I was lucky enough to read the novel Machinehood by S.B. Divya this year.
Actually, I listened to it as an audiobook, which I only bother to mention because the audiobook is of high quality with two narrators who are top notch~ sometimes an audiobook is a subpar experience, but I really enjoyed the work they did and thought about that a number of times during my listen.
Machinehood is a superbly crafted story, combining the best elements of a thriller with thought provoking science fiction, all anchored in relationships. I loved it and reached out to Divya, who was kind enough to correspond back and forth with me and put together this little interview.
We talk a bit about the novel in the interview proper, below. Here is the official blurb, taken from Divya’s website:
“Zero Dark Thirty meets The Social Network in this “clever…gritty” (Ken Liu, author of The Grace of Kings) science fiction thriller about artificial intelligence, sentience, and labor rights in a near future dominated by the gig economy—from Hugo Award nominee S.B. Divya.
Welga Ramirez, executive bodyguard and ex-special forces, is about to retire early when her client is killed in front of her. It’s, 2095 and people don’t usually die from violence. Humanity is entirely dependent on pills that not only help them stay alive but allow them to compete with artificial intelligence in an increasingly competitive gig economy. Daily doses protect against designer diseases, flow enhances focus, zips and buffs enhance physical strength and speed, and juvers speed the healing process.
All that changes when Welga’s client is killed by The Machinehood, a new and mysterious terrorist group that has simultaneously attacked several major pill funders. The Machinehood operatives seem to be part human, part machine, something the world has never seen. They issue an ultimatum: stop all pill production in one week.
Global panic ensues as pill production slows and many become ill. Thousands destroy their bots in fear of a strong AI takeover. But the US government believes the Machinehood is a cover for an old enemy. One that Welga is uniquely qualified to fight.
Welga, determined to take down the Machinehood, is pulled back into intelligence work by the government that betrayed her. But who are the Machinehood, and what do they really want?
A “fantastic, big-idea thriller” (Malka Older, Hugo Award finalist for The Centenal Cycle series) that asks: if we won’t see machines as human, will we instead see humans as machines?”
CR:
How would you like me to address you? Would you like to start by introducing yourself and what you do?
Divya:
I go by Divya, which is my given name. You can read a full explanation of my author name in this post on my website: https://sbdivya.com/fwords/2018/8/11/about-my-name
Aside from being an author, I co-edit the weekly science fiction podcast Escape Pod (escapepod.org), and until very recently, I've worked in electrical engineering in various capacities including machine learning, semiconductors, and medical devices. I was born in India, but I've been in the USA (midwest or southern California) since I was five, so I'm pretty Americanized. I'm also married, with one kid and two cats, and I'm currently in southern California, where I've lived since college.
As for my writing process, it's an ever evolving thing. Machinehood was my first full novel, and it took about 2 years until it was ready to send to publishers, and then another 2 months of revision work after that. I didn't do much outlining at the start and paid the price later on. With my more recent novel, I spent more time planning up front, and that paid off in less time writing and revising. For short stories, I tend to have a rough idea of the beginning and end (and the main character) in my head, but that's enough to get me started on the draft stage.
For all of my writing, I tend to set the first draft aside (for weeks if not months), then go back for a full revision pass, then send it off to my "beta readers" for feedback. I will put it aside while waiting for that, then usually another revision pass, a final polish, and then submission. For longer works (novels or novellas), I go through my agent, so she's part of the feedback-and-revision stage, and she gives the final go-ahead on taking the manuscript to publishers. For short stories, I manage my own magazine submissions whenever I think the story is good enough.
CR:
One of the themes that Machinehood explored was whether the distinctions we draw between humanity and our technology are not as concrete and distinct as we think they are. It seems that our technological development is outpacing (and/or perhaps circumventing, utilizing, and manipulating) our biological evolution. I have severe trepidations about this while at the same time harboring a hope that this is somehow for the better and we are transforming ourselves into something amazing which will transcend our very concept of humanity. Do you feel a similar emotional (and frustrating) response to the evolution of technology, or have you embraced a different kind of attitude? How have your ethical hopes and concerns developed given your experiences as an electrical engineer, author, and mother? I am also curious about your feelings regarding the transhuman movement, assuming they are on your radar.
I think you did an amazing job weaving the world of Machinehood together. Could you talk about how you went about doing that? I'm assuming that you started with some of the major hard sci fi concepts, your ideas of how technology could develop, but what about the rest of it? I think you made judicious use of so many elements of action films and political thrillers, deftly melding these into your work in such a way that they provided a familiar narrative structure for readers to hold onto while so much more was happening. By that I mean your social commentary and discussions, the family relationships which are so very important in the real world and so often passed over or disregarded, the incorporation of religious and philosophical beliefs, and labor histories and struggles of people to keep up, and so on and so on. I appreciate the craft you have displayed with this novel.
How did your ideas and characters develop? I find it interesting to hear that you didn't outline much of this beforehand~ maybe because of your familiarity with working on short stories. I write (very little, but I am trying to figure out how to give more time to it) and most of what I write is based on biographical stuff, so I don't outline so much, but I have always been interested in hearing how authors approach their storytelling. I also wonder how much of yourself you drew on in the creation and fleshing out of Welga and Nithya. I found them to be really engaging characters who I enjoyed spending time with; they are so different but it is easy to respect and admire both of them. I particularly like Nithya for a variety of reasons. Do you happen to cook slow food? I found myself wondering if we would see a sequel with Karma as a main character, who possibly carried forward some characteristics of both Welga and Nithya into another novel.
Divya:
Regarding your first question, I'm gradually coming to believe that our technological evolution isn't as separated from our biology as we might think. Many of the decisions we make regarding tech have significant impacts on our ways of life, our environment, economy, and health. While the natural selection process tends to move slower these days, due to the pace of reproduction and mutation, we've already decided that a certain amount of genetic tinkering is acceptable when it's deemed medically necessary. I don't see this as a slippery slope to some horrible eugenic future, but I do think that what's "medically necessary" is going to become a lot broader than it is today, especially with climate change and space travel.
I don't know enough about the transhuman movement to weigh in on it, but the fact that it is a "movement" at all gives me pause. I prefer the post-human view, that is, to allow at least some portion of our species to move beyond the boundaries and definitions of the human body as it is today. I don't think of post-humans as necessarily being superior to us, in the same way that I don't think of humans as superior to other animals. Our post-human descendants may be capable of much more than we are, but the moral weight of superiority doesn't go along with that, in my view. (My next novel explores this quite a bit. :) )
As for the worldbuilding in Machinehood, it was an iterative process. I spent several weeks up front on research and inventing the technology and social history of 2095. I made up a decade-by-decade history of how we could get there from today (not in huge detail, just enough to help myself believe it). Welga, Nithya, and Josephine evolved as I wrote (and rewrote) the novel. I had to do a lot of revision! But I had figured out the basic plot up front, i.e., that Welga was the action hero, Nithya the quiet scientific friend, and Ao Tara the antagonist and Machinehood mastermind. I often start with a rough outline and then iterate across the triangle of character-worldbuilding-plot until I'm satisfied with the story. I drew on personalities I know, including myself, family, and friends to shape the characters. I'm not exactly a slow food person, but I enjoy cooking, and I'm married to a foodie who - like Welga - de-stresses by being in the kitchen. No sequels planned at the moment. :)
CR:
What are three things that make you hopeful at this point of your life?
Divya:
Things that make me hopeful: the curiosity of children; the enduring power of storytelling; the vastness of the universe.
CR:
Why do you write? What compels you to be a storyteller?
Divya:
I write because it's how I process life. When I go for a long stretch without writing (fiction or journaling), I get very cranky. As for telling stories, I particularly like writing speculative fiction because I get to play in the sandbox of possibilities, which is very large. I'm much less interested in writing contemporary or historical fiction because of the constraints of reality. I prefer asking, "What if?" and then exploring possible answers. At the same time, stories help me understand my fellow human beings, so my fiction tends to be character focused as much as idea focused.
CR:
Could you list a few authors who both inspire you and are not getting enough attention? I think your podcast would certainly expose you to a number of authors flying under the radar.
Divya:
Some recent authors whose stories have inspired me are Aimee Ogden, Innocent Chizaram Ilo, Micaiah Johnson, Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, and Karl Schroeder.
I wrapped the interview up a little earlier than I might have if there weren’t so many compelling and interesting interviews of Divya out there right now. I can only imagine answering the same types of questions over and over might get... tiresome. Instead, having had my chance to ask her some questions, I want to share with you one of the interviews I enjoyed the most, her recent conversation with Malka Older.
As mentioned earlier, you can find out more about S.B. Divya by checking out her website,
the podcast she coedits,
by following her Twitter,
https://twitter.com/Divyastweets
and by following her on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/sbdivya_author/
Her website is full of great reads. I recommend you check out Science Bites (for science news she finds interesting) and the Nonfiction section of the Publications tab, where you can find a number of free essays and writings as well as a list of her interviews.
I am really looking forward to her next book and I am so thankful she took the time to read and respond to my questions.