Author Bites - Sean Stewart on Science

In an email exchange with Sean Stewart about his Cathy books, I asked him why he decided to take a more scientific approach to immortality than what many other YA authors were doing and this is what he had to say. It's pretty insightful!

Re: scientific immortality. Er... I'm married to a biological scientist, and the child of another, so when the topic comes up, it's natural to me to think about it in those terms: e.g., bats live far longer than they "should" based on their body size...why? Immortality can't be a dominant gene and can't be easily passed along (or we'd all be immortal). Species that are long-lived tend to reproduce at a low level, OK, that makes sense... etc. etc. Just how I think, I guess.

Or, to put it in an entirely literary way, if you had read a bunch of my other, non-Cathy books, like Perfect Circle or Resurrection Man or Mockingbird, you would see that I have always had an impulse to try to fit the tropes of fantasy into the actual world around us. I grew up a total Lord of the Rings fan: but my circumstance, in reality, was late 20th century, so my job felt, ultimately, like it wasn't about recreating a faux medieval world, but rather imagining what magic would look and feel and taste like in a world of shopping malls and seatbelt safety ads. By which I explicitly don't mean the "elves in New York" meme, but rather trying to douse into the modern world and find a way of expressing a Sense of Wonder (tm) that felt like it was ours, not borrowed from some other time or culture and stuck on with velcro.

Cathy's Book by Sean Stewart, Jordan Weisman and Cathy Briggs

First published in 2006.

If your name isn't Emma, put this book down, BACK OFF, and nobody gets hurt!

Emma - I know it all sounds crazy. You (and Mom!) will be wondering where I've been disappearing to, and when I'll be back. That's why I'm leaving you all this evidence - in case something happens and I DON'T come back.

Look at everything in my book. Call the phone numbers. Check out the websites. But you can't tell ANYBODY about it, unless you want to end up over your head, like me.

So don't worry. I'll be OK (I think). Hey, maybe this is the beginning of a new life for me. For sure it's the end of the old one.

Call me.

Love, Cathy (book back blurb)

I caught this one on the bargain shelf at Barnes and Noble. The whole packaging just drew me in (not to mention the $6 price!). The drawings, the package of stuff at the beginning, the whole journal set-up. For the price, I decided to give it a try.

Well this was definitely an interesting one. I loved Cathy's voice even though her persistence in the whole situation got a little grating every once in a while. I have to agree with her mom in the "you better find a rich guy to support you" mantra because of her tendency to brush off her studies. What can I say? I'm a school person. And in a world where the Bachelor's degree is the new high school diploma, trashing out on school to dream and stalk an ex-boyfriend is not the best of ideas. I'm a creative, dreamy type of person but I'm not deluded enough to think my dreaming will pay my bills. So the story tweaked that logical side of my brain every so often. But not nearly enough to give up on it. Not even close.

I really liked all of the characters, especially Mr. Tsao, but Emma, well, I didn't see what Cathy saw in her. Her ego-maniacal insistence to carry out her 30/30 plan at the expense of Cathy, I didn't see that "I'm there for you, now you need to be there for me" type of thing. Offering a helping hand is one thing. Offering yourself up to marry a rich psycho just to help your friend fulfill her superficial dream of being rich so she doesn't have to be poor is a little much. Wasn't too fond of that dynamic.

But aside from that, it was a really interesting story. I kept getting really frustrated because I wanted more information and more explanation that what we were given but thus is the burden of remaining in first person. We only know what Cathy knows and how frustrating it must be for her being in the middle of it! I was right there with her the entire time, especially every time she went to San Francisco. I love San Francisco! I blew through this book because I just kept wanting to find out what was going to happen next. And I love the set-up of the entries and their little titles.

I love the little doodles throughout the book and I even pulled up some of the websites in all the paperwork that came with the book. What I especially liked was the ending. SO didn't see that one coming! I won't spoil it but what I will say is I love the scientific aspect of a very prevalent trope in a saturated YA market. It was very refreshing, especially the build-up to it all. It leads you down one road only to have a bum-rusher come along and thrust you into another lane at the very last second. Very awesome.

If you can find this in the bargain bin like I did, I highly recommend snatching it up. If not, buy it anyway. It's money well spent.