In the Spotlight: Mike Van Horn

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Mike has been an active member of Writers Co-op for a long time. He’s written posts for us and comes and goes as a commenter depending on how involved he is in his own writing. Ask him about his science fiction.

Here’s what he has to say about books that have influenced him.

My earliest reading memory

My mother always read to me. Two of my favorites were The Little Engine That Could and Little Black Sambo. I can still remember reading Dick and Jane as a 1^st grader.

My favorite book growing up

My parents bought a set of World Book Encyclopedias, and I read them assiduously. Fossils and dinosaurs. Planets and stars. History and geography. Remember Trivial Pursuit? I always excelled at the Science and History cards.

The book that changed me as a teenager

I read all my dad’s science fiction books. Two that had the greatest impact on me were Stranger in a Strange Land and the Foundation series. I think these first planted the seed of writing science fiction, even though it took me another 30 years to begin.

I was challenged by the idea that a single hero could change the universe. The real world didn’t happen that way, and all my stories have team efforts.

The writer who changed my mind

Carl Jung. When I was in college having a tough time, the counselor recommended I read Man and His Symbols. He gave me a copy. It took a long time for me to read it because the illustrations were so impactful. Getting introduced to Jung’s thinking was a revelation. Previously, all psychology was Freudian, which never resonated with me. Felt like it was written about a different species. Jung did resonate. I thought, here’s a model I identify with. I read many of Jung’s books after that.

The book that made me want to be a writer

I’ve always been a writer, so let’s say “published writer.” In the early 80s I worked for a company that published computer books. We got contracts from publishers such as Bantam and wrote the books we contracted for. My job was to find the authors to write these books. I was successful at that, and we had a lot of good books.

But for one title I could find no suitable writer. It was to be a layman’s explanation of artificial intelligence. The writers I found were either too technical or academic or too gee whiz. Finally, my boss said, Van Horn, you write it. I knew nothing about this topic. But with research, I ended up writing Understanding Expert Systems, including drawing cartoons for it. Bantam published it, it got good reviews, and I made some royalties. I also had paid speaking gigs from this, including a trip to Australia.

Since then, I’ve churned out many books, both fiction and non-fiction.

The book I could never read again

I recently tried re-reading David Brin’s Uplift Series, which I’d really enjoyed years ago. But this time, I got impatient with it, and just couldn’t go on. Contrast this with Leguin’s Earthsea trilogies, which I can pick up and start reading at any point and still be engrossed.  

The book I am currently reading

1. “Range—why generalists triumph in a specialized world,” by David Epstein

2. “The French Woman’s Ghost” by BJ Van Horn, my wife who recently passed away. She was almost finished writing this book, and I—along with two others—chose to complete it and get it published in her honor. I’ve just finished writing the final chapters.  

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If you’d like to share your own responses to those questions, send them to me in the body of an email at stranscht@sbcglobal.net (no attachments, please). There’s no deadline.