What inspired your book, In Light of the Blood Giant?
It’s an axiom amongst scientists, futurists, sci-fi writers, that any Earthling species is going to have to go interstellar and leave our Solar System if they’re to survive for the long haul. But I wasn’t interested in writing about that journey. I wanted to write about the people left behind. Those poor sods who wouldn’t make the cut. We all have to cope with rejection and feelings of inadequacy, and I wanted to push that to its hyperbolic limit.
And then I thought: rats.
When I was an undergraduate, studying astrophysics and the physics of climate change, I used to daydream about a dying Earth under a parent star that’s beginning to wane and burn the last of its reserve. Real end of all time stuff. But I couldn’t imagine there being any humans still alive in the time it’s going to take for our Sun to start failing. We’ll be gone or extinct by then, for sure. So I created a world in which an evolved society of rats are the apex species.
Obviously…
What are the differences in writing from an animal’s perspective than from a human’s?
In “Blood Giant”, the Hive are a highly evolved species. It’s unclear if their evolution was interfered with by humans directly, but it’s clear all through the book that their advancement was parasitic on the ancient artifacts left behind by humans. So they’re a very anthropomorphic race, conveniently for me as a writer. But it’s necessary.
Even if an animal could speak English, its perspective would be so foreign that you probably still wouldn’t understand a word it said.
But I tried to think more with my nose. Also, tails are very important to the way they interact with the world around them. The most important part, I felt, was trying to convey their feelings non-verbally via whiskers, and snouts, and frayed fur, etc.
At its heart, it’s still a very human story. We aren’t as disconnected from our animal selves as we suppose.How long have you been publishing your work?
This is the first thing I’ve ever published. Hopefully not the last.
What does your writing environment look like?
Simple. It’s a laptop on a chest-high cabinet, next to a long window looking out on the English countryside. I don’t know what’s going on in the rest of the room. Probably a mess. I don’t usually notice.
Do you have any routines to help you write?
I stand up and don’t sit down unless I’m taking a break. Standing makes creating a much more dynamic process. I can pace around, I can hop from leg to leg, I can literally take a step back from my work, and it looks a lot more dramatic when I fall into despair and slap my laptop shut and throw myself to the floor weeping.
Author Bio:
He is younger than some and older than others.
A. D. Fosse is a
physicist and science communicator from the East Midlands of England. His brain is rarely elevated more than five feet
and eight inches from terra firma, though his thoughts are wafting somewhere in
the clouds.
His first novel "In
Light of the Blood Giant," continues to be elusive to read whilst driving.
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