C. J. Cherryh: "One of the side effects [of science-fiction] is freeing people and literature from the history that did happen and teaching them to think what-if and why-not" (entrevista)

Publicando tanto na ficção científica como na fantasia - e rejeitando qualquer ideia de separação entre ambas -, a norte-americana Carolyn Janice Cherry, mais conhecida como C. J. Cherryh, distinguiu-se pela riqueza conceptual dos seus universos ficcionais, explorados em dezenas de romances. A sua estreia literária de 1976 com os romances Gate of Ivrel e Brothers of Earth valeu-lhe o prémio Jown W. Campbell para "Best New Writer"; e com Downbelow Station (1982) e Cyteen (1988) viria a vencer o Prémio Hugo na categoria "Best Novel". Em entrevista a R. K Troughton para o blogue da Amazing Stories, Cherryh fala sobre a sua chegada ao género pela mão de Donald Wollheim, os universos ficcionais Alliance-Union e Mograine, a sua escrita e o seu worldbuilding, e sobre o estado da arte no género. Dois excertos:

R. K. Troughton / Amazing Stories: (...) Some have described the relationship between science fiction and science as symbiotic. Science inspires fiction which inspires science. How do you view this relationship between science fiction and science?

C. J. Cherryh: The job of science fiction, besides that of telling a good story, is to enable people who are scientists to think about side effects, future effects, and people effects; and to enable people who aren’t scientists to understand technology and new discoveries in the same terms. One of the side effects is freeing people and literature from the history that did happen and teaching them to think what-if and why-not. (...)

(...)

RKT/AS: You have been publishing now for five decades. How have the science fiction and publishing industries changed during that time? 

CJC: Total sea-change. I now have to run an e-publishing company (with two other writers) to handle our backlist, because physical book sellers aren’t interested in maintaining it in inventory. The distribution system priced itself out of the market and the Thor Tool Decision (taxing items in warehouses) made warehousing sanely sized print runs impossible. What’s printed has to sell off the shelf in days and then be reprinted. It’s insane.

A entrevista completa pode ser lida no blogue da Amazing Stories.

Fonte: Amazing Stories