An
Interview with Ann Leckie
By
Chris Large (First Appeared in Aurealis #86)
Ann Leckie has worked as a waitress, a
receptionist, a lunch lady and a recording engineer. She also happens to be the
author of a little book called Ancillary Justice, which won not only a Hugo, but a Nebula and an Arthur C. Clarke Award
as well. In 2014, her second book, Ancillary Sword was met with equal praise. Now, with the release of the third
instalment in her Imperial Radch series, Ancillary Mercy, Ann speaks with Chris Large about
perspective, the value of a good cup of tea, and most importantly of all, those
pesky Presger and why we don’t see more of them.
Hello Ann, and welcome
to Aurealis. It’s great to have you here.
Thanks! I'm glad to be here!
As a thought exercise,
the lack of gender cues in your Imperial
Radch series can be a difficult concept to deal with at first. How have you
found reader’s reactions to this device?
I have been really surprised at some reactions, and have
come to see it as a kind of Rorschach test. Some people read it as the Radch
being somehow femininely oriented, some have read it as a book entirely about
women, and some have claimed to know what genders various characters are. I
think my favourite was a reviewer who said that they could tell that all the
romantic/sexual pairings were heterosexual. I still kind of wonder how they
could manage that. But hey, once a book is out there, that interaction between
the book and the reader is its own thing, and not something I need to get in
the middle of, right?
It's been really, really interesting, though, to see the
variety of reactions to the way I handled gender.
I’ll interpret that as
in invitation to share. Reading your first book Ancillary Justice hurt my brain a little in the beginning, as I
found myself unconsciously searching for indicators of gender and for visual
quirks in order to identify various characters. It took me a while to come to
terms with the fact that few would be forthcoming. Once I managed to get over
it, I think the mystery increased my enjoyment of the book. Is this a common
reaction?
I think it is! It's one I've seen a fair amount. And it
makes sense--we're so used to assigning gender to people on the instant, and to
assuming a certain set of characteristics go with a given gender, that we don't
really notice it until it's made
obvious. I've found it really interesting how difficult it is for some readers
to picture characters without knowing their gender--I don’t describe characters
any less than I have in these books than, say, my short fiction, but I never
got that complaint about my short fiction. I find that really interesting.
Definitely something to think about.
In Ancillary Mercy Breq (who was once a segment of an AI) consciously limits her ability to draw upon the vast amounts of information Mercy of Kalr can provide her, but for much of the previous novels she makes full use of her capacity to examine situations from all angles. It must be difficult to catch every facet Breq might be exposed to. How do you address the issue of perspective as an author?
That very issue paralyzed me for a long time. How to convey
that kind of point of view? That would have to be a flood of information, and
how could I possibly write that? Eventually I decided that I didn't actually
have to do that. No fiction really tells you everything--it just tells you what
you need to know to understand the story. So I settled on conveying just what I
needed to for the reader to (I hoped) get the effect I was after. But I did
still have to work very carefully--I wanted it to be consistent, and
believable. I mean, to the extent that a being like Breq is believable to begin
with!
Okay, I’m gonna have to
ask this question. I love your books, but what is it with tea? Is it just the
obvious historical connection with brewed beverage-sipping imperials, or is
there more to it than that? Because if I drank even half the amount of tea Breq
consumed in a day, I’d spend a heck of a lot of time in the bathroom.
What, don't you like tea?
Well, I’m a coffee
drinker myself but I don’t mind the odd cup of camomile at the end of the day.
I'm kidding. Yes, tea does in fact contain compounds that
will make you have to pee, more than if you just drank the same amount of
water. I've heard it said it's the caffeine, but honestly I think the effect is
much stronger with tea than with coffee, and coffee generally has way more
caffeine. I'm pretty sure theobromine is a suspect here too.
But I also suspect there's some acclimation involved – that
is, if you drink a lot of tea and/or coffee every day the effects aren't so noticeable.
Here in the US, some folks drink a pretty spectacular amount of iced tea,
particularly in the summer, and seem to do okay. And to be honest, I drink
about half the amount of tea Breq consumes in a day! And I do not spend all
that much time in the bathroom. Heck, I
might drink more, considering I generally use a mug that holds 18 or 20 fluid
ounces (US), generally fill it with 14-16 ounces at a go, and often have two or
three mugs of tea a day. Partly I drink as much as I do because, yes, I drink
iced tea in the summer (on top of that first couple cups of hot tea in the
morning). But also, I bought a lot of different kinds of tea during the process
of researching for Sword, and if I
only had one cup a day the Sun would die of old age before I cut my inventory
down to manageable levels.
But I don't think Breq is drinking half-litre mugs of tea.
She's drinking bowls of tea--much smaller than my favourite big mug with the
squid on it.
There are also some contexts in which consumption of lots
of caffeine is just part of how you do things. I remember touring an old (WW2)
aircraft carrier and at one point in, I think, Navigation, the tour guide said
something like, "Now behind me is the most important part of all of
this," and it was, of course, the equipment for making coffee.
The tea in the story doesn't come so much from its
connection with Earth Imperialist history as it does from CJ Cherryh's Foreigner books. It began as a
deliberate nod to those books, though of course its taken on a life of its own
in the context of the Radch.
I honestly didn’t think
we’d end up comparing peeing habits in this interview, but I guess since I
asked the question, I should be prepared for the answer! So, keeping on-topic,
have you thought of marketing a Daughter
of Fishes tea brand? It would be fantastic to sip on a hot cup of Fishes while reading the books…
I have thought of it! It would be awesome. But I'm not sure
I'd know where to start. And the currently existing equivalent teas are the
sorts that already have their own names and histories, and my blanking that out
to add my own fictional ones seems weird to me.
There are Ancillary themed teas in existence, though!
Adagio teas (http://www.adagio.com) lets you make custom blends from a pre-set
list of available ingredients, and then lets you share links to your blends so
other people can buy them. There's a long, long list of fan-inspired teas
there! And I made some for Imperial Radch, just because once I knew I could, I
had to. I think shipping outside the US is pretty expensive, though.
I laughed out loud at
Presger Translator Zeiat’s antics in Ancillary
Mercy. Not only was Zeiat hilarious at times, she also brought a separate,
and novel perspective to the book. Can you tell us a little about your approach
to her and to the Presger in general?
Hah, I'm glad you liked Translator Zeiat! I enjoyed writing
Dlique so much, and was so sad when I realized she couldn't be onstage long. I
consoled myself with the future arrival of Zeiat.
The Presger probably wouldn't retain their mystery or
remain convincingly threatening if I brought them onstage, or explained too
much about them. So the Presger Translators are intermediaries that let me show
the reader aliens while still keeping them sort of human-seeming. And I wanted
the Presger Translators to be off-kilter in a way that could be amusing or
threatening, depending. Once I'd decided that, I figured I also wanted to have
as much fun with them as I could.
Ancillary Mercy answers many questions, but leaves some fairly
important issues unresolved. Clearly this is deliberate, but is it deliberate
in the “Oh, well, life goes on and not everything has an end,” sense? Or are
you leaving a few doors open for later exploration?
In terms of intention, it's meant in a "life goes
on" sort of way. It is remarkably convenient, though, no? And this
universe is large enough that there's plenty of room for nearly anything I'd
like to do in the future, while I still take advantage of all the construction
work I've already done.
Now that Ancillary Mercy is out and Breq’s story
has been told, is Ann Leckie taking a well-earned rest? Or do you have another
project that’s been simmering away in the background to be getting on with?
I'm under contract for two more books. They won't be Breq
books--as you've noted, Mercy closes
that story out. But they'll certainly be set somewhere in that same universe.
Like I said, there's lots of room there to play.
I'm in the planning stages of that next book now, and
hopefully I'll start writing it soon. I also hope to be able to do a few short
fiction pieces, just because I haven't in a while and short fiction is a lot of
fun.
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