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9.
AOTW: Have you ever found your works to be prophetic? In your genre do you think it's possible to foreshadow the future? Is this possibility ever lurking in the back of your mind while writing?
Elizabeth Haydon: Yes. Anyone who studies the history of cultures and the interconnectivity of them, which is the best kind of research to draw on when writing new worlds, can sometimes see where they are going. Science fiction has been more than just prophetic. It has been responsible for not only predicting but inspiring invention, from Jules Verne and H. G. Wells to the space race. It doesn't just describe the future, it causes it to happen sometimes.
L.E. Modesitt: Some items in my early SF stories turned out to be prophetic, particularly my speculations about computer crime. So far, however, since my later SF is "far-future" and since my fantasies take place in other worlds... there's no way to tell about them.
Lynn Flewelling: I don't know about prophetic, but I think I capture societal issues. As for foreshadowing, history constantly repeats itself, so we may catch the wave at the right point. But a lot of what traditional fantasy works with --- war, hatred, racial strife, Us Vs. Them, the search for self and a meaningful existence, the desire to save people, honor, sacrifice --- is universal and ongoing. I draw from real life as I see it, so it certainly shows up in my work.
Teresa Edgerton: Fiction writers are probably as adept as anyone --- historians, economists and the rest --- when it comes to predicting the future, because (one hopes) we have a good understanding of human nature. My own books are not concerned with the future, so they never foreshadow it. I have, however, occasionally been prophetic about the past. That is, I have imagined things happening, before I ever read about them, and I later found out that they actually had happened. But anyone can make educated (or lucky) guesses.
Juliet McKenna: I don't use prophecy as a plot device so wouldn't ever imagine my work could be prophetic! Foreshadowing the future's SF territory as far as I'm concerned; if fantasy has a role beyond simple entertainment, it's getting people to see their existing world from a different angle, in a different light.
Lois McMaster Bujold: Any prophetic moments my works have had have been serendipity; even in my science fiction, prediction per se is not my literary purpose. I am interested in human response to technological changes, particularly as they affect moral and ethical choices; that's the sort of concern powerful stories can hinge upon. I am moved when I get fan mail reporting that my work has helped some reader through some personal night, but that's a grace note and a gift, certainly not something I control.
Robin Hobb: Nope. But I'm a fantasy rather than an SF writer. If the future started turning out like my books, I'd be seriously worried. So would you all. Sea serpents in Puget Sound would have a serious impact on the salmon runs.
Sean Russell: I don't think my works have ever been prophetic. It's hard when you're writing about a world that appears to have existed in the past. It can certainly be done though. To be honest, this is not something I'm really interested in doing with fantasy. There are other truths that interest me.
Michael Stackpole: I don't think much about that, if at all. Prophecy is a matter of interpretation. For example, in a Star Wars novel of mine, The Krytos Trap, I have a villain unleash a bio-terrorism attack. I did that ages ago, basing it on the very idea that someone might weaponize something like the Ebola virus. Now we have the anthrax thing going on, and some folks have told me that Krytos is "timely." No, it just seems that way. What is important, though, is that how the situation was dealt with in that book might provide some food for thought for folks, or some reassurance for them, or a means to cope. Better to do that than to predict the future.
Martha Wells: I think it's possible to foreshadow the future in fantasy but I don't think I've done it in any of my books. It's not a possibility that I think about.
Terri Windling: This seems to be a question more pertinent to science fiction writers than to fantasists. We're not speculating on the future; rather, our works are in dialogue with writers and oral storytellers of the past.
Margaret Weis: I like to write reflections of the present.
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