Joanne Merriam is joining us today to talk about her novel, Aether and Ego. Here’s the publisher’s description:
It is autumn 1845, and Elizabeth Bennet is a part of the second generation embarking on a centuries-long flight to Alpha Centauri, working in the signal room and studying engineering aboard a massive centrifugal ship. When she is thrown into the orbit of the conventional Mr. Darcy, Elizabeth finds him haughty and intolerable.
But then her younger sister elopes. For all of their progress in the new society of the ship, a woman can still be ruined by an imprudent attachment. Can Elizabeth and Darcy save Lydia’s reputation, learn to like each other, and avoid being convicted of murder?
Aether and Ego is a steampunk retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, with the addition of space travel, dogs, and accidental death.
What’s Joanne’s favorite bit?
My Pride and Prejudice reimagining Aether and Ego takes place on a generation ship built using 1820s technology with the help of a few genius scientists. This is, to say the least, a stretch! But I didn’t want to move my setting too far into the future of the original novel, since one of the things I was interested in was how plopping my Regency characters down in a setting where everybody must work to survive would affect class and gender roles. I put lift-off right at the end of the Regency period, in 1821, with Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy growing up shipboard, so the ship is a sort of extended Regency society set in the 1840s.
Despite the impossible setting, I wanted my people to feel real and realistic, and one way to do that was to evoke the chaos of a big family. I’m from the Maritimes, and my extended family, typical of our area, are full of conversation. We talk over each other and tease each other and give low-voiced asides to whoever is sitting next to us. Generally speaking, if five of us are in a room, we’re having at least four discussions. I wanted some of that dynamic to show in the novel, since with five daughters and an assertive (though not, in my version, silly) mother, I imagined conversations would overlap and intertwine like in my own family. These conversations accomplish all the things dialogue normally does (move the story along, reveal motivations and goals, flesh out character, etc) but their interplay also functions to show the stress and joy of a rambunctious group of strong-willed women (and Mr. Bennet, though he’s generally pretty happy to fade into the background and read a book). These scenes were also just great fun to write.
My favourite bit is this messy, overlapping conversation where Elizabeth finds out her doting father won’t support her scholarship:
“Father,” Elizabeth said, coming into the drawing room.
Mr. Bennet had his head in a book and did not hear.
“Our aunt told me that if we should go to the communal kitchen more often, we might run into Mr. Forster and Mr. Carter,” Lydia said to Kitty. “She sees them going there very often from her window.”
“Father,” Elizabeth repeated.
“Yes, dear,” Mr. Bennet said without looking up. He turned a page.
“Could you come to your library with me, and explain to me these equations?” Elizabeth said, holding up Faraday’s new book.
“I saw Mr. Metcalfe when I was going to work yesterday,” Kitty said. “He had on his blue coat! So handsome!”
Mrs. Bennet came in just then, still wearing her dirt-covered gloves and an apron. “Lizzy, I need you.”
“Not just at present, my pet,” Mr. Bennet said to Elizabeth.
Mary came into the room behind Mrs. Bennet. “Excuse me, mamma,” she murmured, and walked around her to the family’s shabby pianoforte.
“I think he has a weak chin,” Lydia said. “Denny is much more to my liking.”
“But I cannot follow them, Father,” Elizabeth said.
Mary cleared her throat, and Elizabeth looked over to see that she was gathering her sheet music into a pile and shuffling through it to find a song.
“Oh, no,” Kitty said. “Metcalfe has much nicer hair.”
“Lizzy,” Mrs. Bennet said.
“It is just as well that you have such bad taste, Kitty! Less competition for the good men!”
Mary began to play a sonata.
“I am speaking with papa, mamma.” Elizabeth said.
The sonata sounded as though it were a military march.
“I have not!” Kitty pouted.
“I am sure you can work them out on your own, Lizzy,” Mr. Bennet said mildly, still reading.
“My taste is every bit as good as yours,” Kitty went on.
Her father still did not look at her. “And in any case, you will have no need of that sort of knowledge when you are married.”
Elizabeth put down her physics book with a thump.
“Now, Lizzy.”
“I will help you, Mother,” Jane said, rising from the window seat where she had been looking out at the lights of their greenhouses and apparently daydreaming.
“Why do we even have a window?” Elizabeth said, motioning at her. “What is the point? There is nothing to look at.”
“Thank you, Jane,” Mrs. Bennet said, looking pointedly at Elizabeth.
“Oh!” Elizabeth threw up her hands. “I am going for a walk.”
“I want to come!” Kitty said, and Lydia said, “Yes, let us go into Meryton with you!”
No wonder Mary King had been the first woman to graduate. She was an only child.
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BIO:
Joanne Merriam is a writer in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Her short fiction has appeared in Blood+Honey, Escape Pod, and Strange Horizons amongst other places. She formerly ran Upper Rubber Boot Books, of Sunvault fame, and is on the TriCon writing conference executive. Aether and Ego is her debut novel.
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