Q&A: March 2007

Q: How do you go about creating such a complex environment in which the book takes place?

A: I allow room for reader imagination. That's probably one of my biggest convictions. Many writers attempt to create a world in which everything is scientifically and procedurally laid out. I don't do that. I stick to the basics of the setting, and instead of elaborating on every little thing, I try to treat it as if it's normal. When someone comes across a new term, I don't spend two paragraphs defining it. I just amalgamate it into the story in a natural flow. Readers are smart people, else they wouldn't be reading. They can figure things out.

This allows me to create a broader, more open world, without the burden of having to prove everything with a textbook. There's no need to do it.


Q: Do you have any specific influences in your writing?

A: Honestly, no. This might surprise a few people out there, but I'm not much of a reader. Oftentimes people tell me that they're reading one of such-and-such's books, and nine times out of ten I have no idea who they're talking about.

That's when nodding and smiling comes in handy!


Q: How far in the future is the book set?

A: There's no answer to this question, purposefully so. I don't want my book to ever become dated, such as books like 1984, 2001, and soon-to-be 2010. That was a big reason for my recreating the calendar. Chances are very slim that there will ever be a "0011 NE." That's how I like it.

In addition to a new calendar, I mixed past, present, and future technologies. You have a futuristic military base, with operatives who talk on telephones, and whirring rotating-head fans in the generals' offices. In mixing these things, I've attempted to make my own time period. It's an industrially-futuristic world. Is it ten years in the future? A hundred? A thousand? There are no answers for that. It's the future, and that's all the reader needs to know.