Starbound Interview with Lucinda Margaret K.

Transcript of an interview with the Gliese colonisation mission primary Pilot/Navigator from the United Nations Space Agency internal information channel Starbound on 1st August 2106.

Interviewer: Lucy, thank you very much for agreeing to join us on Starbound. We're very excited to have you here.

Lucy: Well, thank you very much. It's both an honour and a privilege.

Interviewer: Tell us a little about your background and family. Where were you born and how did you come to be an UNSA officer.

Lucy: I was born in Eurabian state of Northumbria in 2081. My father was a judge and a man of very fixed ideas regarding his childrens' scholastic prowess. All three of my brothers are borderline retarded and were therefore a profound disappointment to him in that regard. They all ended up in the army, obviously, but I went to boarding school were it transpired I had a modest talent for mathematics. Honestly, all three of them really are quite stupid. Can I say hello to them?

Interviewer: Er, that's great... And how did your UNSA career start?

Lucy: When I was 14, so that would have been 2095, my school recommended that I attempt the UNSA selection board. I did the preliminary aptitude and psychometric tests then I travelled to the UNSA Academy in Baikonur for the simulations and socialisation evaluations.

Interviewer: And you were accepted?

Lucy: Not immediately. I was rejected on the basis that I didn't respond in a positive manner to authority and would not take direction or follow process. So I thought that was that. However, a few months later they were having trouble getting candidates who could hack the requirements of the Pilot/Navigator track so they went to the bottom of the rejects pile and there I was.

Interviewer: How long did you spend at Baikonur?

Lucy: About five years, then I moved to flight training at the facility on Deimos. About four years ago I was assigned to the first Gliese flight as Pilot/Navigator.

Interviewer: What will the duties of the Pilot/Navigator be on the flight?

Lucy: I will do the orbital maneuvering of the colonisation ship, the Integral, at departure and arrival. I'll manage the reorientation of the ship from the accelerative to decelerative phases and execute the atmospheric entry and landing of the cargo containers. Finally, I'll fly the landers to the surface.

Interviewer: That all sounds very challenging. You must have moments of doubt and fear?

Lucy: No, I don't. This is a dangerous business and if I ever entertained doubts or fears I would have been killed ten times over by now.

Interviewer: Thank you very much, Lucy, for a fascinating discussion.

Lucy: Thank you.

Interviewer: Make sure you join us next time for an interview with Doctor Rafferty, the Integral's Flight Surgeon.

Lucy: You don't want to do that. She swears like a fucking docker.

On Submission

The manuscript of Without a City Wall has been polished until it glistens like the hoard of Croesus and the proposal has been honed to a vorpal edge. So, this is it, we push it out into the cruel but hopefully not indifferent world to find its fortune with ten different publishers.

Now we wait. And wait. And wait. You get the idea.

The Timeline

The total period of time spanned by the collective narrative arcs of Without a City Wall and Redeeming Blood span 280 years from 2087 to 2367. To add to the complication events are presented in a non linear form with multiple over-lapping story lines and instances of space flight and suspended animation. In short, the sequence and date of events in Redeeming Blood was getting more than slightly confused.

To bring calm to this raging storm I created The Timeline.

This document is about two meters long and details the exact date of every chapter and significant occurrence in both books.  Completing Redeeming Blood without it would be impossible.

Redeeming Blood

I have had some correspondence about the Without a City Wall sequel. Specifically, I've had enquiries about what characters are coming back and when it will be finished.

The book is called Redeeming Blood and the first draft will be going to proof-reading  and to my normal test pilots in January 2016.

Here's what I am prepared to reveal in a completely spoiler-free zone:

• It's another dual narrative novel like WaCW and is about the same length.
• There is no departure in style. Like WaCW, RB is dark, complex and funny.
• The Orthus story arc takes place just after the events at the end of WaCW.
• The other story arc is situated in Africa, the Middle East and on Mars.
• Two of your favourite characters are coming back.
• Two of your other favourites aren't.
• The protagonist is a middle aged alcoholic from Newcastle.
• We see a lot more of Manhattan and the rest of the planet of Orthus.
• In the same way that WaCW is a book about women, RB is a book about men.

On Being Edited

For years, five at least, I wandered alone through my book, Without a City Wall. There was just me and the characters developing our own comfortable little co-dependency. During this period of solitude, which was 95 years fewer than the period prescribed by Gabriel Garcia Márquez, I managed to convince myself that the book was good.

When I finished the book I began to show it to other people and was gratified to discover that, on the whole, they agreed with me; the book was good. All was well in the unpublished author's reality distortion field.

Then the book was edited by somebody who knew what they were doing.

If pressed to describe my emotional reaction to reading the marked up manuscript I would say this:

Imagine being slapped across the face by somebody you respect approximately 150 times.

Now, here I have to offer some context. The person who edited my book quite obviously knows their shit and presented their comments in a professional and logical manner. Additionally,  all of their ideas and remarks were relevant and of worth. The only possible reasons not to recognise and act upon them would be some misplaced sense of artistic pretension or laziness.

That just made it worse.

The insights they provided were so transparently valuable that I cursed myself for not seeing what they saw. Once I recovered from my initial feelings I quickly realised that I had to channel that energy. I have been blessed, in the strictly secular humanist sense of the word, to have the chance to make Without a City Wall a far stronger and more compelling book as a result of the editing process.

So, profound thanks to AR. Those slaps across the face will not be in vain.