R. Jean Mathieu's Innerspace

SF/F, sociology, some recipes. Updates every other Friday.

Month: July 2024

Philosophy (in a Teacup): Aimee Kuzenski

26 July, 2024 /

Today’s guest is Aimee Kuzenski. Aimee is a speculative fiction author and practitioner of Filipino martial arts. In the wider speculative fiction community, she is a graduate of Viable Paradise, a board member with the 4th Street Fantasy convention, and you can find her short fiction online at Translunar Travelers Lounge.

Aimee Kuzenski author photo
Aimee Kuzenski

Tell us more about your book/ series/ short story work.

SEEDS OF INHERITANCE is basically THE TRAITOR BARU CORMORANT crossed with DUNE, with living FTL treeships. It’s a space fantasy centered around a woman called Berenike, who lost most of her family when she lost the revolution, who has looked to her daughter to complete what she couldn’t. But when the daughter refuses, she refuses to give up even then. Her choices aren’t pretty, but they make for a great story.

Seeds of Inheritance cover
Seeds of Inheritance, by Aimee Kuzenski

Why do you write speculative fiction?

Speculative fiction is written on my bones, from an early age. In elementary school, I read stories about magical horses. I read the cover off a volume of Greek mythology. I tore through every sci-fi and fantasy novel in every library I came across. Speculative fiction is what gets my blood going, and even if I ever wrote something like a mystery or memoir, it would have a speculative element in it.

Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

All over the place – the books I read, the strange facts I run across, the twisted combinations of fact and fiction that I come up with while I’m doing something boring. Once in a while, I’ll mine a dream for vibes.

What is your favorite sci-fi, fantasy, or horror trope?

Oh that’s a fun one. My favorite tropes are probably FTL and ansibles. As we understand the universe, neither is possible, but they make so many stories possible.

What is your favorite speculative fiction book (besides yours)?

Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente. I read that book in a fever dream. The language is so gorgeous, the characters so real. Valente’s work just hits every single note for me – I dream about her cities and it’s like coming home to a place I never knew existed.

I remember that book – it felt like a fever dream all by itself. I love Valente’s prose.

What is the best story you’ve written?

If we’re talking short fiction, I’m proudest of “Fractured“, which appeared in Translunar Traveler’s Lounge. It’s about a medic on a space ship who received a terrible injury and has to figure out who they are afterward.

If we’re talking about my favorite novel, it’s definitely SEEDS OF INHERITANCE. It’s the best book I’ve written, and I love it with my whole heart.

What is the world you long to see?

Justice can be cold, but it’s what I most want to see in a world, including ours. Justice in terms of bringing wrongs to light, but also in terms of equality of rights and opportunities. It’s why a lot of what I write has a strong political theme. I’m passionate about it.

How do you apply your skills in Filipino Martial Arts to your work?

A martial arts practice develops a lot of awareness of one’s body, how it moves, how it feels to do things. I try to bring that awareness throughout anything I write. But my most favorite scenes to write are fight scenes. Knife fighting is my personal favorite, but FMA teaches you techniques that can be used with any weapon – or no weapon. I love choreographing fights and keeping them as real as possible. I tend not to write anything Errol Flynn would have performed; my fights are much closer to the hallway fight in Daredevil. Brutal, exhausting, and as real as possible.

I hear you about the body awareness. It’s never really expressable in mere language…but that doesn’t stop us from trying.

Bonus question: Novels or short stories? Which do you prefer to read? Which do you prefer to write?

Novels, no question. My personal writing rhythms are all set up for 100k words or more – I’m amazed that I managed to sell anything short. It’s partially due to the fact that I mostly read novels. I love the depth of character and worldbuilding you can get with that much space.

Thank you, Aimee Kuzenski, for your time!

You can find Aimee at her website, and find her novel Seeds of Inheritance wherever better books are sold.

R. Jean Mathieu

Persephone’s Gate (Prologue)

12 July, 2024 /

This is the [first draft] opening of my new novella, a queer space pirate romance I’m worktitling Persephone’s Gate. Along with the title, it will probably undergo changes before publication, but until then…enjoy!

Zara Krauss-Kusnadi, station-born and -bred, awoke with the first realization anyone station-born and -bred would notice.

There was gravity. And it hurt.

“Ugh…” She groaned, laying one olive hand to her brow.

There was gravity. She was at the bottom of a gravity well – so a planet or a moon, not a ship or station.

There was heat. She was soaked in sweat, great drops of it sliding toward the gravity well that held her fast to the ground.

There was ground, and the earthy clay smell joined the scent of rancid sweat and pickled spacer that Zara herself exuded.

There was a pain in her head, over and above the weight of gravity over every inch of her body, something that throbbed.

“Ugh…” Zara repeated.

She dared open her eyes. Overhead, beyond the purple sky, a blue-brown planet with delicate cumulous curls in its atmosphere hung ominously, as if it would fall on her.

That…that’s Kopol… She thought.

Which meant she was on Kachhuapur, Kopol’s second moon. Still on Kachhuapur. But what was she doing sleeping outside, in the tall grass of Kachhuapur’s steppes?

What did I do last night?

She’d been…Ellis was there, Ellis Nnamdi-Divekar, and Louis and Sarai and Martian Mei and some of the others from the Fujiwara-maru…Ellis had looked amazing in Centauri silks, so daring…they drank toasts…God, how many?…they were celebrating…celebrating what?…

In front of her eyes, a streak formed across the sky. From her point of view, it looked like a light that sliced Kopol in two. She winced, closing her eyes again, trying to remember.

…they were celebrating a new enlistment…yeah…they’d signed articles yesterday afternoon on a Southern Cross interstellar…their last night on Kachhuapur before…

Zara’s eyes snapped open, big and brown and stone-cold sober.

That light. The one streaking across the sky. Big star bound, away from Kachhuapur, out of Kopol’s orbit, heading for the hyperspace barrier to catch the outbound startide.

Zara scrambled to her feet, as if her 1.8m could bring her meaningfully closer to the spaceship racing overhead.

Somehow, Zara knew that that very light, that very ship, was the Revenge, that Louis and Sarai and Martian Mei…and Ellis…were passing before her eyes right at that moment.

She watched it break free of Kachhuapur’s atmo, a shooting star in reverse, and sail off behind Kopol’s massive planetary bulk.

Leaving her.

Alone.

In the tall grasses of the Kachhuapur steppe.

She stared into the sky for a long time, throbbing head and dragging gravity forgotten, breathing rattling little breaths. As if by staring, she could still see her shipmates and the promise of plunder and adventure.

At length, she spoke.

“…ugh!”

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