Amazon.com:
Do you read science fiction or fantasy? Who are your
favorites?
Louise Marley:
I read hard science
fiction by Greg Bear, and I read weird and wonderful literature by
Geoff Ryman, and writers like Nancy Kress, Elizabeth Moon, and lots
and lots of Connie Willis. I try to dip into new writers
occasionally, because sometimes they're such a fresh voice, it's
really inspiring. A book that I read recently that I really enjoyed
was Marcos Donnelly's first novel,
Prophets for the
End of Time. It was a romp, but it seemed to get very
little attention, which was unfortunate.
Amazon.com:
You're a classical singer, besides being a writer--who are
your musical inspirations?
Marley:
Those change all the time. I do love classical singing, and I
have always loved
Marilyn Horne, for
example, who is the quintessential mezzo-soprano. But I enjoy a lot
of the new singers coming along, too. I'm in a Mozart period right
now, because of The Glass Harmonica
. So I'm immersing
myself in Mozart flute quintets, piano quartets, and symphonies.
Amazon.com:
Tell us a bit about your music career. You sing all over the
world!
Marley:
(laughs) Well, that sounds really good. But I have sung in
Italy and Russia, and next year, I will sing in France and Spain.
These are all church-related concerts, but professional. And I have
concertized a bit around the United States, mostly here in the
Northwest. I have sung a couple of times with the Seattle Opera and
the Seattle Symphony. I'm very proud of that, because those are
world-class organizations.
Amazon.com:
At a young age, you found yourself forced to choose between
two great loves--baseball and music. At what point did this third
career--writing--pop up?
Marley:
I had been writing stories for my son when he was little. He
liked the stories we made up, and I put those down on paper. Then I
had an idea for a book, which turned out to be my first novel,
Sing the
Light. And it was science fiction, or science fantasy,
because that's what I read. It was an homage to Marion Zimmer
Bradley, whose books I had devoured as a kid.
Amazon.com:
Your first trilogy has been favorably compared to both Marion
Zimmer Bradley and Anne McCaffrey. Do you find that the Young Adult
label is a stigma? And did you make an effort with
The Terrorists of
Irustan and The Glass Harmonica
to
break away from that?
Marley:
There was no conscious decision. To begin with, the trilogy
was not written as YA material, and it surprised all of us to find
that was a strong readership for it. But still, I hear from adult
readers who have enjoyed it and even found important things in it,
which is really nice for me, because I poured my heart into it, as
you do into every book.
But The Terrorists of Irustan
was simply
inspired by the political situation in Afganistan and countries like
it, and it was simply a story that I had to write. In The
Glass Harmonica
, I just wanted to tell the story of this
weird and wonderful instrument. So, no, I never have made a conscious
decision to reach a certain audience. If I have reached a certain
audience, lucky me, but none of that was planned.
Amazon.com:
With Terrorists
, you postulate a vaguely
Islamic society, but with the teachings of a second prophet playing a
large part. Tell us a bit about that.
Marley:
It's similar, but I didn't want it to be Islam, first of all
because the political situation which inspired it is not Islam, even
though they claim it is. There's nothing in the Koran that dictates
the way they're living. It's just something that's grown up
culturally. So I tried to make it a bit of a combination of
religions.
I wouldn't want to be held responsible for all the things
my
church has done in the past. I'm a practicing Roman
Catholic, and I don't want to be held responsible for the
Inquisition. I certainly don't want members of this beautiful
religion, Islam, to have to be responsible for everything that might
happen in its name. And so the book is on another planet, it's a
different religion. The similarities are obvious, but they're not
supposed to be exact.
Amazon.com:
The idea of women being in charge of health care, as they
are in Terrorists
, is fascinating. How did you come up
with that?
Marley:
Well, I often write medical science fiction, because it's one
of the sciences, along with the science of music, that I'm
comfortable with and that interests me. I thought it would work
really well with my character and give her some power, and I didn't
find out until after I'd begun that in many countries, such as Saudi
Arabia, it is medical women who have more freedom. So I just took it
one step further, and made it so that men really abhorred being
involved with medical matters.
Amazon.com:
Moving on to The Glass Harmonica
... when did
you first discover the glass harmonica as an instrument?
Marley:
When I was hired to sing a concert, and there was a glass
harmonica piece by Mozart being played on the same concert. I just
think it's fascinating, it's a really unusual instrument. And I
wasn't aware until later of all the scary stories that surround
it.
Amazon.com:
Tell us a little about the rumors surrounding the glass
harmonica--nerve damage, death, a curse?!
Marley:
In the 18th century rumors sprang up almost immediately about
the dangers of playing or hearing music on the glass harmonica.
Stories circulated about the "deranging effects" of the glass
vibrations, and pregnant women and children were advised not to
listen to the music.
Marianne Davies, an early virtuosa of the instrument, died
young, of a mysterious ailment of the nerves, and others were
reported to have suffered similar fates. Around 1830, the instrument
vanished from the musical scene because of these stories. In the 20th
century, Gerhard Finkenbeiner reinvented the instrument and devoted
himself to restoring it to popular use. Tragically, Mr. Finkenbeiner
himself disappeared in 1999, flying off in his private plane, and
neither his family nor the authorities have been able to find a trace
of him or his aircraft. So the mysteries go on... even including some
poltergeist stuff that happened in my study when I was working on the
novel!
Amazon.com:
Have you ever had a deeply emotional or physical reaction to
music the way the audience does when they listen to "Moving Mars," a
glass harmonica piece in the book?
Marley:
There are some pieces
of music that always touch me, even when not well performed:
Madame
Butterfly (the Puccini opera), the spirituals of
Marian Anderson,
several
Brahms choral
pieces. There's a wonderful book about the musical experience,
Music, the Brain,
and Ecstasy, that describes how music has its effect
on us--the only thing the author leaves out is the spiritual aspect,
and I feel certain there is one. But once we have experienced a piece
of music, our anticipation of each turn of melody and shift of
harmony adds to our emotional and physical response--hence, the
ecstasy. It's a rare listener who doesn't have that reaction to some
kind of music.
Amazon.com:
What will your next novel be about?
Marley:
I'm working on a rather big book about a woman, a musician,
who becomes a resistance fighter after tragedy tears her life apart.
She and the other members of the resistance, the Chain, struggle
against a world government that has isolated parts of the globe they
consider dangerous, cutting whole continents off from the resources
and progress of the industrialized world. Like my other novels, it's
character-based science fiction, and in this case, adventure and
romance. It takes place all over the earth, and in space as well.
Louise Marley's fresh take on
fantasy includes some quirky settings and unforgettable
characters--from a neo-Islamic woman physician on a desert planet to
Benjamin Franklin's musical protégé. In
