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Talking with the Light and Shadow: An Interview with the Splinterssons
by Carl Esterhas
Almost every modern SF/fantasy fan has had the conversation, at one time or another: "I read a lot of him, too."
"Oh, yeah, Splintersson's great, isn't he?"
"Fascinating. I mean... what an uncompromising vision."
"Huh. That's never occurred to me... uncompromising?" "He doesn't worry about the morality of it, or what people'll think... he just writes."
The second speaker frowns. "Wait a minute here. Are you talking about Raphael Splintersson?"
"Yeah. Who did you think I was talking about?"
The Splintersson brothers are masters of their respective worlds: Michaelangelo's stories are full of light, romance, and happy endings. Raphael's are dark, disturbing, and bleak. Though some of their fans insist they're as different as night and day, careful readers have noticed many similarities in style and substance. Those similarities-- along with their striking differences-- are highlighted in their latest book, The Light and the Shadow, a collection of six short stories by each brother, capped with "Lost Child," the first story they've collaborated on in their years of writing. After much persuasion (begging), the Splintersson brothers finally agreed to an online chat, discussing their careers, their brotherhood, and The Light and the Shadow.
CE: Thanks for doing this interview... I admit, I'm not used to the online interview setting, but this is very comfortable.
MS: Don't thank us. Thank our brother Don, he's the one that set this whole thing up...
CE: Be sure to thank him for me.
RS: Oh, he ain't around. He's down in Mass splitting atoms or something.
CE: Where are you, physically?
MS: NYC. The Big Apple...
CE: By choice?
RS: Yeah.
MS: By habit.
CE: You live together?
RS: Nope.
CE: See each other often?
MS: When Mr. Crabby's in the right mood.
CE: That leads me to one of my questions, actually... are you like your stories?
RS: Are you kidding? Mike *is* his stories, the hero, the damsel in distress...
CE: The villain?
RS: Sometimes.
MS: Probably more often than you think, Raph.
CE: I was thinking more from the terms of... well...
RS: The good twin/evil twin stuff.
CE: Remember, *you're* the one who chose to put it that way.
MS: They've put it that way from Day One. The minute they realized we were brothers...
RS: Mike the optimist and me the realist.
MS: Pessimist.
RS: Whatever.
MS: I'm a lot more of a dreamer than he is.
RS: Nicer, more fun at parties...
MS: Raph...
RS: It's true. You're... a lot nicer than I am. Like the title says: He's the light and I'm the shadow.
MS: It isn't *that* bad.
RS: It isn't?
MS: Not like you go around biting the heads off babies or anything...
RS: Least not when *you're* around. *G*
MS: Very funny.
CE: Guys?
MS: Oh yeah, you were trying to interview us, weren't you?
CE: Well, I thought...
MS: Good thing we're not in the same room.
RS: Yeah, we'd be poundin' the crap outa each other by now.
CE: Seriously?
MS: Oh yeah.
RS: You shoulda seen us when we were kids.
MS: We lost more furniture that way...
CE: Did you fight when you were writing "Lost Child?"
MS: Are you kidding?
RS: We never stopped.
MS: We argued from eleven at night until five in the morning once about... what the hell was it even about?
RS: Ryder. You wanted him to touch the kid's face. And I kept telling you it wouldn't work, that there was no way he'd get attached to the kid that early in the story...
MS: About noon I called him and told him he was right.
RS: The twerp woke me up...
CE: But Ryder does touch his face.
MS: Later in the story.
RS: When it felt right.
CE: How did you come up with the stories in this collection?
MS: We picked them out ourselves. I picked Raph's and Raph picked mine.
CE: Did you have anything specific in mind?
MS: We just picked our favorites.
CE: Honestly?
RS: Yeah. When we looked at 'em later we realized what we'd done.
MS: Which was basically pick out stories that were light-years away from each other... he'd grabbed all my goofy, happy ones, and I'd picked all these nightmare stories...
RS: We actually went back and picked a couple that were less...
MS: Stereotypical.*G*
CE: Speaking of stereotypes...
RS: Here it comes.
CE: Raphael, your stories...
RS: Aren't nice to women. Aren't that nice to men either, but the women get it pretty rough.
CE: Some people have said they're pretty misogynistic.
RS: Look, I sit down and I write it. It's not about what's right or what's wrong or what anybody deserves. It's how it comes out, that's all. I don't have any control over it.
CE: But you're writing it.
RS: I don't know. Maybe it's that subconcious crap. I see it, and that's how I write it.
MS: And what they're not taking into account is... look, my stories are a vision of how things... almost how things *should* be. Raph's are more... how things *are.* How people are. I mean, if you look at his characters, the women are tough as nails... they go through hell, but... women do. Look at all the rapes in Bosnia and Somalia, where they were basically using rape as a weapon...
RS: What was that quote you sent me the other day?
MS: Which one?
RS: The boot one.
MS: Oh, yeah, the George Orwell... it's around here somewhere...
RS: Here it is. "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face-- forever."
MS: Raph in a nutshell. The eternal pessimist...
RS: Realist.
MS: Whatever.
CE: Think it's true?
RS: Maybe.
MS: I'm afraid it's true, I think. I think I try to fight against it.
CE: And what do you do, Raph?
RS: I don't know. I want to fight against it--
MS: Maybe your stories are your way of doing it. Holding up a mirror, kind of.
RS: Yeah. I... I hope I do some good with 'em, anyway.
CE: Thanks for your time, gentlemen--
RS: No prob.
MS: Our pleasure.
Carl Esterhas is a noted S/F writer and critic. He recently edited Lost in the Crimson, a collection of short stories centering around the planet Mars.
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