F=ma
It’s really enjoyable to be able to control your character’s fate. Thirty-five years of translating books have confined me within the straitjacket of having to convey the author’s thoughts. Although these were mainly popular science books, several of them required a real feel for the author's style - or even multiple authors in one book. Today I am the author, which does not reduce the responsibility, but changes the focus.
Yesterday, for example, I was struggling to finish a short story that I’d come up with a few months ago. As is often the case, the idea seemed great, but for some reason I just couldn’t think of an ending. Since the story is set on another planet, I could create practically everything from scratch, apart from the protagonist himself, who was from Earth. And you know what? It wasn’t easy at all. You’d think you could do anything, yet you can’t do much. Especially in a world where physics and chemistry still rule.
I’m not surprised by the popularity of fantasy. Worlds without limits, where anything really is possible, and the only barrier is the red line of absurdity. It’s just not for me. Yes, I do like to read fantasy books from time to time – the high-quality ones, like Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea. But it’s not really my thing, because my innate contrariness compels me to immediately cross that red line of absurdity I mentioned, and instead of proper fantasy, a parody emerges. I’ve got a few of these absurd stories, but it’s not really my cup of tea.
Someone with a background in the sciences cannot so casually abandon their knowledge in favour of magic. Mendeleev’s periodic table and Newton’s second law are always lurking in the back of their mind.
