younger writers, had just passed away. The unfairness of it all upset me. I went to visit his webpage, and discovered the link that allowed visitors to email him. And it suddenly hit me - what if I emailed Charles, and he actually wrote back? Could that be possible?

And so I wrote a story about an aspiring science fiction writer who discovers one day that his favorite author, Carl Lambclear, has died. He sends an email to Lambclear just for his own closure, and is shocked to receive a reply. Throughout his life, Lambclear mentors him, until finally the day comes for the protégé to pass on as well.

As for the mystery, I wanted to end the story on a vague note, not making it clear exactly who the protagonist was communicating with. Thankfully, my wife, Nomi, who reads everything I write before it ever goes out the door, pointed out that this would be a major cheat. I whined and complained, but I changed the ending to make it more clear that the protégé had reached a Lambclear in an alternate universe. When I told Stanley Schmidt how the story had almost ended originally, he paused and then told me always to listen to Nomi.

The story was dedicated to both Charles Sheffield and Damon Knight, although I also noted in the dedication that it's meant for all the other mentoring writers out there as well. I had already written a tribute to Isaac Asimov, "Cosmic Corkscrew," which commemorated the sixtieth anniversary of his first submission to Astounding. I think at this point I've said all I can say to commemorate those who came before in fiction, but it's an itch that keeps coming back, no matter how often I scratch it.

Readers of mine have pointed out to me a theme prevalent in my work, the question of how the future will remember us, and whether we'll be remembered at all. I suspect I'll be revisiting this theme time and again, whether I intend to or not.

(As an aside, I will note that my father died suddenly when I was only twenty years old, and still in college. I leave it to your readers to consider the effect this may still have on my choice of themes.)

RE: Religion is key to "Kaddish for the Last Survivor," of course, and in some ways also to "Paying It Forward". Ethics in general seem to come into play throughout your works; religion and science are far from incompatible in your stories. Could you tell me some of your thoughts on the subject, and to what lead you to write on it?

MAB: There's a line I love in the Babylon 5 episode "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars," where one monk tells another that Faith and Reason are like the shoes on your feet. You get farther with both than with just one.

In some ways, I exemplify that remark. My background is in Physics, and I consider myself a strict rationalist when it comes to understanding the universe around me. But I also have a deep spiritual side as well, which yearns to understand that which cannot be grasped simply through our senses.

What led me to write about religion is that I'm religious. There are many Jewish writers in science fiction, but at the moment, I think I'm one of the only Orthodox Jewish writers. There's not a lot of science fiction out there that can also be called Jewish science fiction, and since it's one of my interests, I try to explore the theme whenever it's appropriate.

In particular, there's a game that I and other Jewish science fiction fans like to play. My wife was just on a panel at Noreascon 4 called "Jewish Time Based Mitzvot on a Lunar Colony," and the point of the panel was to explore how Jewish law might cope with new technologies. For example, how does one decide when the sabbath begins if you're living on a space station? We actually already have a ruling on this issue for Jews on the space shuttle, thanks to Israeli Colonel Ilan Ramon, who perished on Columbia's last flight. In fact, it turns out that a lot of issues have already been dealt with as hypotheticals, or can be figured out based on previous rulings. Perhaps we don't have time travel, but we do have rulings on how to deal with the international date line.

One of the main points about science fiction is speculating on how a certain technological advance might affect society. I'm just doing what all science fiction writers do, but the society that I'm very interested in exploring is a Jewish one.

RE: Here at RE, understanding the process of writing could be said to be our highest goal. For you, what is the most important aspect of writing, and where (in what work[s]) and how do you feel you've best accomplished that?

MAB: The most important thing a fiction writer can do is affect his reader on an emotional level.

In Dwight Swain's excellent book Techniques of the Selling Writer, he has a section on how to cut from a story when an editor asks you to trim it. The secret is to cut out facts, but leave in as much emotion as possible. When I discovered that, it was a revelation. (Then again, everything I discovered when I was first learning how to write was a revelation.) As much as you need to describe a scene for a reader, he's not going to care about your protagonist's clothing or choice of dinner unless it's relevant to his relationship with his dying mother. Emotional response is key.

I've had a lot of people tell me how much they liked what I wrote, but the biggest compliment I've received is when a reader has told me that the story I've written has made him or her cry. I've heard that now about "TeleAbsence," "Kaddish for the Last Survivor," and "Paying It Forward." To know that I managed to breathe so much life into a character - using nothing more than words - that a reader is moved to tears...that's an achievement.

RE: What do you feel every good story must accomplish?

MAB: Entertain the reader. If you can't accomplish that, then you won't have any readers. Never be boring!

RE: Many cyberpunk writers seem to be pulling away from the idea of virtual reality - a concept which just never seems to have caught on in real life as it did in fiction. You played on this in your first piece, TeleAbsence (1995). Do you think cyberpunk is doomed to become a defunct genre? Where do you see its descendents going?

MAB: Cyberpunk is generally considered to be a movement of the 1980s, and I don't seem to have yet been identified with any particular movement, unless one wants to consider my work "hard science fiction" because it appears mostly in Analog.

As for the promise of virtual reality, well, if we can ever get it to work in the real world as well as it does in fiction, I think it'll take off. The idea of VR has existed very far back in our field; there's a Ray Bradbury story called "The Veldt" from the 1950s that uses VR, although it doesn't call it that.

The earliest cyberpunk story I can think of is Vernor Vinge's "True Names," and at the time he wrote it, very few people understood what he was getting at. He was ahead of the curve. William Gibson was fortunate to publish Neuromancer just when these concepts started hitting people's consciousness. Suddenly it looked as if everyone wanted to write cyberpunk, and even more significantly, Hollywood seemed to love the subgenre, leading to its pervasiveness in our culture. Remember when the word "cyberpunk" made it onto the cover of Time magazine? I bet Bruce Bethke was pleased; he invented the word, after all.

But just because cyberpunk appears to have faded away somewhat, it doesn't mean that it actually has. When a concept is new, it appears to be everywhere, and everyone wants to use it; eventually, though, it becomes part of the background from which we create our worlds. All the different subgenres of science fiction and fantasy feed back into the whole, creating a richer vocabulary for all of us.

In short, cyberpunk, like everything else, is becoming part of the overall language we use in our stories.

RE: What projects are you working on now?

MAB: I have a few stories scheduled for 2005 already: "Seventy-Five Years," which just appeared in the seventy-fifth anniversary issue of Analog; "Pedagogy," which will appear in the Mike Resnick anthology I, Alien; and two more stories for Analog, "Sanctuary" and "TelePresence."

As for what I'm working on now - a novel. I've said that before, and it's been true, but to date, I've never been able to concentrate completely on such a long work. Back in 2001 I finished a novel but it didn't sell. It needed revision, but I never had the time to work on it. I'm the kind of writer who is much more able to focus on shorter works than longer ones, so the rewrite got pushed to the back burner while I wrote other things.

Finally, this past summer, I took the drastic step of quitting my day job so I could concentrate full time on writing. My goal is to use what I've learned about writing over the past few years to write a new novel, and as of now I'm about 50,000 words in. A lot of writers advise people not to quit their day job until they're making enough from their writing, and I must admit that I didn't wait that long. However, what I think they really mean is not to quit your day job without some sort of safety net. My wife is working, so she's providing that safety net, which has given me the freedom to concentrate on the novel, a freedom I never had before. It's a gamble, but one I hope will pay off. And even if it doesn't, I'm still going to accomplish something I never would have had I kept working full time.

Sharon Dodge is RE's Editor-in-Chief .



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