Interview: Mark Budz
By Tristan Davenport
28 August 2006
Originally from New Jersey, Mark Budz lived in Denver and Oregon before settling in California. He currently lives in Ben Lomond with his wife, author Marina Fitch, where he writes novels and works as a technical writer.
He has sold short stories to Fantasy & Science Fiction and Amazing Stories. He has also published three novels; Clade (2003) was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award. A stand-alone sequel Crache appeared in 2004, and Mark's latest novel, Idolon, was released in July 2006 by Bantam Spectra.
Tristan Davenport: So far you've put out three novels. In Clade and Crache on the one hand, and Idolon on the other, you sketch out two very different, detailed visions of California's future. Tell us something about the worlds you've built.
Mark Budz: In Clade and Crache, I was interested in exploring divisions between people and the ways in which they interact (or don't). There's a perception in the U.S. that we're a classless society. We aren't—it's just that the lines that divide people aren't always obvious. Often they cut along social, economic, and educational lines as well as along racial or cultural lines. It's subtle enough that we can gloss over prejudice and tell ourselves we're all equal.
Now, California is fairly diverse. So it was a good microcosm for looking at different communities of people and the way that contact between these communities is encouraged—or not. The pherions (viral pheromones) ended up being the mechanism for exploring this whole topic of separation and regulated interaction. They create a society of clades, insular communities (organisms) whose members share homologous features. Basically, I got the idea by watching ants exchange information about the availability of food on my kitchen counter. It began as a classic "what if?" scenario. What if the interactions between people could be chemically mediated? What kind of society might result? What effect might this kind of bio-mediated regulation have on the individuals in this society? That basically covers the territory of Clade and Crache.
TD: And how about Idolon?
MB: Idolon deals with some of the same issues, but uses the idea of film "casts" instead of clades to come at it from a totally different angle. Instead of pherions, mass-mediated images provide the mechanism for the interactions between people and communities. Increasingly, the world we live in is defined by various forms of mass-mediation: television, film, video, the Internet. Our whole perception of our selves and the world around us is shaped and determined by media. Without realizing it we rely on other people (perceived as experts or as successful) to tell us what's important and what's not. How we should act, and how we shouldn't. California, and Hollywood in particular, is one of the main centers of mass media in the world.
What's interesting is that none of the stuff coming out of the entertainment industry is "real" in the conventional sense. Most of it is representational (hair style, clothing style, manner of speaking, whatever), pointing to ideas that exist outside of reality in a kind of hyperreality. The precise reality and importance of these representations is based on an assigned value or particular meaning that people interpret in a certain way. It's all about perception. For example, if you buy a Rolex watch, the watch isn't just a watch to tell time. It also signifies a particular social status, income level, fashion preference, life-style, attitude, and so on. In this way, by acquiring signifiers, people create a pseudoself for themselves, not necessarily of who they are but who they want to be and (just as importantly) whom they want others to think they are.
TD: So the wall between reality and appearances—if there ever was one—begins to crumble. . . .
MB: It already has. Today everything is symbolic, and this symbolic world is the real world. This pseudoself is the real self. Idolon uses technology (programmable matter called philm that brings to life images and texture) to explore various ideas about mass-mediated images, self-image, and identity. How should I look and/or act in a given situation? Who should I be? Who am I, when I can be anyone I want?
TD: How do you think this blurring between the real and the hyperreal affects people's behavior?
MB: I think their behavior becomes very mannered and self-conscious, a kind of playacting. Except people don't realize they're playacting. They act and react to situations in ways they think they should, based on what they see on television, or in the movies, or the latest music video. On one level the response is completely true, and on another it's completely false. For example, in the real world different people experience happiness or grief in different ways. In the hyperreal world, you can only experience happiness or grief in one way—the way that we've been taught by media as normal or acceptable. People who are happy scream, dance up and down, and make fools of themselves because that's what the contestants on game shows do. People who are sad weep uncontrollably, take pills, and slip into self-destructive depression. In other words, hyperreality establishes a mass-mediated norm for behavior. If you don't conform to that norm, you're considered weird. You don't fit in. This is particularly true of young people, where peer pressure and the need to fit in is especially intense. But it can happen to anyone. It's a process of emulation. We learn by imitation, and if we imitate the actions and appearances of successful or beautiful people we believe that we also will be successful or beautiful—a kind of Lamarckian evolution through acquired traits. It's hard to change from the inside, to let go of whatever emotional baggage we've collected over the years. It's a lot easier to change our outward appearance and tell ourselves that if we look different we are different, that somehow this external gestalt has seeped into our psyche and fundamentally altered who we are. It's a lie, of course, but a very seductive one. That's one of the major themes of Idolon, this belief that we can change who we are from the outside in.
TD: Another theme in your novels is that these technologies which define people—philm or viral pheromones—are convenient means to control the people who rely on them. Your books are in part about the abuses of this kind of power.
MB: Right. On one level the images and pherions perform the same function: they serve to mediate behavior and social interaction. The main difference between them is that the pherions in Clade and Crache are imposed on people (at least for the most part), whereas the philmic elements in Idolon are (for the most part) self-imposed. One is external, while the other is internal (which still leaves open the possibility for self-abuse). I suppose you could argue that there's an external component to the philmic elements as well, because the choices you have are limited by the available images. There's the illusion of choice, of freedom, even though your options are limited. In that situation, a certain amount of social engineering can take place by regulating the number and types of images available to people. And in fact, that's what one of the characters tries to do—create a shared, consensual reality based on a specific set of images. If you can get people to buy into a certain life-style, attitude, or belief system voluntarily, it makes it a lot easier to control them because they don't realize they are being controlled. They don't see the strings—or if they do, they regard them as something desirable, even liberating. For me that kind of abuse is more insidious and frightening than the kind where you know you're a prisoner and can clearly see the bars of your cage.
TD: So there's a multi-layered dialogue going on in Idolon, wrapped in the skin of what at first glance seems like a science-fictional thriller. Yet like Snow Crash, Idolon kind of transcends its genre. What is it about this format that attracts you?
MB: I'm not sure what attracts me about multiple narrative threads and points of view. In part it seems to be the way I naturally go about telling a story and thinking about a world. Its a multi-faceted approach. I guess I'm interested in looking at a world through different sets of lenses, to try and get a complete picture of the world I'm writing about. When you have a single character, you're limited to what that character sees and knows. That can be very effective and powerful, but the scope is a little narrower and more tightly focused. With multiple narrative threads, each character provides a door into the world and a unique way to access the themes and ideas I'm interested in exploring. So I get a well-rounded picture of what's going on by way of compare and contrast. Hopefully the reader does, too. Plus, it's fun crawling around inside the heads of people with perspectives that are antithetical to my own. By putting myself in their shoes I get a chance to try on different modes of thinking. The disadvantage of a multi-layered dialog is that you don't always get to know as much about an individual character, in as much depth as you would with a single character narrative. So there are trade-offs.
TD: What is your writing process like?
MB: I'm not sure what you mean by process. There's the physical process, then there's the creative process. Normally I try to write every day, even if it's only for 10-15 minutes. That keeps me in touch with the creative side of things as well as whatever project I'm working on. My day job pretty much dictates my schedule. During the week I typically write for an hour early in the morning before going to work, during my lunch break (I work on a laptop), and then at night for an hour or so if I don't have anything else going on. During weekends, I usually put in 4 hours a day. That's about as much as I can do in one sitting. After that, I lose traction—the wheels start to spin and my progress decreases to a crawl. It's sort of the drip method for writing, a little bit at a time. A little bit each day adds up. The trick is being disciplined, treating the writing like a regular job. It's the only way I can make it work.
My creative process is much less defined. I get ideas from just about everywhere (news stories, magazine articles, discussions I've had with friends, the way someone on the street is dressed) until several of these discrete ideas form connections and accrete into something that feels substantial. When it comes time to start writing a book (or short story) I begin with a rough outline that consists of main scenes. This forms the initial backbone of the story. I then add bullet items (plot points) to the outline and more fully develop the characters until the book or story finally takes shape and I can begin the actual writing.
TD: You've published short stories in Fantasy & Science Fiction, among other markets. Yet nowadays you concentrate on novels. Do you focus on the novel for monetary reasons, or is a larger narrative just more satisfying to write?
MB: I enjoy reading and writing short stories as much as I do novels. I find a well-crafted short story as satisfying as a well-crafted novel. But the experience (both reading and writing) is different. Short stories, even those that span decades, are neat little packages, nicely wrapped, that contain a gift when opened. They tend to focus on a single pivotal event or idea. Novels, even the ones that take place in a very short period of time tend to be roomier. There's more space to explore multiple ideas and themes.
I started out with short stories. As a new writer that was the recommended path—at least at the time. Sell a few short stories, then you'll have some publication credits and be in a position to sell a novel. That was the conventional wisdom, and there is a certain logic to it. On the surface, short stories should be easier to write. Right? Well, maybe. For some people. But not for everyone. Certainly, it's easier to finish a short story than it is a novel simply because there are fewer words. I shifted to novels because I had the crazy idea that I wanted to make a living writing fiction. . . .
TD: Ha!
MB: Well, I was stubborn. Still am. But selling short stories just wasn't a realistic way to feed myself. In the process, I discovered that I have a somewhat better feel for how to structure a novel than a short story. Novels take shape in my head more quickly, and easily, than short stories. I can picture the scenes/events needed to get from point A to point B in a novel. For some reason that doesn't happen as readily with short stories.
TD: Are there any writers you go to for inspiration?
MB: That's a tough one. There are so many good writers out there, it's easy to find inspiration almost anywhere you look. Early on, Samuel Delany, Ursula Le Guin, Frank Herbert, Thomas M. Disch, George Alec Effinger, and Octavia Butler were big influences. I've always enjoyed William Gibson. He has a wonderful feel for language and a scalpel-sharp eye for detail and social trends. After many years I've recently rediscovered M. John Harrison. He's another first-rate stylist with a keen eye for detail and character. Neal Stephenson is vastly entertaining and complex. I'm convinced he could make the components and operation of a food processor fascinating. I've been reading a lot of Jon Courtenay Grimwood lately. His writing, characters, and futures are finely textured and nuanced and thoroughly badass. Maureen McHugh's characters are exquisitely rendered and utterly, heart-breakingly believable. Her writing is amazingly clean, simple and poignant, a definite case of less is more. I always wished I could write perfect science-as-metaphor short stories like Ted Chiang. I just finished Air by Geoff Ryman and was blown away by that.
Outside of SF, I've been reading people like Haruki Murakami, T. C. Boyle, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Michael Chabon, Zadie Smith, DBC Pierre, and Jonathan Lethem. Bottom line, I guess I pull inspiration from a lot of different sources. Part of the process of writing is growing. I don't want to get stuck in one place, doing the same thing over and over again, so my sources of inspiration are constantly evolving.
TD: Are you happy with the state of the genre in general? What would you like to see more or less of?
MB: I think the genre is pretty healthy right now. A few years ago, I'm not sure I would have said that. We seem to be entering a period of renewal. The New Space Opera really seemed to open things up, give writers the freedom to think about SF in different ways. Twenty years ago, cyberpunk did much the same thing by bringing a gritty noir element to what until then (except for people like Delany and a few others) had been a pretty squeaky clean vision of the future.
One of the things that fuels revitalization is cross-pollination, from both inside and outside of the field. It's invigorating to see writers going off in all sorts of directions. You have people like China Miéville and Neal Stephenson embarking on these expansive baroque voyages, and M. John Harrison disturbing us with a serial killer. On the other end of the spectrum, you have people like Kelly Link and Geoff Ryman working with elegant, tightly-controlled prose, and David Marusek experimenting with unusual narrative structures. So I get the feeling again that anything is possible. For a writer that's exciting, very liberating. It gives you permission to do what you want, and if it's not embraced then it will at least be accepted. For readers, they have a whole profusion of diverse worlds to explore.
So, rather than any particular book or type of book, I'd like to see more of what's going on, and I'd like to see it keep going on. I'd like to see SF keep opening up and keep being open to any and all influences. If it does that, it will influence other types of fiction and media the way it did back in the sixties and seventies when the only place you could have an inter-racial kiss or explore gender was in SF. The assimilation (or acceptance, anyway) of various SF tropes has already happened to some extent with some of the mainstream writers I talked about earlier (Murakami, Chabon, Boyle) and the reason it happened is that SF provided them with the tools required to talk about the world as it stands today. The best way to keep doing that is for SF to keep reinventing itself in new and interesting ways.
TD: So tell us something about Mark Budz we don't know.
MB: I have a serious chocolate addiction. The darker the better. I work out so I have spare calories to burn on chocolate. I've been known to spend $10.00 on a small morsel of exotic single-source chocolate. If you've ever heard of Richard Donnelly (a world-class chocolatier in Santa Cruz), Scharffen Berger, or Valrhona, then you know how serious the problem is. If you haven't, you don't know what you're missing.
TD: Thanks very much, Mark.
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