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J.D. Clarke
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[AOTM] Author Interview With J.D. Clark
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John wrote: "Great interview and responses!"I know. It always makes the book so much more intimate and enjoyable which you get a peek under the hood, doesn't it?
Thank you, J.D., for taking the time to answer all our questions! And now, without further ado, J.D. Clarke, author of the Lunar Contact Trilogy.
If you have questions or wish to discuss things, I encourage you to leave them in the thread.
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1. What books have most influenced your life? The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov and the John Carter series by Edgar Rice Burroughs really stimulated my imagination as a youth and encouraged my interest in science and science fiction. I always preferred SF based on real science, but a good action story is hard to put down. I’ve tried to merge the two in my writings.
2. How do you develop your plots and characters? I am fascinated with concepts more than characters, which probably shows in my writings. I begin with a concept that I want to explore and then let the characters develop around that situation.
3. Tell us about your Space Opera Fans book? In The Contact series I began with the concept of humans encountering the ideal society, the type of society that humans have always strived for, perfect equality, absolute democracy, individual freedom, and the pursuit of knowledge as the goal of every individual and the society itself. I then put that society in conflict with human existence. Which society deserves to survive? Is it right for humans to destroy another society in order to survive?
The other questions that I wanted to explore in the Lunar Contact series were: How does an intellectually inferior race defeat a technologically superior race? What are the differences in human intelligence and machine intelligence? What are the differences in how we interact and how a software based society would behave?
The constant conflicts between the characters in the book are there to illustrate our human frailties. We always believe we are right and we always believe that what we are doing is justified. I love the quote: “What does it feel like when you’re wrong? It feels like being right.” We never see our decisions as being wrong at the time we make them. We always think we are right.
Many of our decisions and actions are based on emotion rather than logic. The characters in the book exhibit different motivations for their actions and the consequences are usually severe.
The alien society, The Unity, provides a contrast to that and their actions are always logical and directed towards efficiently achieving their goal of absolute knowledge.
4. We all need a hero! Tell us about your protagonist(s)? Was there a real-life inspiration behind him or her? There was no real person that the hero was based on. I wanted him to be an average person plunged into an unusual situation. He had to have the intelligence and creativity to defeat a superior alien race, but I wanted him to embody what advantages the human race would have against a machine society. I dislike the hero that is invincible and always wins. In fact in the original ending for the book, Jason returns to Earth as a failure and dies there witnessing Earth’s destruction. But by the time I got to that point, I didn’t want to put an end to the crew of the Defiant. I wanted more.
5. A good villain is hard to write. How did you get in touch with your inner villain(s) to write this book. Was there a real-life inspiration for him/her/it? That’s a delicate question. I actually had a real-life inspiration for the antagonist. I won’t define them as a villain. The Unity, as represented by the alien Sybil, was inspired by my daughter. She went through a stage of life where everything was about her, pure self-interest. She’s very intelligent and she usually found a way to accomplish her goals, regardless of rules or warnings or consideration of others. She has, of course, grown up now and I am very proud of the loving, thoughtful woman she has become. I might add that several fans have commented on being “Sybil Fans,” which pleases me in many ways, including a fatherly aspect.
6. What real-life inspirations did you draw from for the worldbuilding within your book? The world building in the book is mostly my own ideas of what the future may be like. I try to keep up with current technology and extrapolate it to solve obvious problems in our future, especially space travel. I tried to portray the differences in strategies and philosophies that would come with immortality. For instance, the Unity’s lack of faster than light travel. For their society, time was not an issue and the added expense in resources for FTL travel were not justified. If you live forever, what do you care if you get there tomorrow or 100 years from now?
7. Sci-fi fans love techno-porn! What real-life science (or pseudo-science) did you research for your book? The weapons and defensive shields were the most science intense aspects of the book. I was torn over how much science to incorporate in the book. I didn’t want it to bog down the action. I personally enjoy a lot of science, but several readers of the first draft didn’t agree. I was fortunate to have a science consultant for the Navy’s weapons development programs that I could ask for validation of much of the science in the book. I will put more science in future writings.
8. What was the hardest part of writing this book? I write in the mornings and I usually awake excited to see what is going to happen next! I have tried outlining, but it seems to take away much of the fun in writing. The hardest part of this book was the ending. I already mentioned that I changed it to allow for another trilogy, but by the time I had written all three of the books, I was tired of the story and it was hard to rewrite the ending.
9. What was your favorite chapter (or part) to write and why? I think my favorite part of the book to write was the part dealing with the character Sasha, because she was such a strong character and gave Jason fits.
10. Did you learn anything from writing this book and what was it? The biggest thing I learned from writing this book is a need to develop characters more fully and earlier in the story. I have written several stories since just dealing with character development in order to practice. The book, Silo Saga: The Lost Silo, was one of these. The books that build on the Contact series will have richer characters.
11. Is there a message in your novel that you hope readers will grasp? Hopefully the reader will be stimulated to question our society and the weaknesses that we exhibit in our interaction with one another. There are many ways in which we can enrich our society and our lives, it only takes the will to do so.
12. What are your future project(s)? I am currently working on a new trilogy based on Lunar Contact. I would like to deal with issues involving cloning, reanimation, and what our personal identity really means to our psychological health. If you could raise a loved one from the grave by recreating them, would it be wonderful, would they be the same, or would you always be wondering who they really were? How would they think of themselves?
13. If you couldn’t be an author, what would your ideal career be? I have an infinite number of interests. I enjoy writing and being an author, and the best part of that is sharing my stories with others. I get excited when a reader contacts me with comments on a story I have written, whether it’s a compliment or a criticism. I truly enjoy hearing from readers.
I enjoy designing products, I enjoy science, teaching, flying, travel. I could and do enjoy many other vocations.
14. Do you have anything specific that you want to say to the Space Opera Fans community members? Thank you for selecting my book as your monthly read. I feel truly honored. I hope that you enjoy reading it, because it was written to be enjoyed. I will always personally answer any email, so please feel free to contact me anytime at: author.jdclarke@gmail.com
Interview granted 2013.04.06
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You can get in touch with J.D. Clarke at his blog at: http://jdclarkeauthor.com/