MILITARY MATTERS
Texan writer Elizabeth Moon tells us about her latest Ky Vatta novel, Cold Welcome
In the words of her creator, Elizabeth Moon, Ky Vatta is “intelligent, decisive, energetic and complex enough to generate a multi-layered story”. For proof, read Moon’s latest novel, Cold Welcome, a tale of survival in which Vatta, a Space Defense Force officer, finds herself set adrift on a desolate sea on her home planet, Slotter Key.
According to Moon, the spark for the book, the sixth to star Vatta (and the first since 2008’s Victory Conditions), was the characters in the stories. “They started chattering at me, telling me they had more story to tell,” she says. “I threw out ideas, they threw them on the floor and broke my ideas (so to speak) so finally I had to listen to them.”
One reason that Vatta speaks so loudly to Moon may be that she’s a character who goes her own way, something that chimes with the writer. “I’ve never been a poster child for conformity,” she says. “Like any other character trait [determinedly following your own path] can be both productive and destructive.”
Adding depth to the books, Vatta’s singleminded approach to life plays out in a military, hierarchical context. Not only did Moon serve in the military herself, but she “grew up among WWII and Korean War veterans, as did my husband”.
This experience colours her fiction. “I’ve always been fascinated by how a military culture fits into the civilian culture that supports and fosters it,” she says. “Which is the tail and which the dog, and who is wagging whom?”
It’s a theme that will no doubt reoccur in the “next book in this group”, Into The Fire, which is “almost finished”. Even at 72, Moon shows no signs of slowing down. “Staying vital is all about staying mentally and emotionally alive and flexible,” she says. “You’re never too old to learn, never too old to try something you’ve never done before.”
She does add a caveat, though, “Naps and chocolate are a good idea.”
Cold Welcome by Elizabeth Moon is published by Orbit Books.