Today’s guest is Aimee Kuzenski. Aimee is a speculative fiction author and practitioner of Filipino martial arts. In the wider speculative fiction community, she is a graduate of Viable Paradise, a board member with the 4th Street Fantasy convention, and you can find her short fiction online at Translunar Travelers Lounge.
Tell us more about your book/ series/ short story work.
SEEDS OF INHERITANCE is basically THE TRAITOR BARU CORMORANT crossed with DUNE, with living FTL treeships. It’s a space fantasy centered around a woman called Berenike, who lost most of her family when she lost the revolution, who has looked to her daughter to complete what she couldn’t. But when the daughter refuses, she refuses to give up even then. Her choices aren’t pretty, but they make for a great story.
Why do you write speculative fiction?
Speculative fiction is written on my bones, from an early age. In elementary school, I read stories about magical horses. I read the cover off a volume of Greek mythology. I tore through every sci-fi and fantasy novel in every library I came across. Speculative fiction is what gets my blood going, and even if I ever wrote something like a mystery or memoir, it would have a speculative element in it.
Where do you find inspiration for your stories?
All over the place – the books I read, the strange facts I run across, the twisted combinations of fact and fiction that I come up with while I’m doing something boring. Once in a while, I’ll mine a dream for vibes.
What is your favorite sci-fi, fantasy, or horror trope?
Oh that’s a fun one. My favorite tropes are probably FTL and ansibles. As we understand the universe, neither is possible, but they make so many stories possible.
What is your favorite speculative fiction book (besides yours)?
Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente. I read that book in a fever dream. The language is so gorgeous, the characters so real. Valente’s work just hits every single note for me – I dream about her cities and it’s like coming home to a place I never knew existed.
I remember that book – it felt like a fever dream all by itself. I love Valente’s prose.
What is the best story you’ve written?
If we’re talking short fiction, I’m proudest of “Fractured“, which appeared in Translunar Traveler’s Lounge. It’s about a medic on a space ship who received a terrible injury and has to figure out who they are afterward.
If we’re talking about my favorite novel, it’s definitely SEEDS OF INHERITANCE. It’s the best book I’ve written, and I love it with my whole heart.
What is the world you long to see?
Justice can be cold, but it’s what I most want to see in a world, including ours. Justice in terms of bringing wrongs to light, but also in terms of equality of rights and opportunities. It’s why a lot of what I write has a strong political theme. I’m passionate about it.
How do you apply your skills in Filipino Martial Arts to your work?
A martial arts practice develops a lot of awareness of one’s body, how it moves, how it feels to do things. I try to bring that awareness throughout anything I write. But my most favorite scenes to write are fight scenes. Knife fighting is my personal favorite, but FMA teaches you techniques that can be used with any weapon – or no weapon. I love choreographing fights and keeping them as real as possible. I tend not to write anything Errol Flynn would have performed; my fights are much closer to the hallway fight in Daredevil. Brutal, exhausting, and as real as possible.
I hear you about the body awareness. It’s never really expressable in mere language…but that doesn’t stop us from trying.
Bonus question: Novels or short stories? Which do you prefer to read? Which do you prefer to write?
Novels, no question. My personal writing rhythms are all set up for 100k words or more – I’m amazed that I managed to sell anything short. It’s partially due to the fact that I mostly read novels. I love the depth of character and worldbuilding you can get with that much space.
Thank you, Aimee Kuzenski, for your time!
You can find Aimee at her website, and find her novel Seeds of Inheritance wherever better books are sold.
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