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Question 1: Do you think your experience in designing gardens has influenced these books or pointed the direction they are going, and if so, how?

I have written about a dozen books. Roughly half are directly related to Japanese gardens, and for those, yes, most assuredly, my work as a garden designer informs what I write. For books like Proxima’s Gift and Miyako Redux, the influence is more tangential. Over the 40 years I have worked with Japanese gardens, I have absorbed a great deal about Japanese culture—everything from satoyama shisō to ancient mythology—and that background definitely influences all my writing, including these novels.

Question 2: Can you elaborate on the words/kanji you used (for the sections of the books, referring to times of the year) that you used in the first two books? e.g. Mebuki or Musubi? I would very much like to know where you got these names and what significance you attach to them, in both books.  

Proxima’s Gift had 6 chapters named after 6 “seasons” of the year. Some of those names—like Mebuki, Yamawarau and Shimofuri—are old poetic seasonal references (kigo 季語). The others, as well as all from the divisions of a month used in Miyako Redux, are words I inventedfor the book.

The meaning of the names in Proxima’s Gift are, of course, indicators of something about the season. The flowering tree in the mountains in late spring or the typhoons of autumn. The names in Miyako Redux are reflective of various human emotions that the phases of the moon seem to be expressing.

For Proxima’s Gift:
Mebuki 芽吹
Yamawarau 山笑
Hobara’e 火祓
Nowaki 野分
Shimofuri 霜降
Jakujō 寂靜

For Miyako Redux:
Musubi 結
Aogi 仰
Hokori 誇
Utaguri 疑
Tachi 絶

Question 3: The juxtaposition of a highly technical society (before the calamity) and a very basic and reinvented one (after) is very interesting. How did you come up with this? How did you see technology, either fading away or taking a very different turn in the post-collapse world?

Even in our own time, we struggle with the juxtaposition of human technology versus wild nature. The Glowies founded one kind of utopia based on nature, while the White Women (Ophelia and Lady M) have created a different kind of utopia-based technology (although Lady M’s part seems to drift away from utopia into dystopia).

Question 4: Do you see the thrust of the two societies (matrilinear, magical and forward- thinking for the Glowies, and patrilinear, cruel and backward-thinking for the Dims) as coming from the ways in which these two evolved, given what they had to work with? In other words, the Glowies came from an exodus from known into unknown, with a head start from their genetic mutation, whereas the Dims seem to have extrapolated the status quo and history of humanity more or less directly as “those who stayed”. Do you see the greater adaptability of the Glowies as part of their new genetic makeup, which the Dims didn’t have, thus they were trapped in the old ways?

The underlying cause for the differences in the societies of the Glowies and the Dims is entirely due to the fact that the Glowies developed the Glow—thus have an inherent, natural empathetic capability—while Dims are still ordinary humans without the inherent ability to exist outside their own perceptions of the world.

Question 5: You seem to have had a lot of fun inventing languages such as the street patois of the lower-class Dims, and the French/Japanese/English language of the Glowies. Can you elaborate on the processes involved? (I experienced a great deal of mental absorption in the first book especially, figuring out where the terms and language parts originated.)

What you experienced, as you begin to find out that words like “tu’shè” or “kopulè” derive from the French-speaking members of the original pilgrim group, or how “pura” comes from purasuchikku (プラスチック) the Japanese pronunciation of the word plastic, is exactly what I hoped readers would experience.

I enjoy reading books like Riddley Walker, which is written entirely in a future form of English. I didn’t want to go that far (create an entirely new language), but wanted to give the sense that, whatever language is spoken 300 years from now, it will not be what we use today.

Question 6: Can you give a small teaser about what you see happening to these two societies in Book 3 of the trilogy?  

I’m afraid I do not feel ready to talk about the storyline of Book 3, except to say this. In this post-apocalyptic future, all of our present-day time frames are lost. The only time frames that remain are the natural cycles. The earth goes around the sun (a year), the moon goes around the earth (a month), and the earth spins on its axis (a day). Book 1 took place over the course of a single year, Book 2 over the course of a single month, and Book 3 will take place over the course of a single day.

Question 6: It is difficult to make up questions about Book 2 without “spoiler alerts” for those who haven’t already read Book 1. What do you think?

As much as possible, a good review will not reveal the whole storyline of a book or give away really important spoilers. For instance, for Miyako Redux, revealing in a review who the Sister turn out to be would not be good. Still, there is tons to talk about in Proxima and Miyako that does not give away any important plot twists.

I myself was not riveted by the plot in either book; I preferred to absorb the feeling of the stories. I hope that this will not put off plot-driven readers, and I hope that this interview will make you want to read the second book of this series. Thanks to Marc for being patient with me and agreeing to this format for the review.