Kristin started reading science fiction at the age of eight, at a time when science fiction in school libraries was “for boys” and often said so on the spine. But she knew better. Reading science fiction led to fascination with science, a degree in chemistry, and work in a research lab that sparked a career in STEM publishing.
While working as a freelance copyeditor for scholarly books and caring for three children, Kristin wrote her first two science fiction novels. One blossomed into a trilogy: The Hidden Worlds, followed by The Cold Minds and The Dark Reaches. I read all three after seeing a review at Heather Massey’s Galaxy Express, earmarked Kristin as one of the talents I wanted to showcase, and elicited her story “From the Depths” for To Shape the Dark. Then I asked her for a novel—and her much-acclaimed Windhome now graces Candlemark’s catalogue.
Kristin was an outstanding writer. Her science fiction is grounded in scientific fact, with plots based on adventure and discovery, peopled with characters who are varied and vivid. Her work is accessible, rigorous yet evocative. She was very much in the tradition of Le Guin, Butler, McDevitt and Arnason, though with her own unique vision.
Kristin was also a wonderful person. I enjoyed every moment of interacting with her—her intelligence, steady temper, subtle wit, the rare combination of well-informed opinions with an open mind. We thought very much alike, and I looked forward to meeting her in person.
One of my greatest memories working with Kristin was our discussion of the baleful blood-red star that dominates the winter sky of Windhome, bright enough to cast shadows. I asked if we could mention its human name, so that it would remain imprinted in the reader’s memory. My thoughts had automatically gone to Arcturus, Alpha Bootis, a red giant whose intrinsic brightness is several orders of magnitude higher than Sirius.
Kristin said she had wanted it to be Arcturus, but unfortunately her calculations put that out of the running, based on the assumption that Windhome is Chara, aka Beta Canum Venaticorum. I decided to check for myself…and realized that in fact Arcturus is at exactly the right place to be the forbidding Tlankharu that the inhabitants of Shothef Erau gaze upon fearfully while the ice tightens its merciless grip on them. Kristin was delighted (we traced the discrepancy to an error in a mathematical sign) and made the connection in the text.
This was the kind of joy and excitement I experienced working with Kristin. And it makes my heart sore that I will have no more of it. Farewell, friend, colleague, dreamer of worlds…and here is a passage from your own Windhome to sing you into the dark sleep.
Only here, on all of Windhome, was music studied as an art. Here the crowds were smaller, but they stood in silence to listen. The music troubled Pierre. The men’s deep, warm voices shaped long, curving branches of melody over a firm ground. It was music potent with mystery, heavy with the considered grief of years. The strange scale, like and yet unlike any music of Earth—the sense of searching, searching, for a center, for return, and just as it seemed the music might come to rest there, the voices would fade….
Pierre knew what he was hearing in that music, and behind that music. He could not allow the dark, ravenous longing for home to begin again. Yet the memories came: The songs and dances in his village, handed down from generation to generation on the fringe of the Covenant world. The singing in the church at Christmas. And at last, his own son’s face, pinched with distress—Why are you going away? Was I bad? Pierre knotted his hands together, gripped until the bones hurt.
He could not allow himself to remember that now. He straightened, stood firm, watching Kelru’s tall figure moving through the crowd, always looking down. And still he listened to the music. The words were simpler than the harmonies that carried them. Perhaps if he concentrated on the words— The singers’ faces were intent, disciplined. Over those mountains is my home, they sang. In this broad valley is the land where I will die. Worldwind, carry my ashes high. Carry them higher than those mountains, O wind.
Pierre’s breath caught in his throat and he looked up, up at the stars, which trembled at first, trembled and then stilled as he won his battle yet again. Thousands of stars burned there, a bitter glory. He had never seen such stars in the dusty skies of Earth. Here the night was a flawless emptiness between himself and infinity. He stood exposed on the backbone of an alien world, waiting for death to find him. To find them all.
