Michèle Laframboise returns to the pages of Analog with another one of her “hard and crunchy” SF tales. Read “Living on the Trap” in our [November/December issue, on sale now!], and find out how the story came to be in the Q&A below.
Analog Editor: What inspired you to write inspiration for “Living on the Trap”?
Michèle Laframboise: In Ontario where I live, and the Québec province where I grew up, there are remote towns where life is difficult, poverty endemic because of lacks of clean water, food, social support net, jobs (especially when the unique town’s employer has left). However, a quirk of nature may give the residents something that attracts visitors. Those visitors would gaze at the natural wonder or walk in the park, climb to the summit and take a selfie there, often with next-to-no meaningful exchange with the “locals”.
In most of our travels, we go to see the monuments, the churches, cemeteries, even tasting the special atmosphere of a popular magnet . . . where we spend money without really getting to know the residents themselves. (I salute those of you, readers, who take the time to establish a meaningful relation!)
My other inspiration for the story was the delightful discovery of the Trappist system in 2016-17, with its large alphabet of planets, with four of them in the Goldilocks zone where, in theory, there can exist liquid water.
AE: What themes did you set out to explore in “Living on the Trap”?
ML: For me, a story explore a source of various problems that would-be colonists would face. My own sciences formation is in geography and water management, so I do give some attention in my stories to the use of limited resources.
In “Living on the Trap,” I explore the singular challenge of living on an eyeball world, a planet locked in facing the sun, and that sun a red dwarf. It is fascinating to imagine an immobile Sun, and how humans can adapt themselves to live in this strange environment.
Add to it, that their long-distance sub-light travel would fall prey to the progression of technology, so the first settlers to leave Earth found themselves the last arriving! So they are forced to settle on a less-than-optimal planet, in the dark side (but close to the dawn band) where the only thing moving is a mining asteroid.
How would the settlers raise families in such a desolate world? Add to the story the point of view of a very young girl growing up in a closed shelter. And do measure the importance of the leisure left to children and adults in their spare time.
AE: Did you experience any snags while writing “Living on the Trap”?
ML: When I wrote Living on the Trap (not the original title), the hardest thing was assigning a gender to the narrator. In some of my hard-SF stories, I never do, not even a last-paragraph “aha!” reveal. In the case of Living . . . I knew my narrator was a little girl, but I had no idea of the climber tourist’s gender. You get some subtle indications at the next-to last paragraph.
Because for me, it is the community building challenge that is interesting.
Another problem was, after I started writing, I did not find a suitable real-world planet in the Trappist system that reunites the characteristics of my imaginary world. Being a nit-picker at heart, I moved my setting to another system whose real name had been dubbed the Trap by those late-coming colonists.
The drawing shows many more problems that can crowd the hapless SF writer . . . And no doubt you are able to figure out a host of other temptations!!
It is fascinating to imagine an immobile Sun, and how humans can adapt themselves to live in this strange environment.
AE: How does ecology play a role in your writing?
ML: One of the challenges of expansion is to find a way of living in sustainable conditions, even with billions-worth of technology sent into the farther reaches of space.
Any colony living under hostile conditions must learn to manage refuse, and to recycle plastic and metals, hence the elevated ovens. The Martian movie opened a lot of those questions in the minds of the public.
It is good today that the space agencies have assimilated the ecological management of sparse resources, and in exchange, provided humanity with new, improved materials for filtrating wastewater, collecting sun energy, conserve food reserves, star observation (I would love to get my hands on the improved telescope models!) . . .
We just need to improve the redistribution channels to make those wonders available to the populations living in the farthest recesses of our own planet.
Space exploration research now hinges on long-term sustainability, which is more than a good thing. Because we, the eight billions of explorers living on the spaceship Earth, are growing more and more conscious of its delicate balance.
AE: Where can we find you?
ML: I am a hybrid writer, with one new novel out in French (Rose du desert, Éditions David) and various short-stories published.
As many of my stories and novels are orphans, I have created my own indie house to make them available.
Living in Ontario, Michèle Laframboise has kept the curiosity of a child and a thirst for knowledge, coffee and compassion. She creates hard and crunchy SF stories, mixing science, emotion and humor.
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