Interview with Jeffrey Caminsky, Author of the Guardians of Peace Science Fiction Adventure Series

In Clouds of Darkness, the third book in the Guardians of Peace science fiction adventure series, the war between the Terrans and their reptilian neighbors proves as brutal as any conflict the human race has seen.

LL: How did you become a science fiction writer?

JC: I grew up reading Bradbury and Asimov, and watching Star Trek. Science fiction had always intrigued me, and I had ideas for an epic space adventure bouncing around my head since my college days. I began writing my sci-fi series in early 1981, shortly after I began working for the prosecutor's office in Detroit, when I discovered that I could use my lunch hours to sketch out my characters and do a bit of writing.

After writing for the better part of a year, I started re-reading some of my story, and immediately realized that most of it was trash, and had to be pitched: the hero of the story hadn't even gotten his starship yet, and I estimated it would take at least 47,000 pages to tell the whole story at the then-current level of detail. I wound up keeping the first chapter, most of the main characters, and the basic storyline, and plunged ahead once more...this time, trying to keep things like plot lines and the reader's interest in mind.

LL: Please tell us some more about The Guardians of Peace series.

JC: After writing for another year or so, I finished the first book, which eventually became The Sirens of Space, and immediately began writing the second book, which is now The Star Dancers. I tried to make each book a stand-alone novel, but wanted to keep some sense of continuity throughout the story. But I realized that the story I had in mind was a very long one, and would require at least three books to complete. After Star Dancers, I started right to work on the book that is my favorite of the entire series, my upcoming book entitled Clouds of Darkness. It's the darkest of all four books, but in many ways the most satisfying, since it touches on so many issues that seem to dog humanity throughout the ages-life and death, love and hate, war and all the misery it brings, as well as humanity's tendency to see other cultures as somehow less-than-human. The ending of Clouds of Darkness sets the stage for the climatic confrontation in The Guardians of Peace (the book that gives the entire series its name), which is largely a story of humanity's struggle to keep from descending into barbarism.

LL: Would it be correct to say that the study of humanity and human nature is the main theme of the books?

JC: That's a large part of it. In fact, the series starts just a few years after the first contact between humans and aliens, and deals with some of the issues and challenges in confronting the unknown. But at the same time it's also an exploration of what it means to be "human" in the first place. There's one scene where the hero is speaking to a group of the aliens, and he casually refers to the Terrans as "humans." The aliens feel insulted by the remark, since each alien race considers itself to be "human." The book tries to give each alien culture its own unique narrative voice in which its own ways and surroundings seem completely "normal." The hope is that the reader can develop sympathy and understanding toward each different culture in the book. And eventually, we can see that however different we may appear on the surface, at our core we're really pretty much the same. There are scheming politicians among the aliens as well as the Terrans, for example, as well as philosophers, artists, and ordinary people. And they all have their own hopes and dreams for the future.

This does not, of course, keep things from careening out of control from time to time. One of the other universal constants we see in the book is that while the Universe is beautiful, it's also teeming with idiots. And not all the idiots can trace their ancestors back to Earth.

LL: Who is the main character in this story? What is he like?

JC: The main character in the series is named Roscoe Cook, a native of Planet Isis, which is located at the extreme western edge of Terra. His home planet is considered a bit odd, and he's also a bit unusual. He's a brilliant and a gifted commander whose crew loves him. But he also has a talent for making powerful enemies, since he tends to be impatient with people he considers to be fools. Over the course of the series he grows from a cocky young skipper resented by most of the Fleet, into Terra's most brilliant tactician and strategist, who is torn apart by internal conflicts over what Terra is doing. He's also one of the few Terrans who can see the essential humanity of the aliens, and has to confront his own growing doubts about how Terra is confronting the challenges posed by the conflicts that arise.

LL: What about the aliens in the book? It sounds like they're a bit more than the one-dimensional "all-evil" or "all saintly" types that tend to appear in much of the Sci-fi literature.

JC: Actually, one of my biggest challenges was trying to shape the aliens into three-dimensional characters. Since we're all pretty "Earth-centric" here, it's hard to imagine how we'd appear to other beings, and what those beings would be like. I decided very early in writing the series that aliens wouldn't regard themselves as "aliens," or in any way unusual. Instead, they'd consider us the oddballs, and be mystified at many of the things we'd do. So, the answer for me was simply shift what "normal" meant. Nothing in an alien culture would seem odd to the aliens...but when they're looking at us, they see hairy apes who are a bit rambunctious and far more curious than is considered appropriate in "polite" company. And in addition to giving each race its own narrative voice, I tried to give use the alien characters to give the reader a whiff of what their respective cultures were like.

LL: Are there any prominent alien characters?

JC: Yes, several as a matter of fact. One of the major alien characters is named Ga'Glish, who is the nephew of a prominent politician in the alien capital and the leader of the alien's defense force. They are considered part of the "reformist" wing of the aliens' culture, and part of the book deals with the problems of an ancient civilization that has ossified over the years, and become mired in old ways and traditions that have let their society stagnate. The Terrans present a daunting challenge for them, since they are not only trying to "modernize" their own society, but are confronting a new and disruptive presence along their frontier. Another major character, a talented young commoner named fa'Shenali, who appears in Clouds of Darkness, has to deal with many of the resentments and hatreds within his own society as his people face the threat posed by the Terrans to their way of life. And a major part of the series deals with the problems an established society faces when confronting the unknown.

As with any society, the aliens also have their equivalent of "saints" and "sinners." And part of the book deals with the effect of conflict with unknown-in the "alien" form of the "hairy apes" from beyond their frontiers-on the hopes and dreams of a race confronting its own limitations.

In many respects, this series is different than most "alien encounter" series, in that it's the humans, and not the aliens, who are responsible for most of the major conflicts.

LL: How about romance? Is this series about the "Erotic Adventures of Roscoe Cook," with all manner of alluring space aliens, or is it more like John Wayne in the "Sands of Iwo Jima?"

JC: Well, there is an element of romance, but it's hardly X-rated. A member of the crew is in love with the Captain...who's in love with his career. The aliens have their own ways of doing things, which vary from culture to culture. And though it's not the main focus of the story, love and its effects on people is very much a part of the adventure.

LL: So if you had to give it a rating....

JC (Laughing): I believe in giving my characters some measure of privacy, so I'd probably rate it "PG." Maybe "PG-13." And it doesn't deal with the kinkier aspects of interstellar relations. Maybe in my next book.

But the series does deal with some of the tensions involved in having men and women serving together for long stretches of time, isolated from what we'd probably all consider a "normal" kind of lifestyle. And unlike Star Trek and some other futuristic stories, one of my core assumptions is that human nature won't change very much through the years. So, in the future we'll still be dealing with the baser side of human nature-which, I guess, is another way of saying I don't think men will be changing for the better any time soon. At least, not down deep inside them. In fact, I think the future will show that there's a big difference between how men and women interact in "polite society," and along the lawless frontier. I tried to incorporate this into the series, as well.

LL: What parts or aspects of the story were the easiest and the hardest to write and why?

JC: I'm not sure I'd call any part of the story "easy" to write. Probably "hardest" and "not-quite-as-hard" would be a bit more accurate, though I did have fun writing all of it. And I didn't help myself by creating lots of characters and subplots that I then had to juggle. By and large, I was always struggling to keep the story moving, and constantly had to strike a balance between giving the readers enough detail about the scenes and the characters to make things interesting for them, while at the same time not making their eyes glaze over. But I think the hardest part for me was editing...and cutting out sections that got in the way of the story. I cut out some of my prettiest writing because it just wasn't needed, and seemed to bog things down. I called those sections my "self-indulgent" sections, because they tended to be very poetic and philosophical...but were really just commentary, rather than part of the story.

As for the books themselves, I think Clouds of Darkness presented the biggest challenge for me. It's the longest book in the series, with the most complex story line and richest array of characters. But Sirens of Space was probably harder, since it was the first novel I'd ever written and I was still teaching myself about dialogue, plot and character development, and trying to set a tone for the entire series. It was also the book that saw the highest level of carnage when time came to edit it, since I concluded most of it was "fluff" that didn't really need to be there. The upcoming book The Guardians of Peace, which should be ready to release in another year or so, went more smoothly than the rest, since by that time I knew exactly where things were headed, and the main characters were already pretty well-developed.

As with any male author, I think writing female characters is very difficult, since most men tend to be pretty clueless about what makes women tick. And while I could place myself in the position of any of the guys, and pretty much sense what they'd think and how they'd react, I don't have that kind of insight with the women. So I had to rely mostly on observation, and hope for the best.

On the other hand, I found many of the comic aspects of the book fun, and relatively easy to write. And most of the battle scenes seemed to come together nicely.

LL: Do your characters surprise you sometimes or do they pretty much follow your plan for them?

JC: I always knew where the story was going. I often had no idea what the characters would do, or how they'd react, until we got there.

It's actually kind of amusing, in a perversely annoying sort of way, but I found very early on that if I stepped out of the way and simply let my characters do what seemed natural to them, they always surprised me. And the result, I think, was far more interesting than if I tried to cram them into some preconceived notion of what I thought they should be doing.

In some ways, writing about fictional characters is kind of like dealing with your own children: you can plan all you want, but they can be full of surprises, and you can't always make them behave the way you'd like them to. On the other hand, if you just relax and let them go, they'll do what they can to make you proud of them. And the results are often far better than anything you could have imagined ahead of time.

Well...sometimes. On the other hand, some characters can be real brats.

LL: What is your writing routine like? Do you work in the morning, in the evening, or perhaps at night?

JC: While I was writing this series, I tended to write mostly on my lunch hour, though I'd also work on the weekends (if my wife let me), and occasionally in the evening.

Now that I'm retired from my day job, I have a bit more freedom. Predictably, this has completely disrupted my routine, and thrown my own personal Universe into chaos.

I find that I'm usually more energetic and creative in the mornings, so that's when I try to do most of my writing. I'll do more late at night, if I get an idea or can't sleep. I'm currently working on two books, and a few short stories, so I try to keep a notebook or digital voice recorder handy, so I can jot things down as they pop into my head. I also write an occasional poem, whenever inspiration strikes, Unfortunately, this comes about randomly, so I'll periodically be scrambling to find something to write it down on, since I always seem to have misplaced my notebook and voice recorder.

LL: What did you do before you retired and started writing full time?

JC: For thirty years I was a prosecuting attorney in Detroit, working in the appellate department. By the time I retired I was one of the department supervisors, and had argued cases at every level of the state and federal courts in the country, including the United States Supreme Court.

LL: How does this experience help you in writing?

JC: Being a prosecutor exposes you to some of the best and worst that humanity has to offer. This gave me a wide range of behaviors and characters to use as templates for some of my own efforts. But probably the biggest help my job had was the fact that writing was such a large part of it. In addition, as an appellate lawyer I had the freedom to be a bit more creative in my arguments than most lawyers, since I was one of the "policy wonks" in the office, and usually had time to reflect on what I wanted to say. Since there were always deadlines to meet I'd be writing constantly, and often under pressure: since I could type very fast, and was a very quick study, I tended to be assigned more than my share of "emergencies" when they arose. Perhaps as a result, I tend to be very focused when I'm working, and when I'm at my best I can work very quickly.

Unfortunately, most legal writing is dreadful. I'm not sure whether this is because most lawyers are too busy to learn to write well, or because they're trying to impress people by making what they write indecipherable to "normal" folks. But I always took pride in writing, and tried to bring a measure of clarity and precision to anything I wrote. And since I was writing so much, my creative writing and legal writing tended to reinforce each other.

Though overlooked by most lawyers, I also saw the potential in using footnotes for a wide range of things-from supplemental citations of authority to wry and witty comments about the inconsistent logic of the other side. Well, at least I found them witty. In any event, this showed me the potential use of comic relief, though I'm not sure it always helped my arguments.

LL: What do you read? Is it mostly science fiction?

JC: Actually, I have a wide range of interests, and am always looking for something new to learn. We live in a fascinating Universe, and you never know when something's going to come in handy.

As a kid I read lots of science fiction, from Isaac Asimov to Jules Verne. Today, in addition to fiction of all kinds, I read a wide range of books on any number of subjects, ranging from history to politics to economics to psychology to science, and beyond. Oddly enough, once I finished my sci-fi series I tended to get rather picky about the genre. I've gotten back to it recently, though since my retirement I've tended to alternate mostly between books on history and current affairs, and literary classics, some of which I'm enjoying a lot more now than I did in high school.

I'm not sure I could point to a "favorite" author, though I've loved Dickens ever since reading A Tale of Two Cities in high school. I also enjoyed some of the American humorists like Mark Twain and Washington Irving, and one of my favorite books is Irving's History of New York, which I didn't "discover" until after law school. I'm currently reading Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, which is one among many literary classics I never got around to reading in my younger days, and have been enjoying in the time since I retired as a prosecutor.

Among the more modern writers, I've enjoyed books by a wide range of authors, from Dan Brown and John Grisham to John Scalzi and J.K. Rowling. I also enjoy westerns and mysteries, and Louis L'Amour and Agatha Christie are among my favorites, even though their stories aren't exactly heavy reading.

I have leatherbound editions of many classics, and one entire bookshelf is inhabited by an often-overlooked writer of the 20^th Century named Winston Churchill, who is best-remembered for things other than his writing. It was no accident that his speeches during World War II were so stirring, because his ear for language and facility with the written word are really quite remarkable.

I've also started reading some of the lesser-known authors, those who are struggling to find an audience, just like me. I'm finding that there's a lot of talent in this world. All we really have to do is look around to see that it's everywhere.

LL: Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us, Jeffrey!

JC: It's been my pleasure.