A biography for Jeff Vandermeerhasn’t been written yet.
“I used to work for a succession of software editing companies that would have contracts with state and federal agencies. And I would be the documenter of meetings, sometimes doing limited business analysis. I began to become quite cynical about how the world works. It works on ineptitude and inefficiency and a kind of passiveness.”
“There's also a lot of gritty Americana type of bands. I actually have a lot of Britpop on my iPod, too.”
“In a sense, fictional dystopias have been a way of distracting us from the truth of our condition by placing it 'over there.'”
“There simply aren't enough constitutional safeguards in place to protect against a rogue president.”
“I see music as an aid. It overcomes my internal editor, especially when the music evokes the character or the mood I'm trying to build.”
“Vladimir Nabokov liked to examine cruelty and the human condition. That didn't mean he was cruel; there's no evidence he kicked puppies just for the fun of it. Similarly, 'Black Mirror' likes to examine possible dystopias, but that doesn't mean the show is cynical enough to endorse them.”
“So many differing opinions and philosophies... are rarely housed under the roof of a single magazine.”
“I'm an agnostic trending toward atheist and resist, in particular, Christian interpretations and imagery.”
“I'm not a fan of fiction that's totally hopeless.”
“My stepmom is one of the leading researchers on lupus in the world.”
“When you describe a character's dream, it has to be sharper than reality in some way and more meaningful. It has to somehow speak to plot, character, and all the rest.”
“When you think about the complexity of our natural world - plants using quantum mechanics for photosynthesis, for example - a smartphone begins to look like a pretty dumb object.”
“Heroes aren't always people who save others in the normal sense. Sometimes they're people who keep trying even when things seem impossible.”
“My dad is an entomologist and research chemist. That's why he was in Fiji, studying the rhinoceros beetle invasive species.”
“My parents were in the Peace Corps.”