Stephen Savile talks about the process of creating Elemental: The Tsunami Relief Anthology.
Elemental: The Tsunami Relief Anthology appeared from Tor Books in May 2006, edited by Steven Savile and Alethea Kontis. The book was put together in the winter of 2005 and its subsequent spring. The book includes an introduction by Arthur C. Clarke, cover art by Michael Whelan, and stories by David Gerrold,
Adam Roberts, Esther M. Friesner, Jacqueline Carey, Brian Aldiss, Stel Pavlou, Larry Niven, Kinley MacGregor (aka Sherrilyn Kenyon), Joe Haldeman, Juliet Marillier, Tim Lebbon, Eric Nylund, Lynn Flewelling, Michael Marshall Smith, Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson, Janny Wurts, William C. Dietz, Syne Mitchell, Sharon Shinn, Sean Williams & Shane Dix, Martha Wells, David Drake, and Nina Kiriki Hoffman.
The stories are uniformly new and good and interesting. Some are outstanding, including Tim Lebbon's "Chanting the Violet Dog Down", Lynn Flewelling's "Perfection", and Sharon Shinn's "The Double-Edged Sword". Some are visits to old friends or familiar territory, like Martha Well's "The Potter's Daughter", David Drake's "The Day of Glory", or Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's "Sea Child: A Tale of Dune". Others are just plain fun, like "The Run to Hardscrabble Station" by William C. Dietz and "Butterflies like Jewels" by Eric Nylund. This is a solid and well worth-while anthology, even beyond the fact that all of the publisher and author profits will be donated to the Save the Children Tsunami Relief Fund.
I interviewed Steven Savile about the impulse behind the anthology and the process of putting it together.
Q: What was the process of marketing the anthology to a publisher like?
SS: The truth was that everyone rallied incredibly to make this happen. Anyone
that tells you there is no such thing as a Science Fiction community is
talking out of the wrong orifice. These writers were incredibly selfless.
They contacted friends, spread the word, and quite soon we were swamped
with hundreds of great stories from writers we had been reading since we
were ... well, I'm not saying quite how much younger, but having the likes
of Joe Haldeman, Sir Brian Aldiss and Sir Arthur C. Clarke gives you an
idea, for sure.
Accepted wisdom is anthologies don't sell. Short stories don't sell. Well,
we wanted to challenge that - and for what better cause? My co-editor's
nickname is Backwards Girl, in that that's exactly how she does
everything. Instead of pitching the antho to an editor we took it directly
to Tom Doherty at Tor, and Tom was amazing about it, saying yes pretty
much instantly, and assigning us David Hartwell as our editor for the
project. Without David, Tom, Denis Wong and so many others Elemental just
couldn't have happened. It was quite a heady experiene. I think my
favourite memory of the process beyond getting that initial acceptance,
was hearing that Michael Whelan had donated the cover art. Michael is a
giant - my favourite genre artist by far.
Because of it was the suffering of children that got us involved in this
project, it was always obvious that every penny of the money raised by
Elemental should go toward helping children in SE Asia, building schools,
providing grief counselling etc, and Save the Children was the obvious
recipient.
Q: How did you go about reviewing the submissions? Did you split them up or
did you both read everything?
We divided duties, and still do - don't for a minute think things stop
once the book hits the streets. We've been pounding the beat to make sure
people hear about this book. The response has been exceptional - big
spreads in the L.A. Times, stellar reviews from Publisher's Weekly,
Kirkus, Library Journal and so many other places. All of these need to be
collated, and used to promote the book. Then we had a website designed to
act as a font for all things Elemental...
<P>As to the actual editorial process, we divided authors according to our
tastes. Certain stories were obviously a good fit for my interests, others
very much Alethea's. Even then though, we switched off on them, making
sure we were very happy with what the other had done so we ended up
reading everything. It involved a few thousand emails, and thank god for
Skype is all I can say - bearing in mind this was an intercontinental
anthology!
Q: What was the biggest hurdle to working together? Did you run into any
unexpected problems? Unexpected benefits?
SS: Actually I'd say, quite honestly, Alethea is a perfect complement to me in
terms of building up my enthusiasm when I am too grounded, seeing to the
core of a story where I get fuzzy around the edges, and making some very
insightful suggestions. We're a good fit, and I certainly hope we'll be
doing this again in the future! I have never co-edited before, and having
someone else to use as a sounding board for my insanities was fantastic!
Q:Did you find there were any discrepancies along the lines of one person
loving a story and the other hating it? How did you handle it when/if one
person liked a story and the other didn't?
Ahh wouldn't it have been fantastic for an interview to be able to say we
fought tooth and nail over a story - but no. We have different tastes, but
we can both tell a good story when we see one. We have different
favourites, which I think reflect the masculine and feminine nature of the
two of us. Of course, asked on any given day I am sure we'd draw up a
different list of favourites, but one story I keep coming back to and
reading again and again is David Gerrold's opener, "Crystallization", which
is just mindblowingly excellent. I read it and fell in love with it
instantly. Another one that triggered a very strong intellectual response
from me was Michael Marshall Smith's "The Compound", which is one of the
most intelligent stories I have read in years. On a more absurdist level
Stel Pavlou's "Jared Spoon" had me spitting out my cornflakes I was laughing
so hard in places. And Esther Friesner and William Dietz and Syne Mitchell
and Eric Nylund and and and - see, there isn't a story in this book I
didn't fall in love with along the way.
But, we both always knew it had to close with Nina Kiriki Hoffman's
haunting tale. Always. No argument there either.
Q: What was the response like to your call for submissions? Did you get many
submissions from established writers? Were there any writers who were personally
affected by the tsunami?
Phenomonal. I contacted about fifty writers of I have long admired, and of
those fifty 90% had stories on my desk within two weeks. One author who we
really wanted to be in the book couldn't make it in the end - because her
husband was actually out in Southeast Asia working on identifying the bodies of
the dead.
Q: What did you look for when deciding on stories? Was there any criteria
beyond good?
SS: The key was that they be great stories - each representative of a
different aspect of what collectively becomes the genre, so it was about
Space Opera, magical realism, swords and sorcery, absurdism, etc etc, not
specifically a theme but an obsession to show all the disperate elements
of our beloved genre, to open readers eyes to what is out there. My hope
is that someone who reads William Dietz's Hardscrabble will go dig out
Jaqueline Carey and Martha Wells having enjoyed their stories in
ELEMENTAL. All of these authors deserve so much credit for being a part of
this project. Certainly without them there would be no ELEMENTAL.
