Who’s your Buddy? S.M. Stirling picks…Hild!

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S.M. Stirling was born in France in 1953, to Canadian parents — although his mother was born in England and grew up in Peru. After that he lived in Europe, Canada, Africa, and the US and visited several other continents. He graduated from law school in Canada but had his dorsal fin surgically removed, and published his first novel (Snowbrother) in 1984, going full-time as a writer in 1988, the year of his marriage to Janet Moore of Milford, Massachusetts, who he met, wooed and proposed to at successive World Fantasy Conventions.

In 1995 he suddenly realized that he could live anywhere and they decamped from Toronto, that large, cold, gray city on Lake Ontario, and moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. He became an American citizen in 2004. His latest books are The Change: Tales of Downfall and Rebirth (June, 2015) and The Desert and the Blade (Sept. 2015); next is PRINCE JOHN (Sept. 2016), all from Roc/Penguin.

(I wrote about  The Desert and the Blade a couple days ago, if you’re curious.

I asked him: Within the realm of literary SF, who is the character you would most like to meet?

 Let’s see… Sophie from A Daughter of No Nation… no, just kidding, though that’s one who’s actually in the line; I don’t see why she’d want to hang out with me, though.  That does raise a point; virtually by definition, a character like that is going to be interesting.  I notice that writers are most interesting to other writers — it’s a bit like being a cop, that way — and to people who are deeply concerned with writing.
So, assuming that we’re not going to be creepy-stalkerish towards the character, who?  It’s a toughie.  A lot of the others are the sort of person who, like a tiger, are best admired from a distance.  Can you see actually having a beer with Conan?  One of Lovecraft’s, assuming they wouldn’t mistake me for an eldritch horror? Right now, my choices would probably be between Hild, from Nicola Griffith’s book of the same name (one of the most fascinating character studies I’ve read) and Maia from Jo Walton’s The Just City and its sequel, a Victorian bluestocking recruited by Greek Gods to help form the just city from Plato’s REPUBLIC.  That was one of the best examples of culture-clash I’ve seen in fiction.
If the two of you had a day together, what would you do with it? Money and logistics are no object. If you want to fly fighter jets, no problem.
A stroll through some places; Paris, I think, and maybe London (emphasis on libraries and galleries and museums), while talking, dinner and a lot of talking, and coffee or other potable of choice, and a lot more talking.  What can I say, words are my thing!  Both those characters are intellectuals, too, so they’d probably like to discuss history. 

Would the two of you bring along any of your fictional creations, if you could?

Any of my fictional creations?  Hmmm.  Maybe Juniper Mackenzie from Dies the Fire; I think she’d get along with both of them.  And Father Ignatius from the same series.  The rest are possibly too much of the headbanger type.

If, afterward, you brought the gang home with you, how do you think that would that go? Would they mesh well with your social circle? Lay waste to your family and neighborhood? Is this one of those friendships that must, by its nature, be compartmentalized?

Well, I don’t think Hild would fit in longterm; it’s too alien, and too much time would have to be spent learning the basics.  I think Maia would find the 21st century congenial; she had severe problems with her Victorian home milieu.  On the other hand, she had more commitments in Walton’s universe.


More on S.M. Stirling: His hobbies mostly involve reading — history, anthropology, archaeology, and travel, besides fiction — but he also cooks and bakes for fun and food. For twenty years he also pursued the martial arts, until hyperextension injuries convinced him he was in danger of becoming the most deadly cripple in human history. Currently he lives with Janet and the compulsory authorial cats.

More on Buddy Buddy: This is the inaugural post in this interview series, which simply invites authors to imagine befriending some of their favorite characters from a lifetime of reading. S.M. Stirling graciously agreed to be the guinea pig for me; I hope you’ve enjoyed imagining him, Maia and Hild parked in front of the Mona Lisa, talking up the Crusades.

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About Alyx Dellamonica

After twenty-two years in Vancouver, B.C., I've recently moved to Toronto Ontario, where I make my living writing science fiction and fantasy; I also review books and teach writing online at UCLA. I'm a legally married lesbian, a coffee snob, and I wake up at an appallingly early hour.

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