KirinyagaAlso by Mike Resnick
The following is an interview of Mike Resnick, author of Kirinyaga, by Dan Foster.
"Kirinyaga" is one of the most honored science fiction books in history. It has won two Hugo Awards, the oldest and most prestigious award in the field, and one Nebula Award, given by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. Author Mike Resnick talks about the unusual origins of Kirinyaga.
"Orson Scott Card called me in 1987 and asked me if I'd like to contribute to a shared world anthology called Eutopia," Resnick said. "The premise was that a number of planetoids had been terraformed and each was being leased to somebody who was trying to create a utopian society. Card had two catch-22s that made it seem very interesting to me. One was that if anybody was unhappy on his utopian planetoid all they had to do was walk to an area called Haven and they would be taken away, which meant that there was never going to be a revolt against a Big Brother gone wrong. If you didn't like it, you could leave. The other was that the story must be told not by an outsider, but by a dedicated insider."
With his love of East Africa, and Kenya in particular, Resnick chose the Kikuyu tribe for his story, which was simply called Kirinyaga. It brought him his first Hugo, and did so well that he wrote another, called "For I Have Touched The Sky." It, too, received critical praise, and won awards both in the U.S. and abroad. He soon realized that he really had a novel here, not just stand alone stories, However, it took him nine years to finish the Kirinyaga cycle.
"I realized what I was writing here were a number of episodes," he said. "They would be done chronologically, and would be released a chapter or two a year. I thought they would be more powerful if I could tell them separately, and it seemed to have worked out that way. Most of my novels I sit down and write them until they're done."
Many of the stories appear as originally published in the various science fiction magazines, like "Asimov's Science Fiction" and "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction."
"There was just some cleaning up of the opening paragraphs a little bit so there wouldn't be the same repetition," Resnick said. "Originally, I introduced each story as if the audience hadn't read any prior one, but in the book I don't have to say in every chapter that Kirinyaga is the mountain that is now known as Mount Kenya. Otherwise, the gist of it remains unchanged."
The stories in "Kirinyaga" were a turning point in Resnick's writing career. In his words, they remade his career.
"Prior to writing ‘Kirinyaga' I wasn't known for short stories, he said. "I had only done a few. I was a novelist, and had written some very popular novels, like ‘Santiago' and ‘Ivory.' It was only after I started writing short fiction, and ‘Kirinyaga' was the first meaningful one I did, that I started getting recognition from those critics who don't deal exclusively in novels. For example, I have been nominated for seventeen Hugo Awards, but none of them are for my novels."
While the Kirinyaga saga is now complete, readers can look forward to more tales from this master storyteller. In fact, 1998 offers two more novels fans can enjoy.
"The other book I wrote this year is called ‘A Hunger In The Soul,'" he said. "It's a science fictionalization, an allegory, of Stanley Livingston, my version. I have a third novel coming out this August or September, the end of a trilogy called ‘The Widowmaker Unleashed.'"
Hollywood has also taken an keen interest in Mike Resnick. He and his wife Carol are scripting "The Widowmaker" for Miramax. Two years ago his novel "Santiago" was also optioned by a Hollywood production company.
"My wife and I have completed the script for ‘Santiago,'" he said. "Theoretically it's being produced by Capella. The writer is the last to know. We hear that a major studio is trying to buy it away from Capella. I don't know if we hope they do or not. We just hope somebody makes it soon because it's a pretty good script."
Resnick describes his experience with Hollywood and writing screenplays as fascinating.
"It's the first new writing discipline I've had to learn in thirty plus years," he said. "I find that very interesting. Also, my wife has been my uncredited collaborator throughout all my fiction career, and because she knows much more about screen writing than I, and she's much more visual than I, and she does much more of the work than I, she's finally been willing to be a credited collaborator on the screenplays, and I'm very proud of her and very happy to do that."
Kirinyaga
Also by Mike Resnick
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Last modified Wednesday, 15-Jun-2005 05:59:38 EDT
A Hunger in the Soul