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In light of today’s
headlines about global warming, environmental consciousness,
and “going green,” Bruce Golden’s newest science fiction
novel, Evergreen, couldn’t be more relevant. Fresh from the
rousing success of his sci-fi novel, Better Than Chocolate,
he’s done it again. Evergreen is a vivid, action-packed,
entertaining experience based on mankind encroaching on an
alien environment.
After deciding at age 18
that he wanted to be a writer, Golden has been writing all
of his adult life, working in magazines, radio, and
television. His real love has always been speculative
fiction. When asked who, or what, influenced his choice to
specialize in that particular genre, he responds that first
and foremost, he has always loved reading science fiction.
“It’s always seemed like a good way to look at the foibles
and follies of humankind. You can examine humans through the
eyes of an alien or an android, or you can create an
entirely new society of civilization, a different future,
and see how humans react within it.”
Golden learned to love
science fiction and fantasy as a teenager, reading any book
he could get his hands on by Robert Heinlein or Robert
Howard. He was also strongly influenced as a youngster by
Edgar Allan Poe, Rod Serling, and Mark Twain. When asked to
classify his style of science fiction, Golden explains he
tends to write what is known as “sociological sci-fi,” which
places more emphasis on characters and the societies in
which they live than on the scientific details concentrated
on in “hard sci-fi.”
However, he still has to
do quite a bit of scientific research. For his new book,
Evergreen, he spent hours in the library and online,
studying the timber industry, the history of Lake Tahoe, and
the culture of the Washoe, a Native American tribe in the
region. He also ran parts of the book by experts ranging
from physicists and biologists to archaeologists and
geologists.
Evergreen is replete
with human drama and conflict: obsession, guilt, revenge,
redemption, and decisions of life and death. An expedition,
formed by a heretic priest has boarded a ship to the distant
planet Evergreen. That priest is convinced an ancient
artifact discovered on the planet can prove his theory about
the existence of an extraterrestrial City of God. The
expedition includes a renowned archaeology professor, his
wife, and her ex-lover, the professor’s son. Also on the
ship is a young man wracked by the need for vengeance. He
believes that the man responsible for his mother’s death can
be found on Evergreen, which is heavily populated by debtors
and convicts. Already on Evergreen is an exobiologist
studying what may be the first intelligent species
discovered outside of Earth.
The novel’s complexly
drawn characters not only experience conflict with each
other, but with the environment of Evergreen, where a
“vegetal consciousness” rules. This collective
consciousness, alien to man’s way of thinking, is an
intelligence that observes the infestation of humans and
contemplates what to do about the incursion. The expedition
makes a foreshadowing discovery in a primitive cave
painting. Tens of thousands of years old, the painting
inexplicably depicts a battle between an ancient
primate-like species and the forest itself.
I asked Golden where his
inspiration comes from. How does he come up with his ideas,
and how do these ideas progress into a book such as
Evergreen?
“You can get an idea for
a short story and write up a first draft in a day or a
week. But books are an accumulation of ideas gathered over
months or years. Often they’re put together from unrelated
scraps of paper put into my idea files.” He says he likes to
think his books are very detailed, whether he’s having fun
with some underlying satire as in Better Than Chocolate, or
being much more dramatic as in Evergreen.
The idea for Evergreen
first began to germinate when he stayed with some friends
who live in Lake Tahoe. They told him about some of the
area’s history, and that inspired him to do more research.
“That led to reading theoretical papers on the possibility
of intelligent plant life and the physics of creating my own
planet, which I’d never done before.” He even incorporated
bits related to a group he was part of in the Army. He said
that writing a book is the art of putting together a lot of
different pieces. For him, the hard part is organizing all
those pieces and knowing where he’s going with them.
Golden has a talent for
writing extremely realistic and natural-sounding dialogue. I
asked him where he learned to write dialogue and how he
perfected his skills.
“Though it may be heresy
to say so, I think my skill for dialogue comes from being a
film fan and growing up with television. Of course, all the
books I’ve read play into it too, but movies and TV are
dialogue-based, and I tend to think in terms of cinematic
scenes when I write. When I create a character, I just seem
to have an ear for how he or she should speak. To me,
dialogue is all about ebb and flow. Like music, there’s a
rhythm to it. The trick is to impart the information readers
need to further plot and characterization, while making it
all sound like natural conversation.”
What is his advice for
aspiring writers?
“Don’t do it. It’ll
break your heart and your bank account. Stay away. Be a
doctor or lawyer or plumber. No, seriously, you have to love
to write—you have to be somewhat of a natural storyteller.
Then you have to write, write, and write some more. I’ve
been working at being a writer for almost 40 years and I’m
still learning.”
Golden has had great
success with his novels Mortals All and Better Than
Chocolate, so I asked what kinds of reactions he’s received
from readers. Golden says 99 percent of the feedback he’s
gotten on his books has been positive. He’s received several
requests from readers to write a sequel to Better Than
Chocolate using his character Noah Dane, but he doesn’t have
any immediate plans for that. When asked how Evergreen
compares to his previous novels, Golden says, “Well, there
are no andrones or celebudroids, and there’s very little
sex. I would describe Evergreen as a character-based sci-fi
adventure. The only negative feedback I got on my first
book, Mortals All, was that I used some very familiar sci-fi
themes—that I didn’t break any new ground. With Evergreen, I
believe I’ve done a few things rarely, if ever, touched on
in the genre. I’m hoping readers will find it as unique as
it is entertaining.”
I couldn’t resist asking
him what’s on the agenda for any novels he has in the works.
“I have two books
in-progress. In one, an advanced alien intelligence culls
two different societies from Earth and transplants them on
another world. A thousand years-plus later, we find out how
the Viking and Native American cultures have progressed. The
other book is an apocalyptic tale I’ve been wanting to write
for more than 30 years.” |
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