Daniel H. Wilson is a Cherokee citizen and author of the New York Times bestselling Robopocalypse and its sequel Robogenesis, as well as How to Survive a Robot Uprising, The Clockwork Dynasty, and The Andromeda Evolution (an authorized sequel to Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain). He earned a PhD in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as masters degrees in machine learning and robotics. His next novel is Hole in the Sky, a tale of Native first contact with extraterrestrials. Wilson lives in Portland, Oregon. “Whalesong” is his second appearance in Uncanny, a gripping tale of language, family relationships, and whales.
Uncanny Magazine: “Whalesong” has the feel of a first contact story, and it highlights the challenges of communication, be it with a different species or a member of your own family. What was the spark or inspiration for the story?
Daniel H. Wilson: Mom issues! Seriously, there were two points of inspiration. I’ve been reading about researchers using AI to communicate with animals (including cetaceans), and I was intrigued by the idea of using LLMs trained on non-human language. But there’s always a story within a story, and this one was clearly about communication. I’m always on the lookout for real emotion to “mine” from my own life, and lately I’ve been thinking about my mom a lot. So that’s how a science fictional concept and an emotional concept came together into “Whalesong.”
Uncanny Magazine: What was your favorite part of writing this story? What was the most challenging thing?
Daniel H. Wilson: My favorite part was embarrassing my children by incorporating (already outdated) slang. Skibidi. The biggest challenge was that I wanted to fit too much into this story. There was a whole plot about a sunken city and an escape that went on for a long time. I finally realized the climax of the story was the communication breakthrough between mother and son, and that the rest would be just plot. So, I cut out some of the adventure and focused on what mattered—the heart of the story.
Uncanny Magazine: You’ve written in many different forms—short fiction and novels, comics, non-fiction. Do you find it difficult to shift from one form to another? Do you tend to work on one project at a time, or many things at once?
Daniel H. Wilson: I typically have a major and a minor project going at the same time. The major project is in the morning (when my brain works) and the minor project I save for the afternoon (when my brain only sort of works). This has always worked for me, especially when I keep in mind I don’t have to finish it all in one day. Small, iterative progress is the name of the game.
Uncanny Magazine: If you were a whale, what type of whale would you want to be, and why?
Daniel H. Wilson: Hah! Wouldn’t it be interesting to be embodied as the largest creature that’s ever existed (that we know of)? I mean, a blue whale is so large that it’s above it all—not really in competition with other animals, just existing as master of the domain it inhabits. I’d love to know what it feels like to be a living submarine, with the entire ocean as your playground.
Uncanny Magazine: Who are some of your literary influences? What’s something you read recently and loved?
Daniel H. Wilson: My early influences are predictable—Vonnegut, Bradbury, Dick, Clarke, Asimov, and Stephen King—and I was mostly a fan of their short stories. But luckily I’ve also always had the habit of reading whatever falls into my path, so lately I’ve been enjoying history (The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe), crazy sci-fi short stories (Axiomatic, Greg Egan), a play that examines identity (Yellow Face, David Henry Hwang), some contemporary Native stuff (Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, Shane Hawk & Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.) and another semi-historical book about the dawn of scientific thinking (Anaximander: And the Birth of Science, Carlo Rovelli). All of these are amazing.
Uncanny Magazine: What are you working on next?
Daniel H. Wilson: I have a new novel coming from Doubleday in October 2025. Hole in the Sky is a Native first contact story that takes place at the Spiro Mounds in Oklahoma (the ruins of the westernmost outpost of the mound builder civilization)—a few miles from my family’s original Indian allotment after forced removal. The book follows a newly sober Cherokee father who has a fractured relationship with his daughter, a foul-mouthed NASA astrophysicist, and a by-the-books government agent as they experience the arrival of a non-human intelligence that threatens our understanding of reality. I’m currently adapting the novel for Netflix, with Sterlin Harjo (Reservation Dogs) attached to direct. It’s been wild!
Uncanny Magazine: Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us!
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