James Van Pelt has been selling short fiction to many of the major venues since 1989. Recently he retired from teaching high school English after thirty-seven years in the classroom. He has been a finalist for the Nebula, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, Locus Awards, and Analog and Asimov’s reader’s choice awards. Years and years ago he was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. He still feels “new.” Fairwood Press recently released a huge, limited-edition, signed and numbered collection of his work, THE BEST OF JAMES VAN PELT. He can be found online at https://www.jamesvanpelt.com or on FaceBook at https://www.facebook.com/james.vanpelt.14
Which trope of science fiction (phasers, transporters, time machines, much more) would you like to see put into our own reality? And how would you use it in a mundane way?
Oh, the transporter for sure. Besides the obvious benefits of never submitting to the indignities of modern air travel or the discomfort of traveling cross country by car, I would use the transporter’s low-fat, low arterial plaque, low amyloid beta plaque, and low cancer cell settings. Every time I used it, the transporter would not transmit me to my destination but not a select few of those harmful cells, gradually improving the ratio of healthy to unhealthy cells in my body. Not only would I save time going to the grocery store, but I’d feel a little bit better each time.
What’s the silliest misconception you’ve had about something scientific, what was it and how did you learn you had misapprehended?
If you consider science as making theories based upon direct observation, when I was in high school, my friends and I firmly believed that yellow Volkswagen bugs were more likely to be driven by pretty girls than any other car on the road.
If you had to choose between being a time traveler or a space explorer, which would you pick and why?
I’ve written stories about both, and I find the concepts hugely attractive, but if I had to choose one I would go with time travel. I could investigate the mysteries of the ages with a time machine! Was there really a last supper with Christ (and who picked up the bill)? What happened to the colonists at Roanoke? Did they just not like the neighborhood? Did Atlantis exist or was it created in a vivid dream Plato had after eating a bit of bad fish? The possibilities are endless. Along the way, I could find out if time is immutable or not. What would happen if I appeared in JFK’s car at just the right moment, and I said to the president, “Your shoe’s untied”? How does American history diverge from that point, or would I wander around in the past, incapable of interacting with anything and incapable of changing a thing? Could I convince my younger iteration to buy certain stocks, or would the me in the past ignore good advice, as he often did, even from myself?
If you could transport yourself to any fictional universe you’ve seen in a television show or movie, which universe would you go to?
Once again, tons of choice here. Would I go to the Shire where meals are frequent and plenty? Would I go the Tom Corbett’s space academy and become a cadet? Certainly there are places to avoid like Panem during the Hunger Games, or Winterfell at any time (winter is always coming), or the Republic of Gilead where . . . well . . . everything is screwed up. I think I’d go to the future portrayed in Tomorrowland where Britt Robertson follows a bunch of kids wearing what look like spacesuits as they board a cool-looking tram. They’re clearly going on a space adventure. They’re young and happy and filled with the possibilities before them. One turns back to Britt and says, “Come on! We’ve saved a seat just for you.” I know, I know I know that I said I’d choose traveling in time over exploring space, but why does it have to be one or the other? This is my fantasy. I’m doing both.
If you were to write a book about a group of superheroes with completely useless powers, what would their powers be?
I actually wrote this one. In the story, when children reach puberty, their superpower kicks in. Of course, in a sixth-grade classroom, you have the superpowered and the kids who haven’t exhibited their “gift” yet. The powers are completely random though, and often puzzling, like the girl who can stack sheets of paper end on end instead of flat, or the boy who generates eye-wateringly bad smells, or the boy who is a human fan—actually, his gift is useful. The teacher sits him next to the kid who makes the smells. One kid discovers that his power is making words he writes on a blackboard glow in different colors. It isn’t that the powers are useless, really; it’s that everyone has a talent. Embracing what you can do, as useless as it might seem, and being yourself, is the superpower.
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Fairwood Press, recently released a huge, career-spanning collection of my work, The Best of James Van Pelt. I feel too young to have such a volume. It’s not like I’m not still writing and publishing. My family suggested it should have been entitled The Best of James Van Pelt (so far). I like that better. In the meantime, I have a young-adult novel that I’m revising to send to my publisher, and I continue to sell short fiction. This has been a good year: I have stories appearing in Asimov’s, Analog, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and several other venues. Sadly enough, nothing on the docket for Amazing Stories, though. Clearly I’m not working hard enough.
My books are available at Amazon as both digital and hard copy. The entire list is viewable at the Fairwood site at https://fairwoodpress.com/james-van-pelt-collection.html#/. I blog infrequently at https://www.jamesvanpelt.com and much more frequently on FaceBook at https://www.facebook.com/james.vanpelt.14.
