I have a new story out! “How to Live with Polar Bears” is in the latest issue of Asimov’s. According to the magazine, the story “brutally terrorizes” the reader, which is a lovely description and exactly the effect I was going for.
It’s a bit of an odd story, to be honest. If it has a theme, technically it would be constructing a narrative in which we can live with polar bears, but there are a number of these narratives within the story and they don’t always fit together. They’re not even always the same genre, which is fun – for me at least, mashing together fairy tales and science fiction and animal horror. There are genetically engineered bears and bears transported to Antarctica to feed on the scientists who work at Scott Base, and there are polar bears coming for a very different sort of dinner in a little house made of seals. There’s also a woman who’s part bear herself, or who sometimes wants to be and is making it happen in different and unethical ways.
She’s not very nice, that woman. In my past stories there’s a number of decent protagonists, good people doing their best, but there are times when I just want to write a rather brutal perspective, because such a character is often the vehicle for a very black humour and I find that amusing to write as well as to read. I happen to think this story’s hilarious, but I may be the only one.
The main character, I admit, has few redeeming features. (She does feed people to polar bears, so what can you reasonably expect?) Then again, she’s trying to bond with, or at least develop a method of cohabitation with, one of the few species on Earth that will actually hunt humans. I’m interested in the ways we interact with other predators and the choices we make in doing so. This story came out of that.
Also, I wanted to Frankenstein a polar bear. That seemed like it might be fun… and it was.
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