SJ Kincaid is obsessed by history. So why is she writing SF?
I know a book has the potential to change a life, because one novel totally changed mine. The novel was Legacy by Susan Kay.
My sister had an obsession with Tudor England for many years. It perplexed me; but when I was in seventh grade, I found Legacy sitting in the bathroom in strategic reach of the toilet, so I read the first page.
It didn't matter. My obsession did not die, but evolved. I read about the Black Plague and became fascinated with the Dark Ages. I became obsessed with other historical events and figures: the French Revolution, the Roman Empire, the Salem Witch Trials, figures like Otto von Bismarck, Winston Churchill and villains like Joseph Stalin. My intellectual curiosity had been awakened by Tudor England but did not end with it.
And then I became a science fiction writer with my first series, Insignia, and now with my latest novel, The Diabolic - both set in the future.