Great fiction does not demand fantastical elements. In some cases they would only detract from it. Had the Joad family encountered a horde of chupacabras, or Captain Ahab obsessed over harpooning Cthulhu, or Bertie and Jeeves accidentally entered a time vortex en route to Blandings Castle, then the reader might rightly scratch their head and think “huh.”
Yet great fiction and fantasy are not mutually exclusive. Certain adventures can only take place on Vonnegut’s hocus-pocus Tralfamadore or in Tolkien’s shadowy Mordor, and the world would be a far poorer place without some record of mankind’s reactions to the impossible.
Kevin A. Kuhn of Eden Prairie has made a fine contribution to that record with Ten Tales of a Dark Tomorrow, his second published book. His style of writing is frank yet vivid. He practices a certain delicacy as he coaxes his reader toward often unsettling conclusions – like a kind stranger you might meet in the woods, who lures you closer with honey sweet words despite very obviously having one hand hidden behind his back.
“Science fiction is the literature of ideas,” said Kevin. “It allows us to explore themes which are inaccessible without moving past our present reality – however dystopian our present reality might be. Now, I’m perfectly happy to be called a sci-fi writer, and I’m thrilled to have been accepted into their ranks, but I’d better describe what I write as speculative fiction.
“Some of my stories aren’t sci-fi at all. A story in which boys discover riding their bikes makes time stand still, or an heirloom causes a woman to gain her grandmother’s memories, is better classified as magical realism. As an author I’m interested in any theme which can’t exist without something supernatural happening.
“As a technologist I’m amazed by how quickly the world is progressing. We went from the first powered flight to the moon landing in less than 70 years, and we’re still showing no signs of slowing down. Fusion power is coming closer to fruition every day, and our understanding of quantum mechanics is advancing so rapidly it’s almost frightening. I set out to explore the implications of technology before we experience them firsthand.
“I’m not a ‘hard’ science fiction writer by any means. I do try to be as accurate as I can, but I’m ultimately more interested in the soul than I am in predicting the future.
“I first became interested in my genre the same way I imagine a lot of other people have – by watching The Twilight Zone. I still get chills whenever I hear that eerie theme song. When I was younger I also read a lot of Heinlein, Asimov and Bradbury, none of whom I would ever disservice by comparing myself to. I’m also a great fan of Stephen King. People tend to think of him more as a horror author, which he certainly is, although he has a keen ability to make the paranormal seem believable.
“It seems I’m not the only one who embraced sci-fi. It was always kind of a niche genre while I was growing up, but it’s only becoming more mainstream these days. I am happy to see more and more people falling in love with the literature of ideas, but we’re so awash in content right now that it’s hard to keep up! And I suppose I’m contributing to it, in my own small way...
“Ten Tales of a Dark Tomorrow is an anthology of short stories. Some of them came to me in my dreams. I had to race to my desk as soon as I woke up to write down as much as I could, and I filled in the blanks later. Others began with sparks of ideas that I had while teaching information technology. It’s hard not to imagine a runaway artificial intelligence when you appreciate how far computers have come – and how quickly.”
It is very possible that computers will one day enslave us all. Maybe it will play out like in The Matrix, where robots farm human bodies for electricity so they can make toaster waffles. Maybe it will be even worse, like Ellison’s I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream in which a computer torments the world’s few remaining humans out of sheer spite. Or maybe, heaven forbid, computers will begin to offer so mind-numbing a torrent of distractions that we all turn into amorphous boors.
You may as well take advantage of your computer before the roles are reversed. Use it to order your own copy of the award-winning Ten Tales of a Dark Tomorrow on Amazon and support a great local author.