This week’s podcast was an experiment. Rather than record the conversation with author
Alex London over Skype, I decided to take the subway to Brooklyn and meet with him face-to-face in a coffee shop. I found it liberating to be unchained from an Internet connection, which has been known to fail mid-conversation, but the price of having a barista nearby is boisterous background noise.
London’s novels about class conflict, debt, and rebellion are set in a dark future. A significant portion of
Proxy takes place in a city where the poorest citizens dwell in a violent shantytown known as the Valve while the wealthy thrive in well-guarded neighborhoods of private speedways, luxury homes, and high-tech toys. The sequel,
Guardian, is set in a crumbling Detroit exponentially more decrepit than the Motor City of today.
As London explains, the horrors of the Valve are his “futuristic re-imagining” of slums outside of Nairobi, which he witnessed while researching one of his non-fiction books,
One Day the Soldiers Came, about children affected by armed conflict. “For a lot of children all over the world caught up in wars and poverty and natural disaster … dystopia is not some kind of fantasy but the day-to-day reality of how they are living,” he tells me.
Although the books portray a grim future, the publisher avoids the word "dystopia" in its marketing of
Proxy and
Guardian. “They call it a ‘futuristic thriller,’” London says. The marketing department also shies away from the science fiction tag, fearing it's too narrow. But London says he embraces the label. “Science fiction for me implies … an awareness of possibility.”
London himself is brimming with possibility. For one thing, he writes under three names.
Proxy and
Guardian, which are aimed at young adults, bear the name
Alex London. But as
Charles London, he’s published adult non-fiction about war and the survival of beleaguered Jewish communities around the world. And as
C. Alexander London, he continues to write for middle-grade readers about real-life war experiences and fantastical adventures involving squids and dragons.
Like any good science fiction writer, London seeks to push boundaries.
Proxy explores what would happen if wealthy transgressors rigged a system of debt and credit to avoid punishment for their crimes and instead made the poor (known as proxies) receive the punishment instead. London also pushes cultural boundaries:
Proxy and
Guardian’s main character, Syd, is gay, which makes him unusual as the star of a science fiction series geared for young adults. As a result, London has received an outpouring of fan mail from young people seeking advice. “It’s been very touching to see kids who might not otherwise be drawn to explicitly queer books … find their way to
Proxy,” he says. Because the books are primarily thrillers, some kids, especially those living in conservative communities, feel safer reading them than gay-themed books that focus on romance or coming out, he explains.
“I’ve been getting letters from a lot of actually straight boys writing about their friends and wondering how they can be better allies. Those are my favorite,” London says.
Related links:
Spoiler alerts:
- From 18:45 to 22:16 we discuss some aspects of Syd's love life that those who haven't read Proxy and Guardian may prefer to skip.
- From 33:12 to 34:00 we discuss the science behind a key plot point integral to the resolution of Proxy.
Congratulations to the six authors nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award:
Emmi Itäranta was one of my first interviews as host of New Books in Science Fiction and Fantasy, and I have a special fondness for her book, which offers a tender, wise vision (with a strong female protagonist) of a world irrevocably injured by climate change.
