Lynda Williams and “Ethics in SF”

Lynda Williams (right) with a vibrant
smile that matches her vivacious personality.

Lynda Williams has three degrees, three children, a husband, seven novels and multiple careers. In other words, she is one busy woman. She has worn a veritable cornucopia of different hats in her career and personal life – many of them simultaneously.She has taught applied computing for twenty years, launched a freenet, as well as chaired and championed community causes. Lynda has also been a reporter, a crisis counselor, a student and a department manager in educational innovation.  Like I said, she keeps busy. When and how she has found the time to create the Okal Rel Saga is beyond my comprehension. The “Okal Rel Universe” is a 10 novel series, published by Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy, set in a very different universe. The character-driven stories tackle themes of culture clash in a context where all-out war is so horrific it is all but obsolete, but passions still run high. Too big to be restricted to the main series, the ORU is also the setting of related works by both origin author, Lynda Williams, and others.  Currently, Lyndais working on something she calls “Ethics in SF”. It sounded intriguing to me so I had to ask Lynda to tell me more about it. SE: What is Ethics in SF?Lynda: It’s a series of interviews and mini-essays featured on my blog, Reality Skimming.  The mini-essays are written by thoughtful contributors with a point to make from an ethical standpoint with respect to science fiction, fantasy or related genres bundled into the umbrella of “speculative fiction”.  Sometimes I write mini-essays myself but usually draw on others. Author interviews tend to be longer and sometimes extend over multiple posts. The series started on the old version of Reality Skimming (see: http://okalrel.blogspot.com/search/label/Ethics%20in%20SF) and continues on its new incarnation athttp://okalrel.org/blog
SE: What inspired you to create this project?Lynda: SF has been a kind of “faith” for me:  faith in rationality and progress but also in human nature to surmount its own failings.  I didn’t realize SF played this role for me until I found myself increasingly troubled by a growing affinity for the “dark side” manifest as admiration for powerful bad guys and the depiction of heroes as doomed or foolish.  I wanted to take a stand, with others, on reclaiming the high ground for the genre. Sure, nothing is off limits anymore but how do we feel about it? Let’s talk about right and wrong, again, damn it.
SE: What do you hope to accomplish with it?
Lynda: My goal is to create a space for people to think about ethics in. To re-focus creators and consumers of SF on the moral considerations of the questions raised by the stories they enjoy.  Asking people to write about a topic encourages them to think about it, and validates doing so. Ideally, I’d like to inspire dialog and even arguments. Ethics isn’t at all straight-forward. It’s a mine field of potential disagreements.  People ought to have moral reactions to characters and situations but talking about right and wrong appears to have gone out of fashion, as if it’s indefensible or hopelessly naive.  Power fills the vacuum.  We always admired the powerful, of course, but we used to require them to deserve our respect a bit more.  On other fronts, great gains have been made in acknowledging the injustices of discrimination and raising big questions about what it means to be human.  I’d like to encourage people to help each other make sense of the outcomes.

SE: Who is taking part in “Ethics in SF” right now and who are you welcoming to take part in it?
Lynda: I initiate contact with prospective contributors. People are also welcome to make inquiries.  Once we’ve got a prospect signed up, blog administrator Michelle Milburn takes over.  My initial contacts have been drawn from people I’ve met through my SF Canada and Broad Universe involvement – both associations of writers. But Michelle and I are open to submissions from any writers, readers or consumers of speculative fiction in other media who have thoughts to share on the topic. If interested, e-mail both lynda@okalrel.org and okalrel@mmilburn.ca with your idea before writing it up.    If you want a rewarding experience that will broaden your horizons and enliven your imagination, dive into the Okal Rel Universe. I have!  Lynda Williams’ Links:
http://okalrel.blogspot.com/ (Reality Skimming)
http://www.okalrel.org/books.htmlhttp://clarionfoundation.wordpress.com/tag/lynda-williams/