Citadels of Darkover Author Interview: Leslie Fish

Coming in May 2019

Strongholds of rock . . . fortresses of the spirit . . . a planet set apart . . .

Citadels can be psychic, emotional, and cultural as well as military, and the wonderfully imaginative contributors to this volume have taken the basic idea and spun out stories in different and often unexpected directions.

Pre-order it at:
ePub https://books2read.com/u/4XRR0N
Kindle https://amzn.to/2TmBBW0

Here I chat with contributor Leslie Fish:

Deborah J. Ross: How did you become a writer?

Leslie Fish: I've always been an avid reader and storyteller, famous in summer camp for my long list of memorized "ghost stories".  The next step was inventing my own stories, and then writing them down.  

DJR: What authors inspired you?

LF: Wow, where do I start?  H. P. Lovecraft, Robert Bloch, the Sci-Fi greats: Bradbury, Bradley, Brackett, Asimov, Heinlein, Sturgeon, Ellison, and too many more to count. 

DJR: Were there any pivotal moments in your literary journey?

LF: My first professionally published story, a crime-tale with a twist, published in a short-lived pulp crime magazine.  Once I knew I could actually publish my stories, there was no stopping me.  And then there was the great assist I got from C. J. Cherryh, who invited me to write in her "Merovingian Nights" series.  And of course my invitation to come romp in the "Darkover" universe.  I treasure them all.  

DJR: Tell us about your introduction to Darkover.

LF: While I was in college I spent my time studying, protesting, attending folkmusic concerts, and reading Science Fiction books, which I mostly found at the corner bookstore down the street from my dorm.  One day I went in to search the paper-back book kiosk and came across a new one: an Ace Double with "The Planet Savers" on one side and "The Sword of Aldones" on the other.  One read, and I was hooked forevermore.

DJR: What about the world drew you in?

LF: What first drew me were the intricate plots, the rich characters, and the Sci-Fi treatment of what had until then been a Fantasy theme: psychic ability.  Beyond that, I was entranced by the multiple intelligent species and complex societies of the elaborate world.  

DJR: What inspired your story in Citadels of Darkover? How did you balance writing in someone else’s world and being true to your own creative imagination?

LF:On the cover of a previous Darkover collection there was a gorgeous painting of a woman standing by a shore, with an unmistakable mer-man leaping out of the water behind her.  I was disappointed that there was only one story in the collection about the mer-folk, and no further mention of them in subsequent books, so I decided to write one myself.  Any well-constructed world has enough complexity to provide for a near-infiinity of stories without cramping one's style -- much like this one.

DJR: Is there another Darkover story you would particularly like to write?

LF: Oh, there are several!  I'd like to publish tales about the Catmen, the Tree-Folk, the Chieri of course, the relationships between post-Empire Darkover and its neighboring worlds, and so on.

DJR: What have you written recently? What is your favorite of your published works and why?

LF: Technically, this is my most recent story.  It's hard to choose a particular favorite, although I'd admit that my novel "Of Elven Blood" would rank near the top.

DJR: What lies ahead for you?

LF: Right now I'm working on four novels at once: a Fantasy-Romance with Craig Franklin, a Sci-Fi novel about the physics of metaphysics with Chris Madsen, a raucous women's comback to "50 Shades of Grey" with Rasty, and a novel about AI that's entirely my own.  I'm certainly keeping busy!

DJR: Anything else you’d like our readers to know about you, Darkover, or life in general?

LF: If anyone would like to own a purebred experimental super-intelligent cat, contact me through my Facebook page.  We'll work something out.  

Leslie Fish fell in love with science fiction at the age of eight, mostly through EC Comics and the movie “Destination Moon.” Born and raised in a boring, respectable suburb of Newark, New Jersey, she swore that she would lead an adventurous life or die trying. As a result, she became a war-protester, a folksinger, an industrial pirate, a union organizer, a go-go dancer, a dominatrix, and a science fiction writer.  She’s best known for her several albums of science fiction folk-music, or filk, which are available from Amazon or in the dealers’ rooms of science fiction conventions. She currently lives in a farming town in Arizona, along with her husband Rasty, an orchard of exotic fruit-trees, and her experimental breed of super-smart Silverdust cats. This story deals with yet another of Darkover’s non-human intelligent species, this time a rare one that’s almost never been studied before.