I love Kay Kenyon. In the past two days, I’ve been talking with a journalist at a major newspaper about “big idea” science fiction and with a major chain buyer about women who write science fiction (as opposed to fantasy), and I’ve been involved in a discussion of cover art with both said buyer and SFSignal, so how could Kay Kenyon’s name not come up in all of this? Beautifully written, mind-expanding sensawunder with cover illustrations to match.
Kay is interviewed by The Wenatchee World this week. And – lo and behold! – she’s talking about all three of these topics too! Speaking about the protagonist of A World Too Near,she says, “hes, he’s almost an antihero, in a way, because he has some bad-boy qualities, and he’s thumbing his nose to some extent at the status quo. Although I meant to suggest that he’s becoming seduced by the grace and the monumental scope of the Entire — and he’s in this dilemma of loving this new world, but realizing that he was too co-opted by it last time around. The last time he was there, he was a prince of the Demon City, if you will, and he has this guilt about that. Yet he can’t help himself that he loves it still. And that need to have redemption from past actions, and the love of the Entire — I think they fight with each other and make for an interesting internal story.”