When Ellen Kushner asked if I would be interested in writing the guest episode in her Tremontaine serial, I immediately said yes. One does not easily say no to Ellen, as my fellow writers will no doubt attest! Besides, I've been a big fan of her work since I first read Swordspoint, with its witty, urbane mix of bladework and romance, so the chance to revisit that world as a writer was irresistible. My most recent novels, The Emperor of All Things and its sequel, The Watchman of Eternity, are set in England in the 18th century – a roughly analogous time period to the setting of Tremontaine – and also feature a lot of swordplay, so I thought it would be a good fit, and I would be able to glide easily from my fantasy world into hers . . . as easily as a well-oiled sword glides from its leather scabbard.Did I mention that I like swords? In high school, my friends and I used to battle with golf clubs standing in for swords.
Later, in college, I joined the fencing team. My weapon was the foil. We had a special T-shirt made up that read "Fencers Do It With a Steel Rod." For some reason, the girls on campus seemed unimpressed with our wit.Anyway, I was looking forward very much to putting all my esoteric fencing knowledge and experience on display in my chapter. But when I got the rough outline my fellow writers had put together in brainstorming sessions before I came on board, I noted with disappointment that there was no actual swordfighting going on!One other thing I should mention about college. Even though I was already intending to become a speculative fiction writer back then, I had done pretty well in my academic career to avoid anything smacking of actual science. Physics, chemistry, astronomy, you name it, I dodged it. Of course that was a long time ago, and I consider myself to have a fair knowledge of basic science now—enough to fake it in my science fiction stories! But as I looked at the outline, desperately searching for any opportunity to insert a good swordfight, it slowly dawned on me that my episode was THE SCIENCE ONE. The episode in which a new scientific discovery, hinted at in previous episodes, comes to fruition at last.And not only that. Turns out that the world of Tremontaine is set in a universe whose physics are subtly different from our own, and those differences would have to be taken into account in the advanced mathematics that two central characters, Rafe and Micah, employ with, in the case of Micah, real genius.Oh my god. What had I gotten myself into?Let's tactfully avert our eyes from the ensuing week of blind panic and pick up our story from the moment I realized that while I might not know science or math at the level of a Rafe or a Micah, I did know real-life scientists at or near their level—one of the perks of being a science fiction writer! It was those personal relationships that gave me the entry point into these two characters, especially Micah, who quickly came to be my favorite. What's more, as I entered imaginatively into her quest to solve a mathematical mystery, I began to perceive a certain similarity to, of all things, a swordfight!In fencing, we were trained to carefully probe our opponent's defenses. The combination of bladework and footwork was really a kind of dance. And wasn't Micah, too, engaged in a dance of sorts, probing the defenses of an opponent who, though not flesh and blood, was still—to Micah's way of thinking—very much an adversary to be respected . . . and defeated?That was the final piece of the puzzle that allowed me to write this episode, which I hope you enjoy.And yes, I did manage to work in a clash of blades as well—though Kaab, at least, might not thank me for it!
