All the instructive material I’ve read on the process of writing has at some point encouraged the would-be author to find their own voice, to establish a tone that is uniquely theirs. This is not only done through the choice of language used, but also in the reoccurring themes or meta-themes that cross through much of an author’s work.

When I think of Asimov I think of his fascination with artificial intelligence, robots, and the inherent ethical dilemmas that would face a world where A.I. and robots were an everyday part of reality.

When I think of Alfred Bester I think of telepaths and the crazy construction and deconstruction of what makes a man–themes which are easily seen in both The Demolished Man and in Stars My Destination.

A.E. Van Vogt’s work, or what little I’ve read of it, seems imbibed with every individual’s true potential. Along the journey the individual or self is meant to fully realize or actualize their true power.

When I think of Philip K. Dick, I think of all our personal insecurities and doubts growing and seeding into tremendous paranoia–and to see that fully realized in a dystopia. The fear and distrust of authority is always there in Dick’s work, as is the nagging thought that maybe the world is a fake, a sham? Dick has this to say about his own themes:

I, in my stories and novels, often write about counterfeit worlds, semi-real worlds, as well as deranged private worlds inhabited, often, by just one person, while, meantime, the other characters either remain in their own worlds throughout or are somehow drawn into one of the peculiar ones. This theme occurs in the corpus of my twenty-seven years of writing. At no time did I have a theoretical or conscious explanation for my preoccupation with these pluriform pseudoworlds, but now I think I understand. What I was sensing was the manifold of partially actualized realities lying tangent to what evidently is the most actualized one, the one that the majority of us, by consensus gentium [general consent], agree on.

Although originally I presumed that the differences between these worlds was caused entirely by the subjectivity of the various human viewpoints, it did not take me long to open the question as to whether it might not be more than that — that in fact plural realities did exist superimposed onto one another like so many film transparencies. What I still do not grasp, however, is how one reality out of the many becomes actualized in contradistinction to the others. Perhaps none does. Or perhaps again it hangs on an agreement in viewpoint by a sufficiency of people. More likely the matrix world, the one with the true core of being, is determined by the Programmer. He or it articulates — prints out, so to speak — the matrix choice and fuses it with actual substance. The core or essence of reality — that which receives or attains it and to what degree — that is within the purview of the Programmer; this selection and reselection are part of general creativity, of world-building, which seems to be its or his task. A problem, perhaps, which he or it is running, which is to say in the process of solving.

In each of these authors I share perspective as a writer. I enjoy the obsession with logic featured in Asimov’s robot series, the psychological and sociological dissection and deconstruction of men in Bester’s work, the feeling of a character growing into their own in Vogt’s work.

I perhaps share more closely the paranoia, distrust, and the wonderful absurdity of peeking behind the curtain and catching the wizard at work within Philip K. Dick’s stories. This is probably why he is one of my favorites.

I share a little bit of perspective with all of these authors. As for my own themes, it is difficult to say. I’m afraid I haven’t written enough to even hazard a guess. I’m sure my tropes will reveal themselves over time as I write more.

What are your recurring themes?