What are the origins of this story?
I’ve always been a child of two genres: SFF, of course, but I’ve also been a lifelong mystery fan. I spent as much time growing up with Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot as Susan Calvin or Frodo Baggins. I’ve taken a couple stabs at science fiction mysteries over the years, just to try to scratch both itches at the same time, but this one was intended specifically as an homage to the Nero Wolfe mysteries.
The original Wolfe novels were themselves an effort to bridge two different traditions: the British Golden Age mysteries (Wolfe being an homage to Mycroft Holmes), and American hard-boiled detective stories. Recasting the Wolfe character as an artificial intelligence forced me to do a lot of thinking about what I personally found compelling in those books, which turned out to be the unlikely partnership and respect between Wolfe and Archie. Yeah, the orchids and beer and fancy meals are fun, but what I most wanted to pay homage to was that remarkable friendship.
What are some of your favorite short stories?
I’m a sucker for a cool idea and a strong narrative voice. There are a lot of talented folks working in this field right now, too, so the temptation to make this list thirty stories long is tremendous. I think I’ll stick to some of my recent SFF favorites: “A Domestic Lepidopterist” and “The Eleven Holy Numbers of the Mechanical Soul” by Natalia Theodoridou, “Restore the Heart into Love” by John Chu, “The Child Support of Cromdor the Condemned” by Spencer Ellsworth, and “Beyond the Trenches we Lie” by A.T. Greenblatt.
If you were able to make one thing you’ve written a reality, what would it be? Why and which book/story was this in?
That’s a tough one. A lot of the things I write, I’m kinda glad aren’t reality. That’s an interesting realization for me, since I don’t think of myself as writing anything like dystopia. There are a bunch of little details, I guess. For example, I’d love one of those little counter-top ice makers in Claudius Rex, mostly because I’m too lazy to go downstairs to the fridge. But the big things . . .
I think I’d have to say, the organ-growing vats in my short mystery “The Body and the Bomb,” used for quick customizable printing of organs and other tissues. Although they get used for less-than-ideal purposes in that story, that’s one of the technologies that would do the most good for my friends and family. Fortunately, that’s also one of the things that’s closest to actually becoming reality.
Do you have anything coming out in the months ahead?
Nothing is scheduled at the moment, although my fantasy novella “The Liar” was just in the March/April issue of F&SF.