Climate of Change (66 page)

Finally in the early 1990s, my reputation secured by my fantasy sales, I started writing it, and the first four volumes are the result:
Isle of Woman
,
Shame of Man
,
Hope of Earth
, and
Muse of Art
. Big novels, ranging up to a quarter-million words long, and the subject barely touched. My early notion of having detailed progressive maps showing the changing extent of ancient empires faded as unworkable, and became simple spot maps to set the scenes. In this volume I don't even have that; I simply describe the locales.

My biggest problem was how to cover the whole of human history for several million years yet keep it intelligible and interesting to the average reader. Of course I had to sample it, as there is way too much to address fully. So I had a series of stories relating to breakthroughs in the human condition, such as the development of facile speech or the lockable knee. Stories, because the average reader does not relate well to anthropological lecturing. He needs to identify with a character and see the world through those eyes, feeling the character's feelings. In short, a soft touch. I saved the lecturing for the italicized notes surrounding the stories, which readers could skip if so inclined. No lists of kings and dates here; I prefer the feel of the times, especially for the common man.

Even so, it wasn't enough. I did not want my narrative to fall apart
into many loosely connected episodes. I needed to unify it. This brought me to perhaps my single most significant device: having a single small cast of characters per novel, experiencing life as it was ten million years ago, one million years ago, a hundred thousand, five thousand, one thousand, five hundred, and so on right up to the present and the near future. But not science fiction, not time travel. I did it by having them be different people, of different periods, but similar in character and relationships and names. In this novel, Hero is actually twenty different people; the name is a mere fictive convenience. He always has two younger brothers and two younger sisters, similarly aged and named, whatever their race or situation. We are all ordinary people, regardless of our appearance or circumstance. Hero always is interested in a woman named Crenelle, regardless of whether he marries her. I let the reader, knowing that, suspend his disbelief and see Hero and his siblings as the same people. That lends personal unity to the whole, despite widely changing times and places and cultures. A few characters originated in prior volumes, but they have the framework of this novel when visiting here.

All went reasonably well for four volumes, and I was satisfied to continue writing them indefinitely. I had hired a researcher, Alan Riggs, who was marvelous in delving into arcane references and coming up with the information I needed. Yes, I had my library of about 3,000 selected volumes, but I figured it would have taken me a year or more to write each volume, doing my own research, and I couldn't afford that. Because I earned my living through funny fantasy, not historical fiction, and I needed to maintain my income so that I could afford to take the time for history. My frivolous fantasy was my serious business, while my serious historical fiction was my less commercial preference. That's the way it is, in the inverted realm of publishing. As it turned out, each volume still took me half a year, compared to the three months or less each fantasy novel took.

Then I lost my market for historical fiction. Details are complicated, but the essence is that my publisher mismarketed it as dark fantasy, which it wasn't, so that readers of historical fiction didn't know about it, and readers of fantasy weren't much interested. It was a
shame. Publishers can be idiots, but they control the money and marketing, sometimes to the detriment of their authors. So sales declined, and the publisher lost interest. Deprived of my market, I let my researcher go and stopped work on the novel.
Climate of Change
was two-thirds completed, but there it stopped. I wrote fantasy instead. I am, after all, a commercial writer; if I can't sell it, I hesitate to write it.

Thus it remained for a decade. In the interim several things happened. I became a decade older, now in my seventies, and increasingly conscious that I risked leaving several projects unfinished when I died, and that bothered me. So I started completing novels and series, tying up loose ends. One of them was
Climate of Change
. But of course my researcher was long since gone, and I still didn't want to take a full year or more for a single novel. Still, I should be able to finish a third of a novel in half a year, using my accumulated library; that seemed a fair compromise.

My wife's strength declined mysteriously, until she could no longer walk or even stand and was confined to the wheelchair. She could not move it herself, because her arms weakened the same way her legs did. I took over the household chores, meals, dishes, shopping, etc., and had to heave her in and out of the wheelchair. My writing plummeted as my working time diminished. This also affected my appearance: for decades we had exchanged haircuts, but she could no longer do mine, so I started growing my hair long. Now I wear it in a ponytail and I'm satisfied. I like to say that I never knew what beautiful hair I had until after I turned seventy. Then at last we got a diagnosis: CIDP, or Chronic Inflammatory, Demyelating Polyneuropathy. In English, that means that her immune system was attacking and stripping the myelin insulation around her nerves, so that they were in effect shorting out. The signals her brain sent to her limbs didn't get there, and her muscles were atrophying for lack of use. It is related to Lou Gehrig's disease and other wasting diseases. After taking out the arms and legs it can progress to the lungs, and that is the end. Fortunately for us this variant was treatable. It required four-hour infusions of IVIg every five or six weeks. Each treatment cost $3,000, and for a time we had to pay it ourselves, after Congress changed the reimbursement rate to make it
unfeasible for hospitals. We were lucky we could manage it, because others who could not were dying. But the treatments are effective, and she was able to learn to walk again, painfully, and now is securely back on her feet. She can't walk far, but she can function well enough. This year we had our fifty-second anniversary; death has not yet us parted. She took back some of the household chores, and my writing time increased, though not to what it had been before. It was another reminder of mortality, however. We never know what the future holds. It was time to get this project done.

In that interim the Internet expanded to prominence, and with it came services like e-mail, search engines, and online data bases. I discovered that Google and Wikipedia were fine research tools, effectively replacing my human researcher. Modern technology was coming to my rescue. It wasn't perfect, but the combination of my library and the Internet enabled me to complete the novel on my schedule.

Meanwhile human history continues. In that intervening decade the United States manufactured a pretext to invade and occupy another nation, leading to incalculable financial, human, and moral costs. Population continued its devastating increase, leading to widespread poverty and starvation. The scourge of AIDS became globally prominent, worse because whole nations are trying to pretend it doesn't exist. The cost of energy, notably oil, is increasing horrendously. And the climate, of course—global warming is now recognized, and is helping drive plant and animal species toward extinction. The change of climate is increasingly dominating public awareness.

I discovered something as I returned to historical research and writing. My writing and reading tastes have been warped by my success in fantasy. I once thrilled to research ancient cultures and events; now they are less compelling. Oh, it was great fathoming how the Alani princess was captured and married by the Armenian king, discovering how the Zimba of Africa ate entire towns, how the Spaniards destroyed the last independent Maya state, how the first British colony of Australia was founded, how the Xhosa torpedoed themselves by believing a teen girl's vision, investigating the notorious Armenian genocide—yes indeed, it all is fascinating. But not as much so as it was
for me before. I regret that on one level, but must recognize its reality. I have been corrupted by the ease and wonder of fantasy.

Still, I'm glad to finally complete this novel, and hope that readers like it. So has my negative impression of the direction our species is taking ameliorated? Not at all. This novel suggests a positive outcome to the several trends that can destroy us, but I'm not at all sure such necessary policies will be implemented. I fear we will continue with the ecological disaster we call agriculture, with outrageous pollution, and to breed and consume wastefully until we crash, leaving a devastated remnant reverting to savagery. With luck, I won't live to see that, but I'm afraid my children will. I wish it were otherwise.

I hope I am wrong.