Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes
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As a kid, I always liked reading stories where I had a power-projection fantasy. I wanted to be inside of a story where I had power and influence, was going to rise to power, was going to somehow influence my society.
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There are parents who are really angry that I decided to portray people who have come into the country illegally as decent human beings.
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By nature I'm sort of an introvert.
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I'm definitely writing my fears. It's almost therapeutic to at least voice a terror, to say, 'I'm worried that Lake Powell looks low and Lake Mead looks even lower.'
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I used to work for a newspaper that covered local resource issues, and my coworkers and friends were journalists. Their reporting work was always pretty grim.
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Teens want to read something that isn't a lie; we adults wish we could put our heads under the blankets and hide from the scary story we're writing for our kids.
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As a writer, you should care about reluctant readers. You want these kids to feel like books are amazing and cool and that they're an escape.
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I'm particularly interested in black swan events: unprecedented surprises that destroy the conventional wisdom about how the world works.
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Laws are a fine thing on paper, but painful when no bribery can ease their bind.
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I have friends who are science journalists, and I'm seeing stories of theirs or talking with them about ideas that they're pitching. Certain kinds of science are around me all the time, like climate change and biology.
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Economies are embedded inside ecosystems. Companies dependent on tourism, for example, are affected by low rainfall - there's less snow for skiers, and forest fires are more intense.
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I'm not proud of it, but I'm a great liar when I travel. I smile and lie, and things are smooth.
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I don't put a very clear label on my work. If anything, I write science fiction - looking at a moment now, in the present, and then extrapolating outward to think about what the future might look like if this particular trend goes on, or if this particular trend is the most dominant. That's a science fictional tool.
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As far as 'Windup Girl' becoming a hit - none of us expected that. 'Night Shade' was just hoping not to lose their shirts, and I had grown up hearing from everyone that science fiction didn't sell, so all of our expectations were very low.
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When I think about myself as a writer, for sure I am a science fiction writer. The tools of extrapolation, the tools of anticipating the future - those are science fictional questions.
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The sources and research I use for my inspiration aren't your typical sci-fi subjects, but it's really driven by obsession and personal anxiety more than trying to take up the sword and do what's right.
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I suspect that young adults crave stories of broken futures because they themselves are uneasily aware that their world is falling apart.
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The conclusion I came to was that even if I couldn't sell books, I still liked the process of writing.
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I am interested in agricultural corporations and how they function. The idea that they own the genetics of our food supply is a really compelling thing to me.
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I started really thinking a lot about where does a country go when we stop being able to speak to each other, when a nation stops being able to solve problems because its ideological differences become so deep that it just becomes dysfunctional.
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Sometimes when we label something dystopian fiction, I feel like we're trying very hard not to use the words 'science fiction,' because science fiction has those horrible connotations of rocket ships and bodacious babes.
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I think the fact that we, as writers, don't engage with resource-level questions is a symptom of our society where we just don't know where our stuff comes from.
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We're all happier when we know less, because the details are frightening and haven't really improved much. The more you pay attention, the more horrifying the world is.
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Businesses that decide to be reality based and identify where they're vulnerable to climate impact, that start thinking about how to buffer against it, are going to be able to take advantage of shortages. When the water runs out, not everyone is in the same pickle.