Molly Tanzer on her SF / art heist mashup: “The speculative possibilities were fun to play with.”
The author talks to Monster Complex® about an intergalactic art heist by a ragtag group of underqualified misfits. What could go wrong?
“And Side by Side They Wander is made up of a lot of elements—an art heist, sentient fungus, alien species, androids. But at its heart, the novella is a meditation on what’s been called ‘the culture of the copy.’”
Molly Tanzer is an author who really has our interest at Monster Complex®. We’re talking with her today about her new science fiction / art heist novel And Side by Side They Wander, a genre mash-up that asks deep questions about reality.
And just a few weeks ago, we talked with her about a series of Sword & Sorcery stories where she was revisiting a classic character from the beginnings of the genre.
Tanzer has been nominated for the Locus Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Wonderland Book Award. Her novel Creatures of Charm and Hunger won the Colorado Book Award in 2021. Her work adapting manga for English-speaking audiences has been nominated for the American Manga Awards.
Her critically acclaimed short fiction can be found in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, New Edge Sword and Sorcery Magazine, The Big Book of Cyberpunk, and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror. (Among others outlets.)
Tanzer’s latest novel, the literary mashup And Side by Side They Wander, looks at the future of crime:
In a future where there are clones, androids, and a sentient mycelium that creates fungal simulacra, who is real and what is fake?
The brand-new book is already getting some great comments from reviews and authors. Just a few examples:
“Part space opera and part art heist, this is a great example of Molly Tanzer’s dynamic, ingenious mind.”—Silvia Moreno-Garcia, author of Mexican Gothic
“This book had me at ‘intergalactic art heist by a ragtag group of underqualified misfits.’”—Book Riot
“A delightful, dark, and entertaining romp with serious intent behind it. The writing is so smart and sharp – Molly Tanzer is at the top of her form in this beautifully constructed novel.”—Jeff VanderMeer, bestselling author of the Southern Reach trilogy
“This bite-size romp is a wild and thought-provoking ride.”—Publishers Weekly
“A wicked satire inside a chilling dystopian tale inside a heist movie, that pays off on every level. Tanzer is a captivating storyteller.”—M.R. Carey, author of The Girl With All the Gifts
Monster Complex® talked with Tanzer about all the ideas that And Side by Side They Wander tangles with, how the new book compares with other science fiction books—as well as other crime fiction, and what Tanzer’s variety of writings have in common with each other…
Interview: Molly Tanzer on And Side By Side They Wander
Q: And Side by Side They Wander looks like a mash-up of all these different ideas and genres and philosophical questions. What inspired this mix? Which of these different ideas had you already been interested in (or wrestling with) for a longer time?
And Side by Side They Wander is made up of a lot of elements—an art heist, sentient fungus, alien species, androids. But at its heart, the novella is a meditation on what’s been called “the culture of the copy.”
In his famous essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” philosopher Walter Benjamin proposes that works of art have something called “aura,” an ineffable presence that affects us when we see them in real life.
The “mechanical reproduction” he references is photography. Benjamin saw the rise of photographs of works of art, which are great, as they faithfully reproduce famous paintings and sculptures.
And yet they don’t have the same effect on us as seeing those works of art in person. There’s a distortion of the relationship between subject and object that leads to a compromised experience.
The more those works of art are reproduced, the more their aura is compromised. Benjamin doesn’t think this is a bad thing, by any means.
I got my art history education in central Florida, looking at photographs and slides! This reproduction means art is more easily accessed by the many. Regardless, it’s still not the same as seeing them in person!
This sounds very woo, but it’s a real phenomenon! If take the idea of “art” out of the equation, we can think about times we’ve seen a gorgeous sunset or been awed by a vista, or been moved by the moon hanging over us on a beautiful night, when we take a picture of it with our cameras or our phones and look back on it, it’s just not the same. This is the same distortion at work.
I love Benjamin’s essay and have thought about it for over twenty years. Then, during COVID lockdown, I saw a news article on some tech bros who figured out how to truly democratize art (so they said), by using lasers to scan works such as the wrongfully retained Parthenon marbles in the British Museum, then reproducing them exactly.
Every museum in the world could have a Parthenon frieze! Or could they? Are such reproductions truly “art” that should be in a museum?
I was also rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation at the time, and it got me thinking about Data, and how we could apply these ideas to artificial life forms. I don’t have any answers here, but the questions continue to fascinate me.
Q: Were any of these elements new to you—new ideas or new questions to answer?
My undergraduate degree is in Art History, and my M.A. is in Humanities, so the questions weren’t necessarily new. But the way I chose to apply them were all interesting to come up with. Androids, fungus that reproduces what it consumes, clones—the speculative possibilities re: the idea of “aura” were fun to play with.
Q: Are there SF brands or books or authors (or whatever) where you’d you tell fans, “If you like that, check out my book”? How do you compare and contrast And Side by Side They Wander with those?
Recently, a reviewer compared an advance copy of And Side by Side They Wander to Becky Chambers, which was very generous of her! While she didn’t mention which book she meant, I hope it was To Be Taught, If Fortunate, as that’s my favorite thing I’ve read by Chambers, and it’s also a spacefaring adventure with philosophical underpinnings. It’s also the least “cozy” thing I’ve read by her, and I wouldn’t call my novella cozy.
M.R. Carey, who generously blurbed my novella, might also be a good comp. His novels Infinity Gate and Echo of Worlds are really wonderful adventures, and deal with a lot of thoughts on artificial intelligence (of the real sort—not the marketing term we’re using to describe Earth Destroying Autocorrect).
I hope there’s a little something for all readers of SF in And Side by Side They Wander, even at such a short length.
Q: How about any crime stories (books/authors/etc)? Anything from crime fiction that makes an interesting compare/contrast with And Side by Side They Wander?
I’m a big fan of Sara Gran, who wrote the Claire DeWitt books and the genre-bending The Book of the Most Precious Substance. She’s great at the “unhinged, but relatable” first person narrator. So I was definitely thinking about her work when I was finding my protagonist’s voice.
Q: We recently talked about your Sword & Sorcery stories. How do those and And Side by Side They Wander compare with each other? And how do those all compare with your other writings? (Are you writing for different sets of readers—or are usually looking at the same ideas or questions, but from different angles?)
And Side by Side They Wander is my first long-form science fiction story, but I think people familiar with my work will see some through-lines. The narrator is complex while being a bit of a disaster, and there’s weird fungus in this one, which also featured heavily in my “sporror” novel Creatures of Want and Ruin. There’s lots about art, and I frequently write about art and artists.
This is a hard question to answer because And Side by Side They Wander is my first book in six years. And I’ve changed a lot over those six years, as a person and a writer. (Who didn’t, during COVID?)
Even so, I think this book and its themes are similar to my other books and stories. I hope people who have been reading me for years—and new readers—will enjoy it.
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Related: Molly Tanzer: Reviving the first heroine of Sword & Sorcery
The author talks about an intergalactic art heist by a group of underqualified misfits. What can go wrong? “At its heart, the novella is a meditation on ‘the culture of the copy.’”