Servants such as Lara would have to not only serve the basic functions, but also serve as the gatekeeper to their master or mistress, dealing with the low-level intrigues to allow the great game to continue flawlessly. Wodehouse’s stories, of course, and I was in part trying to capture some of that sense through Lara.īut in addition to that, I also wanted to explore what roles servants would fulfill in a society where the ruling classes are occupied with the process of ruling and the intrigues that define their power plays. The penultimate example of this is Jeeves in P.G. One of the things that struck me about this character as I was thinking about her and writing the story was the way in which servants are equally vital and vulnerable in societies that use them. What role does this exchange of power play in the story? There is so much hidden power in your narrator, and yet she’s in many ways at the mercy of her mistress. I also feel that, in the culture that is depicted here, the use of objects would also be a deliberate function in a society that doesn’t necessarily need them. They serve, to some degree, as shorthand for the way the characters live and the way they move through their environment. Objects in any sort define material culture and can tell the reader a lot of things about the plot and characters. Can you talk a little about how you use objects in your fiction to tell the story you want to tell?
In “A Probationary Period,” objects have such importance - jewelry and luggage and weapons. Pushing those boundaries has helped me not only improve my writing, but also become a better reader, returning me to those days in my youth when I’d read anything as long as it was good. But only in the past year or so have I tried writing in other genres or styles other than traditional science fiction or fantasy. I remember reading my way through the entire speculative fiction section of the library, then heading out to the other sections, looking for more. I have always enjoyed reading stories of all sorts, ever since I was a kid. What drew you to writing stories that were moving across genres? Is this a new direction for your writing?
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