A self-described hippie-punk bureaucrat-anarchist on writing near-future science fiction, collaborating with real scientists, and prodding whether technology will ever deliver the dreams it promises.

Stephen Oram describes himself as a former hippie-punk religious squatter turned bureaucrat-anarchist, and he writes science fiction that thrives on exactly that kind of contradiction.

In this conversation he talks about near-future fiction, collaborating with real scientists at live London events, and why the messiness of being human is the most interesting thing to write about.

Stephen Oram is a London-based science fiction author who writes near-future stories about artificial intelligence and biotech. He has published the novels Quantum Confessions and Fluence and the collection Eating Robots and Other Stories.

He served as writer in residence for Virtual Futures, collaborating with neuroscientists and AI researchers and reading short fiction at live science-fiction events.

DISCUSS YOUR BOOK

Full transcript of the interview follows.

Richard Lowe: This is Richard Lowe with author talks with Richard Lowe and I’m here with Steven ogram. Steven writes science fiction, he’s been a hippie punk religious squatter and a bureaucrat anarchist. He thrives on contradictions. He has published two novels, quantum confessions and fluids. His collection, eating robots and other stories was described by the Morningstar as one of the top radical works of Fishkin fiction in 2017. Welcome to the show, Steven, how you doing?

Stephen Oram: I’m doing fine. Thanks. How are you?

Coming to Writing Late

Richard: I’m doing well. Thank you. Steven, welcome to the show again. And so how did you get started writing science fiction?

Stephen: I guess I guess a couple of things. Really, I say starting writing at all, only happened a few years ago. And it was, it was one of those moments in life where I thought I really want to do something creative. And I didn’t really know what that what that was.

I tried a bit of photography and painting, and I was absolutely rubbish at both embarrassingly embarrassing rubbish, really. And then I always wondered about writing side, evening creative writing course. And that inspired me. And then I thought, Well, I wonder if I can write a novel and sort of it went from clarity, and science fiction, I’ve always really enjoyed reading sight.

I mean, I like reading lots and lots of things. But science fiction was one of those things that always sparked a lot of interest in me, and I really enjoyed reading it. So that was a that was a really obvious sort of route together.

Hippie, Punk, Bureaucrat, Anarchist

Richard: Okay, okay. And what’s your history? Like? What’s your backstory?

Stephen: Well, you from the, from the biography, you read out there, I can, I’ll fill a bit of that out. So please. So I’m from UK, I was brought up in a, in a small market town in the middle of middle of the country, very small, not very broad thinking.

So I remember when I was, when I was younger, one of my ambitions was to was to leave. That was that was an ambition. And I, I sort of figured that everybody in the town, who was a little bit older than me, that I liked was leaving. So that was so so I left and, and after quite a lot of moving around for a few years ended up living in London, which is, which is where I’ve been ever since.

And just to sort of unpack some of that, that biography. So I’m of an age where, as I was a young teenager, Punk was was really hitting hitting the scene. And I was really inspired by not not so much the way people dress. But by that, that attitude of we can do this ourselves.

And actually, the authorities can go and do whatever they want to do. So and that’s what I meant by hippie punk. So I was actually, I dress more like a hippie. But really like punk music, to the point that actually was punk geeks dressed as AP, which was an interesting and probably very stupid thing to do.

And then for, you know, I’ve done other things. So when it came to London, I spotted for quite a long time, partly because that’s about the only way you could move into London. But also, it was quite a nice sort of, out of the mainstream way to live.

And at the same time, for bits of that I was religious religious, for a while I was in what I would describe as a bit of a cult. And those two things were going on. So I was very much outside of outside of things. And then over over the years, I’ve sort of coming back more into the mainstream, but a proper job.

And as the final bit in the bio, which is Alec is bureaucrat, and what I mean by that is that so I have been a bureaucrat, I quite I think there’s something important about structures that people are in, but I’m also really, really attracted to the idea of anarchy in terms of communities making their own choices about how they want to live and rules are for them. So that’s that’s the sort of potted history.

Richard: Yeah, and the United States, we would call that a libertarian. Somebody who wants the least amount of government necessary to make things happen.

Stephen: Yeah, I guess there’s different definitions of what what the least is to make things happen to. Yeah,

The Collection and the Short Form

Richard: but I mean, I get the point. It’s, it’s interesting. Okay. So let’s see. So what’s your book about?

Stephen: So I’ve got three books, the latest one, which is the collection you refer to, which is a, it’s a set of 30, very short pieces that are all sort of near future, a lot of artificial intelligence, biotech, that type, that type of thing. And generally, they they’re prodding, whether that technology is going to give us the dreams that it seems to seems to offer.

And, and I guess, in a lot of ways, playing around with how that technology would actually be in real life, given that we’re all humans, and we’re a bit messy and a bit chaotic and not particularly rational all the time. And so mixing, mixing those two, those two things up. So that’s, that’s the latest one, that’s the collection.

Richard: And what possessed you to write a collection like that?

Stephen: I sort of started by so I was writing my second novel fluence. And I kept getting all these ideas and, and I thought, actually, I’m in danger here of introducing loads and loads and loads of ideas into this book just because they’re in my head. So that’s partly why I started writing the short stuff almost to sort of keep it out of the novel.

But at the same same time, or similar time, I was asked to become the writer in residence for something called virtual futures. And a big part of that was in between panel discussions and audience questions and answers, I would read a five, six minute story on the theme of the evening to sort of bridge between the the fairly sort of very arty academic across to across the audience.

So I was just building up lots of these, lots of these short pieces. So it seems like an obvious thing to put them in a collection.

Richard: And you say you have about 30 of them.

Stephen: Yeah, in that particular in that particular collection, I probably got another 30. Now that I will get around to

Richard: the second part of it. And your cell phone list?

Stephen: I am Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I’ve got some stories that are some short stories that are in anthologies through various publishers, but the collection in the two novels, yeah. Self Publish.

Why Self-Publishing

Richard: And why did you choose self publishing over traditional? I think,

Stephen: again, probably a couple of reasons. So one was impatient. So I knew that what I was writing was fairly niche in a lot of ways, and therefore hitting the right publisher would be quite difficult. And I just wanted to get on with it, really, to see what people thought of it.

But I think underneath that probably was going back to that public sort of things like well, why? Why do I need to, to wait for a publishing house to take to take this on this? I don’t need to technology’s moved on we can do it ourselves. And and why not? Basically. So I think those two things came together. Then that’s why I made the decision.

Richard: I’m a ghost rider. And I have a client who’s going the traditional route, and he’s getting frustrated, because it’s already been six months, and it’s probably going to be another six months before his books in bookstores. I’m sure he’ll be really happy when he sees his book in a bookstore, but it’s, it’s gonna be a whole year. And he’s getting impatient.

Stephen: It’s a long time, isn’t it? And you don’t know whether it’s going to happen or not. And yeah, so yeah, as I say, impatience and, and wanting to do stuff

Richard: he described as he gives it to like a black hole, and he doesn’t know really what’s happening. So you’re a member of ally, correct?

Stephen: Yes, yeah. Yeah, they’ve been really. So when I started out, I didn’t know about them at all. I could really have done with knowing about them. The beginning. sort of stumbled around the Fair, fair bit, trying to find editors trying to fight in understanding that I needed all those professionals to help turn out a professional book, but not really knowing very much about how to go how to go about that.

The Novels: Quantum Confessions and Fluence

Richard: I understand. It’s a very useful group. I’ve gotten a lot out of it. Okay, so you’ve also written two novels. Why don’t you tell us about them? One of those, what’s special about it?

Stephen: So the second one I wrote, which was called fluence, it’s, the basic premise is that you’re living in a society that where people are put into different starters dependent on their social media popularity. And slang use where you live, who your friends are, what your job is, etc, etc.

It’s not, those edges are a little bit blurry, because as I say, I like to sort of think about how it would really work in the real world. So it’s not, it’s not the sort of very typical sort of groups fighting each other from different from different sort of strategies or whatever.

But it is a unit that’s, that’s what happens. And it’s it’s set over the last week of the of the year, where it’s building up to the algorithms making the decisions to what you’re going to be following here follows a couple of people one is a sort of 30, something year old woman who’s very ambitious, overly ambitious, does some things that would make you cringe in order to increase popularity, and a 50 plus year old man who’s really just hanging on those fingertips and is struggling to keep his position his job.

Richard: So it’s kind of like economic strata, only instead of economics. It’s the social, social media strata.

Stephen: Yeah, it is, I think. And it came when I was writing it, or when I started thinking about it was at the time that China just started talking about what it was going to do in terms of things is now much more widely widely known. So some of it was inspired by by that what what was that really looked like?

I think I read I don’t know if this is true, but I read it the other day that on some of the public transport in China, now it sort of says Don’t spit or will will lower your social media, or your social rating or something. So it’s sort of unnervingly coming coming through a little bit.

Richard: That’s very interesting. And the first novel, what’s it about?

Stephen: So the first novel was was one of those sort of classic first novels, I think it was the one that I needed to get out of me. So that’s, that’s got sort of two main themes going on. One of them is where the notion of truth so this is before fake news kicked off as well.

But the notion of absolute truth or relative truth, really interested me what was truth and you know, people who believe believe that are absolute truths or people that believe there isn’t. So it’s, it’s built around that and the sort of propaganda war between those two, say those two sort of viewpoints, turn a lot of people in into just being in sort of catatonic state to cope with not knowing what is true, furthermore, approach that.

And then it moves into looking at what if there are alternative universes through quantum physics, we can actually change the past. So that they’re the two the two big themes that run through that, and that’s called Quantum confessions.

Richard: That sounds like a fascinating novel, must have been fun to write.

Stephen: It was really, really fun to write. Yeah. Yeah. So to let loose my imagination.

Marketing Yourself as a Brand

Richard: Excellent. Yeah, I’m writing a science fiction novel. So I understand how that works. So how do you promote your books?

Stephen: So I think I do that through number of number of ways. So in terms of, so I put a lot of effort into, into these phrases, but marketing me as a brand, if you like. And so I put a lot, a lot of effort into establishing me as an author.

I do a lot of collaborations with scientists, I do a lot of spoken word events, curate those things, do a lot of public stuff like that, because I really wanted to be in a position where I was being asked to work with people on on, particularly on the short stuff.

So and that that’s great. And that’s that’s working really well, in terms of the sort of selling the books like then I found that advertising in various forms seems to be the way that way that the way that works, gets those additional sales. So there At the the events and things, don’t sell that many books, it’s much more through advertising.

And at the moment, I’m experimenting with Amazon and do a bit of Facebook advertising. I’ve tried some of the lists that people you know, the remember their names, or any of those sort of newsletter mailing list, but that for some reason, they haven’t quite quite work. The my, my book

Richard: I haven’t found except for BookBub, which is everybody wants to get I haven’t found an email list that really works for mine either. Right? Let’s get to that. You’re not? I’ve probably spent hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars to get on all these email lists, and nothing. I mean, barely a sale. Yeah,

Stephen: I presume they are relevant to particular particular genres. Or they work better for some genres than others. And I think I mean, the other. The other thing that I’ve not done is written the series. So I know some people will give away the first one for free so that people get to start enjoying the series.

I haven’t written the series I haven’t done. I haven’t tried that either. Maybe I will, if I right. So the plan is to sort of write the series from the basis of the ones I’ve done now. But in the fullness of time. That’s a

Richard: good plan. I’ve heard the same thing that doing series is where do you want to go in books, even short series, even short books? You get loyalty that way, I guess. All right. So you market yourself that sounds like a good strategy. How do you do that?

Stephen: As I say, I think so a lot of a lot of that is through events, in by events, I mean, so the things like being the writer in residence at virtual futures, that that was that was great, so that not only were we doing live events, whereas reading to say, Now curate and write for some fiction, evening science fiction evenings.

And I’ve done a lot of collaboration with scientists in artificial intelligence people, neuroscientists that were. And the way that tends to work is that I will visit a lab, visit them talk to them, we’ll work together on what a possible world might look like, they’ll tell me just how far I’m stretching things.

And then I’ll write a story, they will get a certain amount of veto, not over the side of the story of the writing, but there’s the technology, science content of it. And then we’ve had public events where I am alongside the scientists on stage audience, q&a, writing, reading, the reading the story, those sorts of things.

So I’ve done quite a lot of lot of that. And that that’s very good for raising your profile. And it’s good fun to give your ad. I wouldn’t do it. If it wasn’t good fun. It’s meant it’s fun. But it’s also good to get your face out there. And your story is known.

Richard: And it’s all about building that following isn’t it?

Stephen: Yeah, yeah. And the the the fiction events, we do a virtual futures now, we just we did for this year, we’ve just opened for submissions before next year. And we were we were selling out in terms of getting an audience along. So we were selling out at like 800 plus people, which I don’t know what it’s like where you are. But in London, 80 plus people at a science fiction reading is is a really good audience.

Writer’s Block and Letting Characters Lead

Richard: That’s phenomenal. Even for here. Yeah. Okay. Do you get writer’s block? And if so, what do you do about it?

Stephen: I? It’s an interesting question, because I don’t think I do. So I don’t know if I do anything about it. However, I think I’ve got because partly because of the short writing the really short stuff, then I can, I can hop around stories. So if one’s not quite working, it’s easy to hop to another one because I have who’s got at the moment, I think I’m committed to six piece short pieces for various things that I’m doing.

So there’s always something to be doing there. I’m also writing a novella, but so I think it’s I don’t really suffer from writer’s block, but I do hop around if if something’s not quite working or not quite, not quite gelling.

Richard: So your solution sounds like basically is to always have something to do and to swap around when you this one’s going a little slow. Let’s go over here.

Stephen: Yeah, I think that that’s Probably I’ve never really thought about it, particularly, but sort of reflecting on the question, I think. Yeah, I think that is, I think that is what I do. If anything I’ve got, I feel like I’ve got too many ideas, more more of the problem.

Richard: I understand that problem. The brain explodes with ideas. All right, and how do you fight? Or do you get people who talk bad about your writing or invalidate your writing in some way? And how do you deal with them? If you do? Talk? bad about it?

Stephen: Yeah. So yeah, I’ve had bad reviews. Thankfully, in the minority. And I’ve got friends who don’t like my writing, but generally, they don’t like that sort of that sort of genre. So in the people I’m talking to and people I meet. I don’t mind as much as they seem to mind that they don’t like it.

Because I as far as I’m concerned, if, if the reason you don’t like it is because you don’t like that sort of stuff. You don’t you get it I have people apologizing to me saying I’m really sorry, I tried to read it by a couldn’t get into it.

But you don’t like that sort of thing. Why would you? So that I mean, that’s just one one side of it, I don’t find that a problem at all. I think with the if it’s bad reviews, or you know, somebody criticizing the writing, then I think it’s valuable, I think trying to trying to understand what it is behind what they’ve said, is is always useful, because there’s bound to be some nuggets in there that can help you help me improve what I do.

Not taking it all on board, in it just trying to decide for myself, I guess, what, what is valuable, what’s not valuable. And the other thing I find myself doing is if I get a bad review, I’ll follow them through and see what else they’ve reviewed, and see what they’ve said about that.

And sometimes, they’ve given bad reviews to a whole load of books that I really love. So, in some ways that validates what I’m doing. It’s okay. You don’t like this sort of stuff. That’s okay. Because I because I do so. I think it’s a mix of things. Really.

Richard: I understand I tend to avoid even reading the reviews for the most part. Usually I get positive reviews. But occasionally there’s the one you know, oh my god, this book is horrible. And I just avoid reading.

Stephen: It’s probably very sensitive, ballooned out of proportion. Can they like the one? The one bad one sort of overrides all the 30? Good ones?

Richard: Yeah, I have a book that has 77 good reviews, and like three bad ones. And the bad ones? Of course, it’s where I focus. Yeah. Oh, my God, I didn’t like my book, you know?

Stephen: Yeah, it’s so hard not to.

Richard: So you’ve been writing a while? What’s, uh, what’s your favorite memory about? About your writing?

Stephen: Question. So, obviously, there’s just tons and tons and tons of memories that are great, I think. So, a couple that really stand out for me, which was when I was first, right. So when I was writing quantum confessions. And it was the, it was a new thing to me to do.

And, and I remember, I woke up from a dream, and I’ve been dreaming about the two main characters in the book, have been arguing with each other over something. In my dream, I think the tree might realize that actually, I could get them to do whatever I wanted them to do.

And it’s just one of those moments that I actually yeah, I’m thinking, wow, I’m creating, I’m creating things. So I think those characters becoming real. And then I think there’s a similar thing in the devas, a moment where one of the characters not, not a particularly big one, not didn’t feature a lot in the book, but she commits suicide, how I was really devastated for quite a few days.

And yet, obviously, it’d be my choice. Like, it’d be one of those moments where sort of like, this has to happen, and I really don’t want it to happen. But it really has to really has to happen, given the situation and who she was and all the rest of it.

So I think they’re, they are really, they both are quite sad. Members in some ways, but I guess what I’m saying is But there’s that memory of, actually, I’m a writer. And as that sort of dawned on me, I think they, they were really important moments.

Richard: I completely understand the and it sounds like your characters almost take over your story sometimes.

Stephen: I think I think they do. And I think they should as well. I don’t know what you think. But if, if you really understand the character, and there’s a switch, you know, you’re obviously you create the situation, but, but to remain true to that character. And I guess I don’t plan I do plan out my books, I plan them out at a fairly detailed level, but then allow them to wander off, if that’s the way Firstly, it’s going so.

So there are situations that I haven’t necessarily planned for it in great detail. And I think back to when, that’s when you have to stop. So, you know, I’ll be walking somewhere thinking, what would they do? Well, it’s sort of a thinking about a friend doesn’t know, what would my friend do in this situation?

And obviously, we’d have the advantage of being able to decide that but yeah, so I think they do to a certain extent, take over.

Richard: Yeah, I’m writing the novel. And I’ve started writing it one way. And one of the characters kind of almost spoke to me and said, No, no, I’m actually going to have this personality. And I’m like, no, no, I want you over here. Nope, nope. This is like, Okay, well, whatever. So I had to rewrite part of it.

Stephen: Yeah, it’s very, it’s a, I find it very hard to explain to people who don’t write what that what that feels like. Because it it sounds a bit sort of trite and a bit silly. That actually, you just can’t go against why I find it just can’t go against that. Because then it’s not. It’s more genuine, and it’s just not working.

Richard: Okay, and what do you have any tips for other writers?

Stephen: I think the biggest tip is enjoy yourself. I mean, I guess it depends on the you’re totally reliant on this for you to eat or not. But so yeah, I think I mean, I think that’s why we’re so enjoy it. Right, what you like to write, but I think, I mean, this is a decision I made for kids working is it’s sort of also decide what it is you want your readers to get from you.

And then sort of stick to that. And then by that, I mean, I think it’s useful for them to, to know what to expect, broadly speaking, when they when they start reading some of your writing. So maybe, maybe the thing is, enjoy yourself, but make sure that you’re you choose carefully before you start on the plot.

What He Loves Most About Writing

Richard: Exactly. And what is your favorite thing about being an author?

Stephen: I think it goes back to it’s sort of the opposite of the what do you do about bad, bad reviews? I think I, I really, it’s not the good reviews, per se, what I really, really like about being an author is waiting, when somebody not only tells me they’ve enjoyed what I’ve written, that’s great to entertain people, it’s a it’s a delightful thing to do.

I think it’s also when what I try to do my writing is to provoke, provoke thought provoking people into maybe seen for something slightly different to how they would have done previously. And when people say that I succeeded in that. That that is a great feeling. And I really like that science.

The other thing I like about being an author is and I’ve never really thought about listen to my study writing is the is the way that you’re dealing with a really big macro creating world. And really worrying right through to where does that comma go. And that that makes them really big and really pedantic.

I really enjoy a really enjoy that. And obviously, there’s lots of things in between that, but there’s sort of two extremes of the different layers and different levels that you’re working at.

Richard: That is an interesting career, isn’t it?

Stephen: Yeah, very much. So.

Richard: Okay, so we’re coming close to the end. Do you have any final words that you’d like to say?

Stephen: I’d like to say thank you for getting up so early. I, I guess it’s an obvious one. Like, if people will get more, I’ve got a website, check out the website was very keen to hear from anybody, particularly if they want to collaborate on anything or anything like that. But that that’s that’s really my closing remarks, I guess.

Richard: While okay. And thank thank you for coming and I’d like to thank all our viewers for viewing if you want to subscribe to these videos, hit the subscribe button below. We’ll be coming out with one to two per week. So thank you for watching, and I’ll see you next time.

Quotable moments

Frequently asked questions

Who is Stephen Oram?

Stephen Oram is a British science fiction author based in London who writes near-future fiction about artificial intelligence and biotechnology. He has published the novels Quantum Confessions and Fluence and the collection Eating Robots and Other Stories.

What is Eating Robots and Other Stories?

It is a collection of about thirty very short near-future stories exploring AI and biotech, named among the top radical works of fiction of 2017 by the Morning Star.

What is Virtual Futures?

Virtual Futures is a science-fiction event series for which Oram served as writer in residence, reading short fiction between panel discussions and audience questions to bridge academic and general audiences.

Why does Stephen Oram self-publish?

Out of impatience with the traditional timeline for niche fiction and a punk-influenced do-it-yourself belief that writers do not need to wait for a publishing house to grant permission.