{"id":19862,"date":"2013-08-01T00:01:54","date_gmt":"2013-08-01T04:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=19862"},"modified":"2013-07-31T21:22:59","modified_gmt":"2013-08-01T01:22:59","slug":"ten-questions-about-the-darwin-elevator-by-jason-m-hough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2013\/08\/01\/ten-questions-about-the-darwin-elevator-by-jason-m-hough\/","title":{"rendered":"TEN QUESTIONS ABOUT THE DARWIN ELEVATOR BY JASON M. HOUGH"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This is one of those books that has what I believe to be known as “buzz.” Which means either it’s filled with wasps or people are talking about it. One or the other. Whatever the definition, I hear nothing but awesome about this book, so let’s sit in a circle and listen to what Jason has to say about it:<\/em><\/p>\n

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF: WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?<\/h2>\n

At the moment, an author and a father.\u00a0 It\u2019s about as simple as that.\u00a0 My boys are 3.5 and 1.5, which means they aren\u2019t shuffled off to school day-in-day-out yet, and thus require a lot of time.\u00a0 Which I gotta say, I love.\u00a0 They\u2019re my life right now, and I wouldn\u2019t trade it for anything with the possible exception of a 2013 Aston Martin Virage in British racing green with a tan interior.<\/p>\n

But who the hell am I? What makes me me? I can think of a handful of moments that shaped Jason of today.\u00a0 Seeing Star Wars on the big screen when I was six gave me an early love of sci-fi and a paralyzing fear of being choked to death by telepathy.\u00a0 Winning five hours of free play at an arcade when I was eleven cemented my already gigantic obsession with video games.\u00a0 Inheriting a box of comic books when I was thirteen led me not only to discover that art form, but also caused me to meet the other comic book geeks at my school.\u00a0 They\u2019re still friends of mine today, by the way.\u00a0 Seeing Pixar\u2019s \u201cTin Toy\u201d at an animation festival spurred an obsession with 3D graphics and animation that led to a career, years later, in the video game business.\u00a0 I like to credit MTV\u2019s spiral into non-music programming for my sense of humor, since one of the first non-music things they aired was Monty Python\u2019s Flying Circus.\u00a0 I was fifteen or so, and stayed up until midnight to watch that when I should have been doing homework, or, you know, sleeping.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t start writing with any seriousness until 2007 in an attempt to fill the creative void in my life caused by leaving the game business.\u00a0 So far so good, I guess!<\/p>\n

GIVE US THE 140-CHARACTER STORY PITCH.<\/h2>\n

A ragtag group must unravel the mystery of failing alien space elevator that is the only thing keeping the remnants of the human race alive.<\/p>\n

WHERE DOES THIS STORY COME FROM?<\/h2>\n

I became fascinated with space elevators since reading \u201cChildhood\u2019s End\u201d by Arthur C. Clarke.\u00a0 One thing I heard frequently afterwards was that such a device would never get built because the materials required were simply too difficult to conceive, much less manufacture.\u00a0 The contrarian in me thought, \u201cWho says we\u2019re the ones who will build it?\u201d<\/p>\n

As I started to think more about an alien-gifted space elevator, I came to really like the idea that some kind of apocalyptic event on the ground would turn it into a literal thread tying two very different societies together. Survival both on the ground and above would be impossible unless both sides learned to share and trade along this incredibly narrow trade route.\u00a0 Plus, the game designer in me saw great opportunity in the natural choke points such a situation would have.\u00a0 It all just seemed rife for politics, intrigue, and genuine terror, all piled on top of a first-contact story.<\/p>\n

HOW IS THIS STORY ONLY YOU COULD\u2019VE WRITTEN?<\/h2>\n

I\u2019d love to be able to say I\u2019m a space elevator scientist or an expert on pandemic diseases or, hell, someone who\u2019s actually been to Darwin Australia where the story is set, but I\u2019m none of those things.\u00a0 I\u2019m just a guy who thought up a story to tell, and I think the only thing that separates me from others is that I put in the effort to do it.\u00a0 The research, the writing, the titanic battles with self-doubt.<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s a mistake for new writers to walk away from a good idea because it doesn\u2019t fall into the \u201cwrite what you know\u201d mantra.\u00a0 Someone once told me the full quote is really \u201cwrite what you know to be emotionally true\u201d.\u00a0 Everything else is research.\u00a0 I believe that.<\/p>\n

WHAT WAS THE HARDEST THING ABOUT WRITING THE DARWIN ELEVATOR ?<\/h2>\n

Doing the work.\u00a0 The actual task of writing.\u00a0 It\u2019s incredibly time consuming, and during the process I became a father twice in addition to carrying a full time job.\u00a0 I really do have to credit everything to my amazing wife. \u00a0She supported this from day one and sacrificed sleeping in for years to give me the time I needed to write.<\/p>\n

WHAT DID YOU LEARN WRITING THE DARWIN ELEVATOR ?<\/h2>\n

Where to start!\u00a0 My research for the book included a whole laundry list of things: Darwin (weather, geography, flora and fauna), tandem parachuting, firearms, explosives, Dutch air force, physics, sewer construction, water purification.\u00a0 I could go on.\u00a0 By the way, the first person excluding friends and family to tweet the word slipstream to me gets a signed copy of the book.\u00a0 Let\u2019s see who read this far.<\/p>\n

From a writing standpoint, I learned that I\u2019m an outliner.\u00a0 I\u2019m mortified of writing myself into a plot hole from which there is no escape except to delete chapter after chapter.\u00a0 I\u2019d rather do that kind of thing when each chapter is only a sentence.\u00a0 I also learned that having a deadline, even a self-imposed one, really spurs creativity.<\/p>\n

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT THE DARWIN ELEVATOR ?<\/h2>\n

Much to my editor\u2019s chagrin, I love the setting.\u00a0 I say that because from very early on he was very focused on the characters.\u00a0 I love the characters, too, but I\u2019ve always been rather proud of the world they run around in.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s certainly the most unique aspect of the book.\u00a0 We battled (I use that word lightly) on the cover design in this regard.\u00a0 I wanted a scenery painting; they wanted the main character front and center.\u00a0 In the end I think they were right, but that doesn\u2019t lessen my love for the setting.<\/p>\n

WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME?<\/h2>\n

In the future I\u2019ll probably spend more time up front fleshing out my characters.\u00a0 I let most of their personality and background details emerge from my brain as I wrote, and I think this ends up making some of them feel a bit more shallow than I\u2019d like.\u00a0 That being said, I was going for a \u201cDie Hard in space\u201d vibe, accessible sci-fi in the same vain as my hero Scalzi, so I don\u2019t think this does a terrible disservice to the book.\u00a0 It\u2019s an area I hope to improve in, though.<\/p>\n

GIVE US YOUR FAVORITE PARAGRAPH FROM THE STORY:<\/h2>\n

Almost five years after the Elevator arrived, the disease appeared and spread across the globe. Why the Elevator negated it, or even how, remained a mystery. The two were linked, that much was obvious, but in that time of worldwide panic only one thing mattered:\u00a0Get to Darwin. Darwin is safe.\u00a0The city as it was collapsed under the onslaught of refugees, Skyler among them. Memory of that journey made him shiver even now. Amazing what humans could do to one another when their survival instinct kicked in.<\/p>\n

WHAT\u2019S NEXT FOR YOU AS A STORYTELLER?<\/h2>\n

Wouldn\u2019t I like to know!\u00a0 Much rides on how well these three books do.\u00a0 In an ideal world, I\u2019ll sell another Dire Earth trilogy to Del Rey and start working on them as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

Right now I\u2019m writing short stories that will be used as companion pieces to the release of DARWIN and its sequels.\u00a0 After that, until there\u2019s a clearer picture of what happens next, I\u2019m going to start on a fantasy idea I\u2019ve been anxious to write for over five years.<\/p>\n

Jason Hough: Website<\/span><\/a> \/ @jasonmhough<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Darwin Elevator: Amazon<\/span><\/a> \/ B&N<\/span><\/a> \/ Indiebound<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is one of those books that has what I believe to be known as “buzz.” Which means either it’s filled with wasps or people are talking about it. One or the other. Whatever the definition, I hear nothing but awesome about this book, so let’s sit in a circle and listen to what Jason […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-5am","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19862"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19868,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19862\/revisions\/19868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}