The Story of Adam-Troy Castro “arvies”, first published in the August 2010 issue Speed of light magazine, envisions a society that believes that only fetuses have souls. As a result, it is common for people to use advanced technology to never leave the womb.
“There are two kinds of people in that story — fetuses and the ‘arvies,’ in which they drive around and have fun and regularly replace,” Castro says in episode 519 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcasting. †[The story] jumps back and forth between the vantage point of one of these fetuses and the one where you go to the essentially mindless woman – by design – whose fate is to carry her around.
“Arvies” was a huge hit for Castro, winning the 2011 Million Writers Award for Best Short Story and appearing in books such as Nebula Awards Showcase: 2012 and The best science fiction and fantasy of the year: 2011† “That was a big story in my career,” Castro says. “I wrote it in an unusual style and it got a lot of attention. It received a lot of international attention and that was gratifying. I love it. I still think it’s one of the five best stories I’ve ever made.”
But not everyone liked ‘Arvies’. Many readers were put off by the macabre premise or chose to read the story as a commentary on abortion, an idea Castro rejects. “A lot of people thought that particular story was cold; many people thought it was too dark,” he says. “Fine. You don’t like this one; you might like the next one.”
Castro is known for pushing the boundaries when it comes to horror fiction. It’s a talent he’s honed in 30 years writing stories like “Of a sweet slow dance in the wake of temporary dogs,” about a tourist paradise that undergoes a genocide invasion every 10 days, or “The shallow end of the pool”, about a toxic married couple who raised their children to fight each other to the death.
“You have to feel the emotional response the story has to offer the reader,” Castro says. “If it’s a funny story, you have to giggle like crazy when you write it. If it’s an exciting story, you have to be on the edge of your seat, not knowing how it will end. If it’s to be horrific, you have to ask yourself, ‘Oh my god, is it okay for this stuff to come out of me?’”
Listen to the full interview with Adam-Troy Castro on episode 519 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (above). And check out some highlights from the discussion below.
Adam-Troy Castro on his story “Author’s Wife vs. the Giant Robot”†
[My wife Judi] read almost all my stories before submitting them. This particular story, about a giant robot living in the middle of Manhattan who randomly kills one person every day, was a writing exercise about mortality. Judi found a lot of logical problems with this, and my conversations with her were so great that I reported them almost verbatim when I wrote the story, and they helped lead the story… It’s very ironic to me that with Judi’s death, this story is kind of a commentary on that, as she was taken randomly by the giant robot. This happens to all of us; we all have such a story. And it’s a shame, but that’s life, and that’s what the story is about.
Adam-Troy Castro on fandom:
I went to a few scattered [science-fiction] already at the age of 10 or 12 years. When I was about that age, there was a convention called Lunacon, which was usually held at the Commodore Hotel, I believe, in New York City. The only thing that interested me in that convention – literally everything – was that at 2 o’clock on Saturday, Isaac Asimov give a speech. So I would buy a membership and go to that convention to listen to that talk. I have not attended any other panels. I showed up and sat down at that speech, watched that speech, said hello to Asimov – who I could tell might have felt I was an annoying kid – and then I might have appeared in the dealer’s room a little bit. But then I left.
Adam Troy Castro op Harlan Ellison†
I recognize that people have their reasons for disliking him or disapproving of him or – forgive the sentence, I don’t agree with the sentence – try to “cancel” him, but my answer to that is that you can’t figure it out 30 years of friendship or 50 years of literary admiration. You can’t. It’s very easy for younger people to do that if he didn’t mean anything to them… I guarantee anyone who listens to this – and this isn’t me making up an excuse for Harlan, this is me telling them one thing about life, namely that if your iconic figures live long enough, there will come a day when you have to apologize to them, and if you live long enough, you lose touch and lose the respect of people younger than you. This happens. It’s part of life.
Adam-Troy Castro on his story “The Old Horror Writer”†
When Frankenstein’s monster first appeared on the screen as played by Boris Karloff, the first sight of his face was enough to make people pass out in the theater. It’s not having that effect on anyone right now. We see many more horrific monsters in CGI every day. In fact, within 15 years, Frankenstein’s monster was chasing Lou Costello around. Monsters are driven out by horror fiction. It is now very, very difficult to write a scary vampire story. Damn there’s a zombie movie called fido in which [the zombie] is a children’s pet. It’s been a musical. I think that’s one of the things that drove [“The Old Horror Writer”]† That’s what the story was about, and that’s ultimately the success of the old horror writer in that story.