Lincoln Michel wants you to know that Michael Lincoln, the main character of his sophomore novel, is definitely, absolutely, not him. But also, he is—as is every other character in Metallic Realms, a novel that blurs the line between satire, autofiction, and speculative storytelling. The book follows a struggling writer obsessed with preserving the work of a cult sci-fi writing collective while chronicling the personal and creative melodramas of its members. Mirroring Michel’s own extensive experience writing about and for the sci-fi and literary publishing worlds—most notably through his widely read Substack, Counter Craft, which explores craft, genre, and the business of writing—the novel dissects science fiction and literature with humor and affection.
PW spoke with Michel about walking the fine line between love and satire in fiction, blending the autofictional with the science fictional, the problem with making assumptions about genre, and more.
The protagonist of your new book is named Michael Lincoln. Your name is Lincoln Michel. How much of you is in this book generally, and in Michael Lincoln specifically?
The name is partly a joke. Throughout my life, I’ve had people tell me I must have written my name wrong: that Michelle is a first name and Lincoln is a last name. Or they assume I misspelled Michael and that I must have meant to write Michael Lincoln. For a while I thought there must be a Michael Lincoln out there somewhere, my doppelgänger in some other version of the multiverse. Anyway, I wanted to write an autofictionish novel, but in a playful, funhouse mirror way. Using an inverted version of my name made sense.
Some of Michael is taken from my life, although that’s true of all the characters in the novel regardless of their genders, ethnicities, or characteristics. It’s all reality and fiction, blurred and mingled. One character is named Taras Castle, which is actually a pen name I used and briefly published under for a weird science fiction poetry cycle idea I had. There’s one passage in the novel where Jane, another member of the writing collective, talks about collecting different bits from her life that catch her eye for her novel, like a bird collecting shiny objects to build a nest. My fiction is like that, at least when it gets autofictional. I take a lot from my life but try to transform it into something different and surprising—try to build something totally new of bits of the real.
The Michael Lincoln character is... unlikable. And some of the writing choices suggest that he is intended to be unlikable. Do you worry about people thinking that this is who you are?
I’m worrying about it now that I’m closer to publication! At the time of writing, I was mostly having fun, and trying to create an interesting novel and memorable story and beautiful prose and sharp jokes and all the rest. But I honestly wasn’t sure the novel would ever be published, and the public reception wasn’t at the forefront of my mind.
Michael is certainly meant to be unlikeable, in a sense. The unlikable character debate has been a part of the literary discourse for as long as I can remember. Maybe this is my own weirdness, but most of my favorite characters are buffoons or ridiculous or maybe even a little evil. Those characters are the most fun to read. Maybe I wouldn’t want to be best friends with them off the page, but so what? They don’t exist off the page. I also wouldn’t prefer a life with the drama, horrors, conflicts, miscommunications, insanity, and so on that powers most compelling novels. I suppose I don’t quite understand the mindset that looks for the same qualities in art that we seek in daily life. But, to each their own.
The book contains short stories “written” by different members of a writing collective. Did you have a favorite of the short stories? (Mine was the first one, “The Duchy of the Toe Adam.”)
Honestly, my personal favorite had to be cut in the editing stage because it was the longest story and couldn’t quite fit. It disrupted the narrative flow. Maybe half the space stories were cut and replaced with new stories during editing. We’ll figure out something else to do with that long story. A bonus chapbook for anyone interested, maybe. But I think that first story, “The Duchy of the Toe Adam,” works best on its own as a full, complete piece. Most of the other stories couldn’t be published on their own.
A lot of your characters have opinions about the writing industry and sci-fi publishing, and I’m wondering if you agree with them. For instance, Michael says that MFA writers write about “sad characters in Brooklyn whining about bad sex and the lingering effects of their parents’ affairs” and “build gaseous clouds out of lyrical nonsense.”
I don’t agree with that entirely, as I myself have an MFA. I do think some people write that way. Including lots of writers without an MFA, I should note. I was playing around with the discussions I’ve been invested in through most of my career, like the question of the boundaries between genre fiction and literary fiction.
I was someone who grew up reading “literary” fiction next to “genre” fiction without much distinction, Ursula K. Le Guin and Raymond Chandler alongside Raymond Carver and Italo Calvino. Even when I thought of myself as a quote unquote “literary writer,” I buckled against the idea that genre fiction was a lesser form of writing that couldn’t reach the heights of literary fiction unless a literary writer came in and elevated the genre. That was the phrase critics used, right? This has been elevated. I always found that a bit offensive.
Having said that, I also find genres interesting and generative. I don’t believe the argument that they are merely marketing categories that don’t mean anything. They are different literary traditions with different histories and techniques. When I’m writing in a genre, I like to think I’m adding to that conversation; I’m speaking to those authors and reflecting their work in mine and hopefully adding my own spin. I sometimes think of literature as a great conversation in a gigantic room, stretching through time and across languages. Genres and subgenres are sort of side conversations that occur. So are styles and schools. I guess I’m saying that I believe in genres as concepts, but not as markers of quality.
The book pokes fun at both forms of writing, literary fiction as well as genre, because in both, there are pitfalls to a narrow-minded attitude towards art. I’ve been in both worlds, so I’ve seen science fiction fans who say, “Anything that’s literary fiction is boring and pointless and no one wants to read it.” Science fiction authors sometimes use the term “mundane fiction” as an insult. I think these can be pitfalls for readers and writers. Most of the best writers read broadly, across genres and styles as well as countries and time periods.
Metallic Realms has been described by critics as both satire and as a “(toxic) love letter” to science fiction. Do you think that good satire always has to come from a place of love?
I do think so. The best satire has a 360-degree gaze to it. It looks both outward and inward. A lot of what is being mocked or lightly roasted in the book are ideas I’ve had or things I’ve done. It’s definitely not meant to be an attack on some group of people unrelated to me. I’m looking at foibles and absurdities among the people and the kinds of worlds I’m a part of too. Which is to say, I’m also lightly roasting myself. Maybe heavily roasting.
