Best-selling science fiction author Stephen Baxter answers Daily Post readers’ questions for LiveRead 2011
QSPOCK: How has being from Liverpool influenced your work?
ABeing from Liverpool has made a big difference, though I’ve understood it more as I’ve lived away and looked back. I was brought up in an Irish Catholic background, so was predisposed for big cosmic stories.
I grew up next to the Liverpool-Manchester rail line, the first in the world, futuristic technology in its day. And Liverpool being post-industrial has led the UK in other ways, too. Also, I’ve done some stories about The Beatles!
QSCYFISCYFI: The big question – are you a Blue or a Red?
AA Red! But I come from a mixed family, father’s family a mix of Reds and Blues, my mother’s mostly Reds. My dad once saw Dixie Dean play, and I did see Everton win the Cup in 84, but my Auntie Pat was recently cremated in Anfield Crematorium to the sound of the Kop singing You’ll Never Walk Alone.
QSARAH: I was wondering were the inspiration for your books comes from?
AFrom all over the place really. My current books came from reading something about the archaeology of the North Sea – once it was a country the size of Germany, flooded when the seas rose after the Ice Age.
I wondered, what if it hadn’t flooded? . . . So I get specific starting points like that. But it’s now 20 years since my first novel was published (Raft). I think I’ve developed longer range concerns which show up in different ways in my books – the destiny of mankind in an evolving universe, and indeed on an evolving Earth, thanks to climate change, etc.
QTOM: What was it like working with Arthur C Clarke?
ATerrific is the short answer. He was about 80 when we began working together, and though I did meet him we worked by email and phone. We always started from an outline by Arthur, and then I’d pitch in with story ideas, and we’d come up with new ideas, and go from there. I was heavily influenced by Clarke as a youngster, so I think we had a natural fit.
To work with one of my heroes was like playing soccer with Kenny Dalglish, I like to say. But I also admired him for being enthusiastic about new projects and indeed new writers even in his old age.
