Author Interview: Joseph Vasicek

Hi Friends,

I have another author to introduce to you today. His name is Joseph Vasicek, a young writer minted from BYU. The current book he's promoting is called Genesis Earth.

Ok, some of you may not think BYU is a significant credential. But consider the number of amazingly successful authors, some of them New York Times bestsellers, who either studied or taught at BYU. Here's a few you might know:

Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Stephanie Meyer, David Farland aka Wolverton, and the list goes on. And that's just for genre fiction, too.

Of course, a number of you and I are trying to do get on that list ourselves!

But enough about us and BYU. Let's showcase Joe. He's a very bright, creative, and entrepreneurial fellow. In fact, he's launched heavily into the e-publishing world. In a few weeks we'll have Joe back to talk about those endeavors. But today, I'm hosting Joe as a guest blogger to talk about what's important to him. Take it away, Joe.



Why I Love Science Fiction

When I saw Star Wars: Episode IV for the first time, I promptly fell in love with science fiction. What seven year old boy wouldn't? For hours afterward, I ran around my house and backyard making starfighter sounds and pretending like I was flying an x-wing.

When I read A Wrinkle in Time one year later, however, my infatuation with the genre quickly turned into a lifelong love. It may have been the concept of fifth-dimensional travel, or riding on a centaur to an alien planet, or perhaps the idea of fighting against a hive-mind bent on absorbing and crushing all individuality in the universe, but I either way I knew I'd discovered my passion: science fiction.

At the city library, I read every Star Wars book I could get my hand on. Timothy Zahn, Kevin J. Anderson, Dave Wolverton, Roger Allen McBride--I read them all. When Jurassic Park came out, I read the book six times before I started middle school. I spent a summer obsessed with the Tripod series, and when I discovered Ender's Game, I finished it at a breathless sprint at 3:00 am the morning after checking it out from the library.

It wasn't just science fiction that entranced me. After finishing Jurassic Park for the sixth time, I devoured every Michael Crichton thriller I could get my hands on. The Chronicles of Prydain hold a special place in my heart, as do J.R.R. Tolkien and David Gemmell. To this day, The Neverending Story is my favorite work of fiction, and probably will be to the day I die. I even enjoyed Jayne Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma, though I was much older when I discovered them.

But no matter where I wander, I always come back to science fiction. Why?

Part of it probably has to do with the fantastic, otherworldly nature of the genre. C.J. Cherryh makes me wish I had my own spaceship, while Alastair Reynolds freaks me out with alien ruins and cyborg melding plagues. In that sense, escapism has something to do with it, but not entirely. Fantasy takes us away from reality, whereas science fiction presents us a world of possibilities. I loved Xenocide precisely because the philotic web makes so much sense, I still believe that it could be real.

More than anything, though, I keep coming back to science fiction because of its deep capacity for thoughtfulness. I considered myself a free market capitalist, until Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed nearly convinced me to become an anarchist. A Canticle for Leibowitz gave me a deeper respect for Catholicism and a stronger sense of brotherhood with my fellow Christians than any other book I've read. Ender's Shadow taught me what it means to be a leader, while Robert Charles Wilson's Spin and Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey made me spend hours pondering the fate of the universe.

The most thoughtful science fiction always explores what it means to be human. Consequently, the best works focus on character, perhaps more than in any other genre. When the universe itself is so strange as to be unrecognizable, the only things that can keep a reader grounded are fleshed out, believable characters. Whether it's Jane from Speaker for the Dead, Angelo Osic from On My Way to Paradise, Shevek from The Dispossessed, or Tyler Dupree from Spin, I know I've read a good book when I feel like I've come to know someone deeper than I know my own friends.

I love science fiction, not just as a reader, but also as a writer. When I read A Wrinkle in Time all those years ago, I fell in love with the genre because I knew that that was my destiny. I can't explain how or why, but I just knew it, and I've been writing ever since. And if I can write books that inspire my readers just as the best of these books have inspired me, I'd consider myself a success.

Because the best science fiction doesn't just take us somewhere new and alien--it helps us better understand and love the people in the world around us. And as a writer, that is a worthy goal to shoot for.

Josh: Thanks, Joe! Great post, and great to know you a little better. We look forward to your advice on the e-Publishing world. In case you missed it, Joe's website is One Thousand and One Parsecs, and his e-book, Genesis Earth, is available at Amazon.com. Take a peek and let us know what you think.