"Waiting for the Rain" and Transalienation
It's always fun to coin a new word. SF writers do it all the time. The concept of transalienation is the idea behind "Waiting for the Rain". The idea and the term "transalienation" came to me a number of years ago when reading an article on transsexuals. As everyone knows, a transsexual is a person who identifies with the opposite sex, whose sex at birth conflicts with the gender they truly believe they are. Transexuals seek to function, to various degrees, as members of the opposite sex. In modern times, they often seek medical means of achieving physical alterations so that their bodies match how they see themselves.
It got me thinking. Science was playing a crucial role in this process. What was motivating the desire for physical change? This change wasn't always an option historically. And it isn't an option to every transsexual even now. What did transsexuals do before the sophisticated surgery and hormone therapy became available? What was the role of medical science in this process?
I then took the sort of thought-leap that science fiction writers often do. I asked the question, what would happen if a human identified with a different sentient species, an alien race? What if a person came to believe that their physical humanity conflicted with the alien they truly believed themselves to be? And then another leap: what if medical science in the future developed to a point where it was possible for these humans to change their bodies so that they matched what they saw themselves to be? Would they do it?
I had no doubt that they would.
That was the genesis of transalienation and the basis of "Waiting for the Rain", which is arguably my most well-known short story. It was first published in 1992 in the Universe 2 anthology (Bantam), edited by Robert Silverberg and Karen Haber; reprinted in Metaworlds (Penguin), edited by Paul Collins in 1994; and published in German as "Warten auf den Regen" in Lenins Zahn und Stalins Tränen(Heyne), also in 1994. Judging by comments on the web, it's being studied as a set text in literature classes in the US, which is more than a little flattering. As well as coining a new word in "Waiting for the Rain", which is fun to do, I hope the story explores the motivations and psychological state behind a human wanting to transform themselves into an alien species that is far from humanoid in appearance.
One of the things that attracts me to science fiction is its ability to illuminate what it is to be human. What better way to show the essence of humanity than through a contrast with an alien mind? "Waiting for the Rain" ultimately explores what it is to be human.
"Waiting for the Rain" is available in the epublication Aurealis Duo: Transalienation where it features with another story I've written on the same theme, "Primal".
It got me thinking. Science was playing a crucial role in this process. What was motivating the desire for physical change? This change wasn't always an option historically. And it isn't an option to every transsexual even now. What did transsexuals do before the sophisticated surgery and hormone therapy became available? What was the role of medical science in this process?
I then took the sort of thought-leap that science fiction writers often do. I asked the question, what would happen if a human identified with a different sentient species, an alien race? What if a person came to believe that their physical humanity conflicted with the alien they truly believed themselves to be? And then another leap: what if medical science in the future developed to a point where it was possible for these humans to change their bodies so that they matched what they saw themselves to be? Would they do it?
I had no doubt that they would.
That was the genesis of transalienation and the basis of "Waiting for the Rain", which is arguably my most well-known short story. It was first published in 1992 in the Universe 2 anthology (Bantam), edited by Robert Silverberg and Karen Haber; reprinted in Metaworlds (Penguin), edited by Paul Collins in 1994; and published in German as "Warten auf den Regen" in Lenins Zahn und Stalins Tränen(Heyne), also in 1994. Judging by comments on the web, it's being studied as a set text in literature classes in the US, which is more than a little flattering. As well as coining a new word in "Waiting for the Rain", which is fun to do, I hope the story explores the motivations and psychological state behind a human wanting to transform themselves into an alien species that is far from humanoid in appearance.
One of the things that attracts me to science fiction is its ability to illuminate what it is to be human. What better way to show the essence of humanity than through a contrast with an alien mind? "Waiting for the Rain" ultimately explores what it is to be human.
"Waiting for the Rain" is available in the epublication Aurealis Duo: Transalienation where it features with another story I've written on the same theme, "Primal".