WHAT EXACTLY DOES IT MEAN TO SEE a scene in the mind’s eye? It’s one of the questions that keyed off Yoon Ha Lee’s Phoenix Extravagant. At the novel’s center lies a painter, Gyen Jebi, yet Lee is someone who “really cannot visualize things at all”, a condition known as aphantasia.
“When people read a book, and say, ‘Oh, yeah, I see a movie inside my head,’ I thought for the longest time that they were pulling my leg,” he explains. “Then I talked to my husband and he’s like, ‘Yeah, I see a movie inside my head.’ I said, ‘You’re pulling my leg,’ and he’s like, ‘No, it’s really happened.’ So [in the book] I try to imagine what that experience was like.”
Lee goes on to explain how he paints watercolors “as a hobbyist”. This focus on the visual arts seems like new territory for someone who made his name writing military SF with the Machineries Of Empire sequence. An early iteration of the novel was set during the Renaissance. “I got 40,000 words into it and realized that I’d written the wrong setting,” deadpans Lee.
This story is from the December 2020 edition of SFX.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the December 2020 edition of SFX.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Spooks Ghouls & Freaks Fools
WITH ITS ECLECTIC cast, broad comedy and supernatural farce, Rentaghost was a mainstay of BBC children’s TV from the late ’70s to the mid-’80s and like nothing else.
LOST IN THE SHADOWS
THE EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS OF INTERDIEW WITH THE DAMPIRE DISCUSS THE FUTURE OF LESTAT, LOUIS, CLAUDIA AND WHERE THE ANNE RICE UNIVERSE IS HEADING
NINE LIVES
ON SET FOR THE FINAL SERIES OF INSIDE NO 9. STEVE PEMBERTON AND REECE SHEARSMITH REFLECT ON THE TYRANNY OF THE TWIST
NOA'S ARC
CAESAR'S STORY MAY BE DONE AND DUSTED, BUT AS HIS CREATORS RICK JAFFA AND AMANDA SILVER TELL US, THERE'S STILL PLENTY OF TERRAIN TO EXPLORE IN - KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
TICKET TO RIDE
DIRECTOR BEN CHESSELL TAKES THE TARDIS BACK IN TIME IN HIS TWO EPISODES
SERVING FACE
HAIR AND MAKE-UP DESIGNER CLAIRE WILLIAMS ON NEW LOOKS
BABY BOOM
The TARDIS lands on a spaceship. It was very, very hard to shoot. We used real babies! I like to do things that I’ve never done before and sometimes that’s quite hard, with such a long career as mine.
BOXING CLEVER
DOCTOR WHO IS BACK AND THIS TIME IT'S TAKING OVER THE PLANET
WELCOME HOME
THE CREATIVE MINDS BEHIND THE LIVE-ACTION ADAPTATION OF THE FALLOUT GAME SERIES EXPLAIN THEIR ORIGINAL TAKE ON BETHESDA'S POST-APOCALYPTIC WORLD
MONSTERS INC
THE TITANS UNITE IN HOT COLLAB GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE
