Paul Saka (near-rhymes with ‘saga’) teaches at the University of Texas, Rio Grande.
He grew up in metro Detroit, across the river from Canada, and now lives in south Texas, across the river from Mexico.
In between, he has lived in Chicago, Tucson, Berkeley, Brooklyn, Champaign IL, and England.
With two PhDs, one in philosophy and one in linguistics, he has published three books in his chosen fields plus numerous papers in artificial intelligence, psychology, anthropology, political science, historiography, and literary criticism.
He has written one sf story, which won a Readers Choice Award in Amazing, and is working on a novel. When he’s not reading, writing, editing, teaching, attending ceaseless committee meetings and mandatory workshops, or goofing off, Paul enjoys traveling with his wife.
If aliens were to visit Earth, what do you think their first impression of humans would be?
That’s what my story’s about. Some readers may think it’s a satire of bureaucracies, but it’s not that at all. Bureaucracies are actually necessary, or at any rate preferable to the alternative. My story takes place within a bureaucracy, yes, but it’s really about human nature, specifically human weaknesses – slow-wittedness, short-sightedness, dishonesty (to self and others), and other intellectual vices.
If you were to write a story featuring yourself as the main character, what kind of adventure would you embark on?
Right now I’m working on a novel where the protagonist is an idealized version of myself. It’s about a time-traveler from 2300 who crash lands in 2025. He takes a road trip across America, and he’s horrified by the barbarity, as you or I would be if we found ourselves three centuries in the past. It’s a tragicomedy.
If you were to write a book about a group of superheroes with completely useless powers, what would their powers be?
Mistress Tempus would be able to pause time at will, but whenever it stops she freezes along with everything else. Samsamsara would have the power of reincarnation, but would never remember past lives. Captain Kvetch would be able to complain using impeccable reason and unassailable logic. It would get him nowhere, of course.
If you could time travel to any point in history, which era would you choose, and why?
I wouldn’t want to go to a time without antibiotics and vaccines, which means not too far into the past. Sadly, given the current regime’s assault on science, the future also looks rebarbative.
If you had to choose one of your books to be turned into a cheesy made-for-TV movie, which one would it be and who would you want to play the lead roles?
My non-fiction features various scholars in dialog with each other, and it would be fun to cast them. I know little about actors’ actual selves or potential range other than their previous roles, so I’ll be typecasting here. Brandon Routh, star of Superman Returns and DC Legends of Tomorrow, could play my intellectual hero Bertrand Russell. Despite some physical differences, they both exhibit courage, compassion, wit, and a kind of nobility. Richard Harris, who did wise old Dumbledore, could play Noam Chomsky. Angelina Jolie, who played the globe-trekking archeologist superhero Lara Croft, could play my thesis advisor, Adrienne Lehrer. Fritz Leiber, the sf writer, was also a thespian. He would do a great job playing his son Justin, a colleague and friend of mine. Diane Keaton could play Julia Jorgensen, an experimental psychologist who happens to be my wife. Donald Sutherland, who is good at playing urbane antagonists, could play my foil, Donald Davidson. Richard Aoyade, from The IT Crowd, could play me. He combines the right blend of earnestness and oblivious clownishness.
If you were stranded on a deserted planet with only one book to read, but it turned out to be one of your own, how would you feel?
Tingly. Flattered, but frustrated. I would prefer a dictionary. That way, I would have every book written in English – just with the words written out of order.
If you had to survive on a deserted planet with only three items from your own house, what would they be and how would you use them to survive?
What’s with these questions about my being stranded on a deserted planet? Do you know something I don’t? Maybe you should move on.
If you had to describe your writing style using a fantasy-themed board game, which game would you choose and why?
It’s funny you should ask that, because during the covid lockdown my wife and I got deep into boardgames. We’ve played a lot of Gaia Project, a space fantasy (the whole premise of viable interstellar travel being utter fantasy). Gaia Project has a pretty tight design, as does my fiction. At the same time, characters in the game and in my story are both ineptly rendered. In the game, the failure is the unappealing character art. In my story, I had to choose between giving all my secondary characters names, or making the whole exposition move faster and more smoothly. Given my technical limitations, those were my only choices. I chose to use the names, which made the story a bit jerky. The benefit was that I was able to have a lot of fun making up aptronyms: for instance, one silly human being was named Hume-Manoogian, a walking miasma was named Mia Small, and a blithe patron of contagious disease was named Blythe Saint Germaine.
If you were secretly an alien visitor to the Earth, why are you here?
[spills coffee, coughing] Uhhh,… umm… Why do you ask?
Paul Saka’s webpage can be found at www.utrgv.edu/philosophy/faculty.
Steve Davidson is the publisher of Amazing Stories.
Steve has been a passionate fan of science fiction since the mid-60s, before he even knew what it was called.
