BSC Interview – Alan Dean Foster

Professor Crazy here with an interview of an author who is one of my personal favorites, the Man, the Myth, the Legend, yes, Mr. Alan Dean Foster! The entire staff at BSC and I extend our heartfelt thanks and gratitude that you have agreed to this interview. I have many different questions that I’d love to ask you, Alan, so without further ado, “Let’s get it on!”

Professor Crazy: You know from our past correspondence that I’m a fan of your amazing Flinx & Pip series of novels, and that I’ve recently written a review of the last book, Flinx Transcendent, of the series (both cheers for the great job you did and a “Gasp!” that it’s the last).

But, before I get to questions about the series and the final novel, I’d like to ask you about your novelization of Terminator: Salvation. I haven’t yet read the book–I’m guessing it’s brilliant, like the rest of your output–and, I have only seen the first three Terminator flicks (yes, it’s a sad hollow hole in my knowledge of the cinematic world). I know both the movie and the book have received good reviews, though, and the commercials for the movie look like the flick would be very action-packed.

How long ago were you approached to do the novelization and how long did it take you to write it? Also, did you agree to doing it because you’re a fan of the movies?

Alan Dean Foster: I was asked to do the novelization less than a year before the film came out. This is fairly typical of studios and production teams, who don’t seem to realize that publishers like to have a year or so between the time a book is finished and they can put it out in stores. It drives publishers nuts, as you can imagine. It generally takes me about a month to do a novelization, though I have done some in as little as two weeks. And I agreed to do it because…writing is what I do. I like to think that, as a professional, I can make a decent book out of anything. Good scripts are easy to adapt. Bad ones are a challenge.

Professor Crazy: Of course, you’ve done other novelizations, as well, including ones for the first three Alien films–love those movies; Transformers,haven’t seen it, but want to–and, you’re the author of the bestseller Star Wars: The Approaching Storm.

You could be called “the busiest guy in Hollywood.” Were the Alien novels the first novelizations you wrote? Is it because of their success that landed the other gigs?

Alan Dean Foster: Fortunately I’m not in Hollywood…I’m in Arizona, away from The Madness. The first novelization I wrote was in 1973, long before Alien. The picture was a truly terrible Italian film called Luana. After that came John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon’s Dark Star, then the Star Trek Logs.

Professor Crazy: The hero of your Flinx & Pip series, Philip Linx, (Flinx, of course) was raised by the Great Mother Mastiff.

It’s a noble canine, to be sure; but, why did you chose a Mastiff instead of, say, a Cockapoodle or a Dalmation? Talk about your Oedipus Issues….

Alan Dean Foster: I chose “Mastiff” because I liked both the image it conjured up, of a truly tough old lady, and the alliteration. “Mother Chihuahua”, for example, doesn’t have quite the same impact.

Professor Crazy: Flinx’s spaceship, Teacher, is perhaps, after HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke. Though it’s never shy to put in its two cents’ worth of often witty comments/advice, it’s far friendlier to Flinx than HAL was to its crew.

Why did you name the spaceship Teacher? Wouldn’t some other name, like, hmmm, Professor Crazy, for example, have been just as good? Joking aside, it’s the coolest AI spaceship I’ve ever read about, and I like how Flinx interacts with it–it’s one of many things that add a lot of interest and irony to your Flinx & Pip series.

Alan Dean Foster: It’s called TEACHER because in addition to building the thing for Flinx, the Ulru-Ujurrians filled it up with all kinds of arcane knowledge that they accumulated. And the interaction comes about because, well, it’s lonely in space and Flinx needed someone to talk to. Also, I’m as miffed as any other competent SF writer that hundreds of years in the future people are still entering commands to high-tech devices (including starships) with keyboards. Even vorec (voice-recognition) commands will be outdated. But direct mind-to-machine communication is more boring than a pleasant chat.

Professor Crazy: You’re a master at world building, and I am impressed with the in-depth descriptions of the many planets you’ve had Flinx and his awesome minidrag, Pip, travel to in their adventures. Perhaps because they’re the freshest examples in my mind, in particular I liked your descriptions of Gestalt, which you wrote about in Patrimony, and Blasusarr, which was the planet the duo traveled to in Flinx Transcendent.

Which planet that Flinx and Pip have traveled to do you, personally, like the best, and why?

Alan Dean Foster: Midworld has always been my personal favorite. I love nothing better than wandering alone through real rainforest, listening to the sounds and seeking out the strange (sometimes very strange) creatures that live there. That, and under the sea. There was a whole chapter in Cachalot that the publisher insisted be cut out because she felt it slowed down the story, and it was pretty much nothing but descriptions of the alien sea life. Pity.

Professor Crazy: You often deal with the psychological aspects and motivations of your characters, and this adds to their three dimensionality and makes them more real to your readers. Flinx has searched for his father and wondered who he could be through many books in the series. This search, and his love for Charity Held, are possibly the two strongest driving forces motivating Flinx in your novels. Being an empath, Flinx can tell how people and aliens are feeling and know what they might do next because of his talent, and this also provides a lot of insights into him and the other characters you write about.

In Patrimony, Flinx finally discovers his paternal origins. He’s also trying to save the galaxy from being exterminated (by being eaten) by an entity of gigantic proportions he thinks of as the Great Evil.

How does Flinx think about his role of being the savior of the galaxy? Would you say he’s more interested in finding out about his origins and strange powers, or in ridding the galaxy of the Great Evil?

Alan Dean Foster: He’s conflicted, of course. He knows he should be focusing on saving everyone else…but like everyone else, he desperately needs to know about and to understand himself. Reader reaction is interesting. Some think he’s selfish for even considering focusing on anything except saving civilization. But that’s what makes him human. People, even altruistic people, cannot escape thinking about themselves. Self-preservation is programmed into us.

Professor Crazy: You aren’t shy about placing Flinx in potentially embarrassing situations, are you? For instance, in Flinx Transcendent, you have him wearing a simsuit that resembles the natives of Blasusarr, who are lizard-like in appearance, and are enemies of the Commonwealth and the Thranx. He is naked within the suit, and you have him take off the simsuit in front of several characters in the course of the novel, including the Emperor, in order to use his Talent and get them to experience the reality of the Great Evil for themselves by mentally taking them there.

Do you like having Flinx be a heroic figure who is also humble and a person who is not easily embarrassed?

Alan Dean Foster: Nobody likes an arrogant hero. That’s a trait we prefer to reserve for our villains. An arrogant Luke Skywalker, or Tarzan, or Abraham Lincoln, would not be very popular. As to the embarrassment part, very few things can embarrass me personally, and nudity is certainly not among them. Clothing is a human invention designed to compensate for our loss of fur. I’m perfectly comfortable without clothes, though obviously the bulk of society doesn’t operate that way. Blame religion. Nudity phobia certainly isn’t ingrained in us. It has to be learned. Many “primitive” societies have no trouble with group nudity whatsoever and find “modern” visitors’ obesession with clothing inexplicable.

Professor Crazy: Again, in Flinx Transcendent, Flinx is concerned with other things before he decides to have his final showdown with the Great Evil, through the assistance of an ancient sentient weapons platform.

What is the reason why Flinx is motivated to travel to Blasusarr and live with the AAnns? And, why is he temporarily stranded there?

Alan Dean Foster: He’s suffering from a bad attack of what-the-hell. People suffering from that mindset are semi-suicidal and don’t much care what happens to them. Going to Blasusarr uninvited and unannounced is also a way of someone challenging themselves who has little left capable of doing so. He’s temporarily stranded there because his ship’s disguise is about to be penetrated and the Teacher has to get away, morph a new disguise, and then return. So he’s stuck while it does so.

Professor Crazy: Who are some of your favorite SF authors, who’ve inspired you the most? What was the first short story you ever sold called, and who’d you sell it to?

Allen Dean Foster: Eric Frank Russell: brilliant, hysterically funny, and my introduction to ecology. Murray Leinster: pure SF storytelling. Robert Sheckley: the best short-story writer the field has produced.

My first sale was Some Notes Concerning a Green Box, a Lovecraftian tale that was bought by August Derleth for his semi-annual magazine The Arkham Collector. But the first published story was With Friends Like These…, which John W. Campbell bought for Analog (1971).

Professor Crazy: Are you currently working on any movie novelizations and do you have plans for creating another series, since you have finished the Flinx & Pip series? If so, when can we expect to read your next book? And, lastly, though you’ve written the final Flinx & Pip novel, do you have plans to write any more short stories about their adventures? They’re memorable characters, and I’d hate to see the last of them!

Alan Dean Foster: Oh, Flinx Transcendent isn’t necessarily the last F&P novel. Time will tell. It’s hard to top saving the galaxy.

I’m currently in the middle of Sick, INC., the third book of The Tipping Point trilogy. The first volume, The Human Blend, is finished and at Del Rey. I’ve also written the first book of a fantasy trilogy, Oshanurth, that’s set entirely underwater. The book is called Blue Magic, but it doesn’t have a publisher yet.

Professor Crazy: Thanks again, Alan, for participating in this interview, and for going along with some of the crazier aspects of it. You’re one of this era’s most prolific and entertaining SF authors, and I’m proud to have had the chance to interview you.

About Professor Crazy

Professor Crazy here! I have obtained degrees from numerous colleges & universities both Major and Minor, with an emphasis on all of the Various & Sundry schools of Thought & Discipline. I majored in Rhetoric at the University of Illinois, obtained a Master's degree in English at Arizona State University In Tempe, AZ., and another Master's in Secondary Education at UALR, in Little Rock, AR. Then, there are the years I spent with the Swedish Bikini Team, touring throughout Europe...fond memories, those...especially that time in Amsterdam....