The Big Idea: Carolyn Ives Gilman

Having a miscommunication can be annoying, or even cause some real tension, but rarely does it lead to something as severe as losing your life. Author Carolyn Ives Gilman is taking the miscommunication trope and putting a life-or-death spin on it for her newest novel, Testament of Leaves. CAROLYN IVES GILMAN: When I started work on Testament of Leaves, I had never written a science fiction mystery, and I wanted to find out how hard it was. The idea that got me going had been languishing in my notebook of spare ideas for a long time—about a detective who forms a relationship with the (dead) victim. I’d never used it because I’m a science fiction writer, and I don’t do ghosts. Then someone invented chatbots that impersonate dead people in order to comfort grieving relatives. What a grisly and problematic idea, I thought. Perfect fiction fodder. However, that turned out not to be the big idea. Or at least, not the only one. The more difficult question came up when I had to decide: who…