Student Spotlight: Odin Halvorson

Interview

What do you write?

It’s absolute­ly a cliché for me to say this, but… every­thing. I have three chap­books of pub­lished poetry — one of which is 5–7‑5 English Lan­guage Haiku — and I’ve had one of my haiku pieces repub­lished in the Eastern Struc­tures haiku journal. I’ve also pub­lished short stories which fall into genre cat­e­gories – science fiction, mostly. I write exten­sive­ly on Medium.com because I like working on arti­cles and aca­d­e­m­ic essays. It all inter­ests me. That said, my pure passion is so-called “genre” work within the popular fiction realm. I grew up watch­ing Babylon 5 and reading DUNE and Lord of the Rings; I’m a science fiction and fantasy man through and through and I’m quite ded­i­cat­ed to the impor­tance and overall merit of that sort of work. As Ursula K. Le Guin said: Realism is just as much a genre as fantasy.

Is there an author or artist who has most pro­found­ly influ­enced your work?

Well, that’s one of those ques­tions that can never be answered in the sin­gu­lar. There are so many people who have influ­enced me! At the top of my mind, right now, perhaps I would say “Terry Pratch­ett.” But I could just as easily say Genre Rod­den­ber­ry — whose work informed my per­son­al phi­los­o­phy and helped make me the person I am today. Or J. Michael Straczyn­s­ki. Or Frank Herbert. Or Le Guin. Better to say that I, as a writer and a person, am an amal­ga­ma­tion of all those artists and writers I have encoun­tered. Neil Gaiman might say that these artists have helped me to grow fertile compost for my own ideas, a point which I’d agree with easily.

Why did you choose Stonecoast?

Because they were not merely friend­ly to genre fiction but active­ly real­ized the impor­tance and worth of science fiction and fantasy. Also, because they had a res­i­den­cy in Ireland — it’s quite sad that the winter res­i­den­cies closed down, actu­al­ly, as those were far more inex­pen­sive on a student budget. What made me pleased, after the fact, with my choice of Stonecoast, was how rich of a faculty selec­tion they offered. Real writers who have exten­sive and pres­ti­gious pub­li­ca­tion records. That let me know that I would be trained by people who could offer me the sort of support I need to take my own work as far as it can go.

What is your favorite Stonecoast memory?

I loved the popular fiction dinner because it was just a long table of people talking rau­cous­ly about aspects of their craft and the things that they love. I really enjoyed my work­shops with Tobias Buckell and Robert Levy, too, because I was in an envi­ron­ment where my work was being appre­ci­at­ed yet also pushed to be better. And never once did I feel like I was being told to write dif­fer­ent­ly — that I had to write to suit a mentor’s pref­er­ences or the desires of the work­shop group; I felt like I was sur­round­ed by people pas­sion­ate for the art of sto­ry­telling and the craft of writing who were gen­uine­ly excited to be able to share their thoughts and ideas. That’s the sort of envi­ron­ment that inspires growth.

What do you hope to accom­plish in the future?

A PhD., teach­ing at the college level, world­wide pub­li­ca­tion, fame and fortune. Seri­ous­ly, though, I do plan on con­tin­u­ing my edu­ca­tion deeper into the aca­d­e­m­ic world with the inten­tion of even­tu­al­ly teach­ing at the college level. I enjoy being in a men­tor­ship role and I’d like to pass on some of thing things I’ve learned to others who want to become writers. And I also have my own hopes and dreams regard­ing pub­li­ca­tion. To that end, it’s all about con­tin­u­ing to hone my craft and stay true to my ded­i­ca­tion. I might not ever reach world­wide book sales, but I do want to publish more of my writing and con­tin­ue explor­ing the excit­ing uni­vers­es living in my brain.

If you could have written one book, story, or poem that already exists, which would you choose?

You know, I’m not sure I would want to. When we read, we are encoun­ter­ing the mind, the hidden “spirit” if you will, of another human being. Some­times trans­mit­ted across years or cen­turies. Someone speak­ing straight to us in the most inti­mate of ways. What I love about the works of others is that they are the works of others — and that, in turn, inspires me to create my own work. However, there are some things which are coop­er­a­tive enter­pris­es. I would love to have written episodes or tie-in novels for fran­chis­es like Babylon 5 — those larger stories which meant (and mean) so much to me. And maybe, in the future, I’ll be able to do just that.

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Featured Work

All Our Lonely Chains

The fol­low­ing is a short story by Odin Halvor­son  exclu­sive­ly for Stonecoast Review.

SolSe­n­ate is Mother,

SolSe­n­ate is Father,
Human­i­ty, benef­i­cent, stands togeth­er forever.

-From the anthem of the Benef­i­cent Unity

Fires of ver­mil­lion washed across the void, scat­ter­ing the enriched guts of a dozen star­ships into the arms of empti­ness. And, just like that, the ‘war’ was over. At least it was for every­one by Lorenzi, Captain of the warship named Astro­dus, a man with one final order to obey.

He knew, as he stood on the empty deck of the obser­va­tion gallery, watch­ing the explo­sions glow hot and brief in the dark­ness, that he would obey those final orders. But this knowl­edge dragged at him, clung to him like a bac­te­r­i­al infec­tion, made him painful­ly aware of the motion of blood passing through his neck and just behind his ears. And so, at least for a short time, his hand was stayed from the final command.

“Lorenzi,” the voice came to him, dis­em­bod­ied, seem­ing­ly from the empty air. “I detect three thou­sand and ninety life­signs, gauged from esti­mat­ed density read­ings of ver­i­fied escape vehicles.”

“There were over two-hundred thou­sand aboard those ships.”

“Yes.”

“Does it bother you? All those lives?”

“I was not the one who gave the order for their destruc­tion, nor the one to carry it out.” The over­tones of the voice were flat, but there was doubt, buried in the words.

The voice belonged to Astro­dus herself — or, rather, her Avatar — Lorenzi’s sole com­pan­ion since SolSenate’s ini­tia­tive to erad­i­cate the colo­nial threat began. And now, he thought, there would be nobody but her. Once their task was done, there would be no other living beings for a thou­sand light years. Even the rest of the crew, all ten thou­sand clone sol­diers loaded into Astrodus’s belly, were long gone. Dead months ago on the titan moon of Mordul.

“Our orders are clear,” Lorenzi said. “Aren’t they? As long as those people live, the danger remains. Earth, Mars… the whole of human Unity is threatened.”

For several seconds, Astro­dus said nothing. When she did speak, her voice sounded strained, as if search­ing for a way to dis­agree. “Yes. SolSe­n­ate decreed the danger. However, the worm­hole is closed, Calamity’s mine’s took care of that last month.”

“But, even so… there’s a danger, isn’t there? There could, some day, be a danger to home?”

“There could.”

Lorenzi watched the distant glitter of the expand­ing debris cloud, his dark face over­grown by a week’s worth of peppery stubble. “Target the escape vehi­cles,” he said after the silence had stretched on for a minute or more. “Begin pow­er­ing the x‑ray battery.”

“Under­stood. Charg­ing, now.”

#

When he could no longer bear the dark­ness of the obser­va­tion plat­form, Lorenzi retreat­ed into the bright decks of the ship-proper. The Astro­dus’s cor­ri­dors, painted in com­fort­ing shades of green, blue and sunset orange, nor­mal­ly warmed his mood when things grew dire. But this time, even walking the cheer­ful hall­ways overlit by bright UV cords did nothing to end the tremble in his heart. Every man, woman, and child… that was his order. Not a single soul could be allowed to survive.

The refugee fleet out of Caliope Colony, the last of the now-destroyed extra-solar habi­tats, had burned its fuel hard for a whole week trying to escape their fate. But the Astro­dus and her sister ships were designed for the chase. Their com­mand­ment a simple one: to destroy every last extra-solar human being. Erad­i­cate them. Ster­il­ize them from the uni­verse. A ter­ri­ble, brutal task but one which needed to be done. The danger these people posed was insur­mount­able; their way of life threat­ened not just the sta­bil­i­ty of the Unity, but the very safety of humanity.

“Are the weapons ready?” He knew they were but asked anyway, stalling time.

“Yes. X‑ray battery at full readi­ness. Targets are acquired.” Perhaps it was his imag­i­na­tion, but he thought he heard a trace of melan­choly in her voice.

Of the Astrodus’s six sister ships sent to this war, only she still lived. Seven sisters and their seven soli­tary Cap­tains, reduced to two lives and one fragile destiny. What were a few more deaths among a multitude?

“Wait for me, okay? I’ll be on the bridge soon.”

A brief pause, then: “I know.”

#

The bridge, a semi-cir­cu­lar amphithe­atre-like room, curved around a central station where a glowing soligram hovered, dis­play­ing the ten-million kilo­me­ter sphere of the Astrodus’s sensor range. In this room, the walls were a bare, gun­metal gray.

Lorenzi went to the soligram sphere and touched it, his fingers drag­ging along the out­er­most edge of the crack­ling elec­tro­sta­t­ic field. The globe shifted at even this light touch, spin­ning gently until the space occu­pied by the refugee fleet’s debris field hovered before him. Astro­dus marked the thou­sand or so escape vehi­cles for him, tiny glowing gold lights amid the back­ground blue of the soligram field.

“Your sister ships…” He was not certain what to say. Astrodus’s sisters had used their own anti­mat­ter cores to destroy the rene­gade fleet, com­mit­ting suicide for the greater good.

“The attack was exe­cut­ed as planned.” Astrodus’s voice was flat, emo­tion­less in a way that chilled Lorenzi. “All of the target vessels were destroyed as well, though, as SolSe­n­ate pre­dict­ed, the number of refugees who escaped destruc­tion is dan­ger­ous­ly high.”

“What could be dan­ger­ous about them?” The words slipped out before he knew they were in his mind. He strug­gled to right himself, uncer­tain what he was even trying to say. “There’s no way back for them. For any of us. A thou­sand light years, that’s the dis­tance we would have to travel to get home.”

“SolSe­n­ate was quite clear about the danger they posed.”

There. Posed. Astro­dus said nothing unless it mattered.

“These people are going to die even without our involve­ment,” he ges­tured at the glowing target dots hov­er­ing before him, “are they really so dan­ger­ous? Why did SolSe­n­ate order your sisters to destroy them­selves, or order us to stay behind to finish off the strag­glers? Look at them, they’re pathet­ic. Just refugees!”

“And cannot refugees be dan­ger­ous? Can they not harbor disease?”

“Dis­eases we can cure.”

“Ah, but Lorenzi, what about the dis­eases of the mind?”

He closed his eyes. That was the argu­ment; that was always the argu­ment. For ten years, ever since SolSe­n­ate had decreed its state of emer­gency, the one con­stant refrain was the sup­posed risk these colonists posed to Earth, Mars and the entire concept of the Benef­i­cent Unity. Every­thing human­i­ty had strug­gled to ascend to, over a thou­sand years, could be ruined by this untamed rabble spread­ing among a cluster of distant stars.

“I don’t know,” he said, sur­prised to realize that he truly did not. In the begin­ning, he had believed. But now? “Am I being selfish? If we do this, we die out here. There’s no going home for either of us.”

Astro­dus and he were linked, inex­orably, and by more than the cyber­net­ic implants spi­dered through his brain or the organic neurons buried deep within her AI core. They had come through the worm­hole togeth­er, had come through fire and vacuum to this place where the light of Sol was a thou­sand years old. And they had suf­fered togeth­er as they did their duty. Suf­fered as their friends died. Lorenzi knew what he wanted. He also knew what duty demand­ed of him. The two con­flict­ing paths boiled within him as he waited for her reply.

“I do not want to die,” Astro­dus said, at long last. “But I wish, far less, to be alone. So, perhaps it is self­ish­ness. Perhaps, now that my sisters and your fellow cap­tains have answered the call of duty, we are allowed to be selfish. Or, perhaps, if we chose poorly, we doom the home which birthed us.”

Lorenzi opened his eyes again, looking at the glowing sphere before him. The fragile dots, faint gold, still glowed. How long before air ran out, damaged hulls began to fail? The last of a free human­i­ty, con­demned to a slow and ago­niz­ing fate. Better to hand them a swift death. Better to follow orders and save his home, thought it was a home a thou­sand light years distant.

Astro­dus was right, this was why he was captain — why there had to be a human captain aboard all sen­tient ships. Avatars could change their minds — had been known to con­tra­dict their orders. But a human? Guided by SolSe­n­ate since birth? No Captain had ever turned against the Unity. Lorenzi doubted if any had ever even con­sid­ered such a thing. But he was con­sid­er­ing such a thing. Perhaps the chain had been unbro­ken, but perhaps he was the weak link in the chains which shack­led them all. Or, perhaps, he had been away from SolSe­n­ate too long, out among the freedom of the stars.

The command to fire hovered on the tip of his tongue. His lips moved as he mouthed the word. One word. Fire. That was all it would take.

“No.”

“Lorenzi?”

“They left Earth cen­turies ago. They lived out here, peace­ful­ly, for all that time. And now the wormhole’s closed. A thou­sand years for our final signal to reach home. As far as SolSe­n­ate knows, we did our duty. We accom­plished our goal.”

The fol­low­ing silence had a deaf­en­ing edge to it. Lorenzi once more felt the pound­ing of his pulse, a bio­log­i­cal rhythm of his terror. He almost hoped she would reject him, that Astro­dus would accuse him of treason and com­plete their mission on her own.

“The cargo bay can accom­mo­date all of the escape vehi­cles.” Her voice was soft, stri­at­ed excite­ment cours­ing through each syl­la­ble. “The clone soldier accom­mo­da­tions in my belly can house them all.”

The golden dots on the blue sensor globe flick­ered and their colors changed to green. The Astro­dus had marked them as friend­lies, as ships to be rescued rather than destroyed. This was, Lorenzi real­ized, the moment when every­thing changed.

“Then…” he lin­gered for a moment on the words, savor­ing the first deci­sion he had ever truly made. “Bring the sur­vivors aboard.”

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