You might wonder why someone who writes about man’s place in nature would publish so many stories set in outer space. My latest published story, “At The Edge of the Crater, “ takes place on the grim but fascinating asteroid 16 Psyche. While I do celebrate nature, I do not idealize it.
A vital step in understanding ourselves is to recognize both our nobility and fragility, and most important, to see our world for what it is, a dazzling and gorgeous home that is both refuge and battlefield. We are, at our core, “bad-weather animals,” in Robert Ardrey’s famous phrase. We are fighters and survivors.
Yet in that fight, we are not alone. We are individuals but we are also social beings, creatures who are “fulfilled only in the natural associations built upon common experience, upon the ties of blood and friendship, common enterprise, resistance to common enemies, and a common faith, ” as Mel Bradford described us. Survival is a struggle, but we don’t have to wage it alone.
Space is the perfect backdrop to focus our attention on human characters caught in that struggle. In “At the Edge of the Crater,” the severe setting magnifies the brave, foolhardy, and tenacious protagonist as he discovers who he is and what he is made of.
Sounds terrific. I’ll have to check out your story.
Thanks! I thoroughly enjoyed researching and writing it. The editor at Tales from the Crossroads was great to work with.
I love your phrase, “Space is the perfect backdrop to focus our attention on human characters caught in that struggle.” I’ve recently started watching Star Trek. I know I am late to the game, but it’s been on lately when I have a few minutes to watch the tele. To your phrase, Star Trek (as an example) shows us humanity in an alien form, taking our perspective away from our own environment.
As Marshall McLuhan was known to ask, “does a fish know he’s wet?” McLuhan’s point was that we don’t recognize our environments and all of the social, cultural, emotional, and intellectual paradigms we are in until we are taken out of that environment. Science fiction has been a wonderful counter-environment, a mirror that we must pay attention to.
And congratulations on the publication, Mike.
Joshua,
Thank you. (Sorry your comment sat in limbo so long. WP put it in spam, which I just noticed.)
And yes, the cultural norms we grew up with do seem invisible, and I agree sci-fi is a great tool for shaking us awake.