Interview with Sarah Zettel

Ever an author to defy conventions, Zettel until recently eschewed writing serial novels and has danced back and forth between science fiction and fantasy. "I like to think of myself as a throwback to the good old days," she said, "The days when authors jumped from fantasy to science fiction and back again and no one noticed. A lot of the greats of the Golden Age wrote both. I like to think I'm following their example."

Her first five novels were solid science fiction. She then published a fantasy/folklore novel in what became her first series -- Sorcerer's Treason. Zettel said the book was originally intended to be a one-off. Then her agent took the book to England and reported that they loved the book, but that it was only commercially viable if it was the start of a series. "It's amazing what you'll do when you have high, high figures staring you in the face," she laughs.

So Sorcerer's Treason became the first of four Isvalta novels-including two prequels.

Taking A Trip To Camelot

In a novel just released in March 2004, Zettel continues to push at any pigeonhole her readers might be tempted to put her in. Her release of Camelot's Shadow with Luna Books, a Harlequin imprint, is an Arthurian fantasy replete with Celtic high magic and a medieval setting.

Camelot's Shadow tells the tale of Risa, or the Loathly Lady, and her relationship with Sir Gawain, one of the knights of the Round Table. Zettel has combined the stories of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Sir Gawain and the Lovely Lady. Woven throughout their tale are the familiar characters of Merlin, Morgaine, and other characters from Camelot.

Zettel expects that Camelot's Shadow will appeal to Arthur fans-especially the women amongst them as the story is told from the heroine's point of view. She also hopes history buffs will find appeal in the realistic Middle Age setting. Well, as realistic as you can get with Arthur and magic. "It's reasonable realistic," she says, "not very realistic."

Luna is already planning to release Camelot's Honor, the second book in the Camelot series, in early 2005. In it, she pulls heavily from the epics in the Mabinogian. Zettel says she is hoping there will be at least four Camelot books, one for Gawain and each of his brothers: Agravain, Geraint, and Gareth.

A Cornucopia of Folklore

But long before Camelot's Honor hits the shelves, Zettel's third Isavalta book, Firebird's Vengeance, will reach bookstores and conclude the tale of Bridget Lederle begun in The Sorcerer's Treason. The Isavalta series begins with the tale of Lederle, an 18th century female keeper of a lighthouse on Lake Superior.

"I wanted a heroine who could believably manage in a pre-tech society," Zettel said. "When you think about it, it really is tough. Were I suddenly transported to the Middle Ages, I couldn't even light a fire. I could do nothing for myself. But a woman from the late 18th Century would have a much better chance of knowing how to get along. Her life would be much closer to their lives than ours would be."

Zettel said it was a real change to write about a place that she could actually visit. "I'm not going to Venus anytime soon," she said, referring to The Quiet Invasion. She did visit the lighthouses on Lake Superior, a place where she found helpful people and was able to delve further into the Great Lakes history and folklore.

The Great Lakes folklore, Zettel said, does not get used a lot in fantasy fiction. "Like everything else in Americana, the folklore is a real blend."

The Great Lakes folklore was enriched by the divergent peoples who lived there, including the Ojibway ("Not all Native Americans lived in harmony with nature. Some of them blocked off the rivers and collected tolls from those who wanted to go by," Zettel said.), the French, the Cornishmen, the Russians, and the Finns. All of these people came to work the mines, to lumber, and to fish, Zettel said, "Each brought their own stories. It's this wonderful mélange of stories that cross-pollinated."

So Sorcerer's Treason became the first of four Isvalta novels-including two prequels.

Taking A Trip To Camelot

A Cornucopia of Folklore

The Great Lakes folklore, Zettel said, does not get used a lot in fantasy fiction. "Like everything else in Americana, the folklore is a real blend."

Finnish folklore provided one of the main characters of the Isavalta series-the sorcerer Kalami. One of the Finn's national folkheroes is Kalami of Varpus, a "noita." Noitas are often described as sorcerers, religious magicians, or healers. They were protectors of peasants and defended people from their landlord or Russian enemies. Kalami was a hero from around 1808 when Russia was invading Finland.

Like the blending of folklores in the Great Lakes region, Zettel's Isavalta series blends folklore from Russia, India, and China. She said she was captivated by the non-Western mythologies. "I have always had a thing about the Baba Yaga," she said, "Getting a chance to play with that was worlds of fun. I also love playing with Indian and Chinese mythology. I took a page from our own history and created these three large empires and stacked them on top of each other."

The Foundation of Science

Before her recent plunge into fantasy, Zettel made her name by publishing several science fiction novels, usually classified as hard, feminist science fiction. "I used to wonder how that happened," she said, "I used to say 'I love science fiction, but I hate science. I know nothing about science.' Then, the truth came to me. What I actually hate is physics, which bores me to tears. On the other hand, I love biology, sociology, psychology, socio-biology, anthropology, archeology and planetology, and will cheerfully delve into any and all of them for hours, if not days, at a time. And, as I've found, I will equally cheerfully write about them." Her novels range from Reclamation, a story about the fragmentation of a species and an exploration into who is human, to Kingdom of Cages, a novel exploring the "what ifs" associated with colonizing other planets and whether we have a biological link to Earth. Likewise, novels such as Playing God contributed to Zettel's reputation as a feminist author.

Playing God was written after Zettel had read a number of stories where alien races had only one sentient gender-and it was always male. Zettel said that that didn't make any sense to her biologically. Why, she asked, would the thing that carried the species be brainless? So she began exploring how it would work if there were only one sentient gender. She happened to think of salmon.

"What happens to salmon after they get upstream? They mate like crazy for two weeks and then they die. So what if you had a robust life and at the end of it you morphed from female to male and that last two weeks was adolescence and Alzheimer's all at the same time?"

Thus was created the Dedelphi, inhabitants of a warlike matriarchal planet. Their hostilities were also an answer to the old stereotypes that matriarchies would be peaceful and happy. "That is as dehumanizing of women as any of the other stereotypes," Zettel says.

Her other science fiction novels include Fool's War and The Quiet Invasion.

A Writer's Life

If you ask Zettel which book is her favorite, she will tell you it's always the next one. "It's the one that is the beautiful, fresh, brilliant idea," she says, "Not the one that is having the terrible twos at me. It's not the one being quarrelsome, troublesome, and refusing to do what it's told. That would be the one I'm working on now."

Likewise, there are always things in her published novels that she would like to go back and rewrite. Often the book goes to the publisher because "there is a time when the project has gone radioactive. I have been with it for so long and I just can't stand it anymore."

Despite her qualms, she has no plans to go back and either rewrite any of her previous novels or write sequels to the earlier science fiction novels. "I distrust the 20-year sequel," she says. "They are seldom very good. Besides, I have changed since I wrote those books, and my point of view has changed. I would rather write something fresh than revisit where I used to be."

One of the changes in Zettel's life since her early novels is that she has married and had a child. "Yes, I do write differently since I had a baby. Possibly it's sleep deprivation," she chuckles. "Motherhood affects you. It can't not. If it doesn't affect you, you're probably not a very effective mother."

Zettel thinks having a two-year-old son gives her writing more emotion and intensity. She also says there are some things it is not so easy to write about. She says her imagination quickly transitions from what she is doing to her characters to what could happen to her kid. And, she adds, "I know for a fact the books are shorter because I have less time."

Having less time hasn't stopped her productive schedule of novels. She's working on the fourth Isavalta books as well as continuing to produce the Camelot novels. She also has ideas for some young adult novels that she would like to try.

No matter what genre she writes in, count on Zettel continuing to tell an entertaining story.

--B. Redman