Synaesthesia Magazine Science & Numbers | Page 10

An interview

with

Adam Marek

What is it about the relationship between science, technology and fantasy that you love writing about?

IF you've ever fancied working in a zombie cafe, or heard the footsteps of a behemoth, you're in luck. Adam Marek's fantastical, absurd and sometimes haunting stories do all this and more, and hint at an observant and curious mind behind the words.

We decided to ask Adam what he thinks the world will be like in 50 years time - what can science achieve?

Often my ideas grow out of something to do with science or fantasy because…well, I just love those territories. I grew up on science fiction books, movies and comics, and horror and fantasy, and I didn’t ever grow out of them. My imagination is populated with robots and giant insects, so whatever I’m writing about – whether it’s parenthood or relationships – it isn’t long before something uncanny walks onto the stage.

As for the relationship between them, I’m always looking for unusual combinations of things, finding ways to fuse together two or three (or more) things that don’t naturally belong together to create new and, I hope, original metaphors to express some part of my experience as a human being.

How do you do your research when writing science-specific stories?

I’ve been lucky to be commissioned by Comma Press to contribute to five of their science-inspired anthologies: The New Uncanny, When it Changed, Biopunk, Litmus and right now I’m working on a new one, provisionally titled Beta-Life, which will be out in 2014. The way these Comma commissions work is that they send all of the authors a brief describing the theme of the anthology along with a list of scientists working in an area related to the theme. We then pick the scientist we’d most like to work with, and go off to spend a day with them, looking at and talking about their research, asking lots of questions and trying to get our heads around what can sometimes be incredibly complex (for me anyway) stuff – but it’s always fascinating.

"2070 is going to be awesome, just you wait"