I am thrilled to have J. Gabriel Gates here for an interview today! I recently read his newest novel Blood Zero Sky (my Review), and it was amazing. He's a great author, and I loved his answers to all my questions. But he'd be a great author even if I hated his answers :)
Click the links to find my reviews for J's other books.
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Q. As you may have noticed from my review,
I really loved Blood Zero Sky. What inspired the world and
characters in this book?
A. Thanks, I’m really glad
you enjoyed it. I wrote the original
draft of the book back in 2005, and basically I wrote it because I was looking
around at some of the things that were happening politically and sociologically
and I found them pretty concerning and infuriating, so I wanted to write a book
to show where the path we were on might lead.
As for the characters, they came from different sparks of
inspiration. The rebel leader, Ethan,
came from reading books about the founding fathers and the American
Revolutionary War. May was partly
inspired by a book I read called Stone Butch Blues by a wonderful writer named
Leslie Feinberg. The protagonist of that
story is a gay woman trying to make her way in a very hostile environment—as a
factory worker in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s.
When I thought about it, there were some major parallels with May’s situation,
as a strong, gay female protagonist trying to fake her way through a world that
is hostile to her most authentic self.
Q. How do you feel about
the comparisons made between your novel and George Orwell's 1984?
A. Well, I’m flattered by
them. It’s always nice to be compared to
a classic. I think when you do dystopian
fiction really well, it really infiltrates a reader’s mind and even the lexicon
of a society. When people talk about the
government overreaching its bounds and watching you in creepy ways—like the
recent case where a federal court ruled the government can use your cellphone
records to track your movements without a warrant, for example—people still
shake their heads and say: “big brother.”
It creates a short-hand so that people can express their feelings about
what’s happening around them. I’d love
it if next time the government funds some 0% loan allowing a too-big-to-fail
company to gobble up one of its competitors, or when private military
contractors start flying drones over U.S. airspace to spy on Americans, people
would say: Here it is again, Blood Zero Sky. Books like mine and 1984 create a shared
experience that people can draw from to comment on the world around them, and
that’s very important, especially in our age of partisan corporate media and
vitriolic, polarizing discourse.
Q. What would you say to
people that might say the underlying idea in Blood Zero Sky is
too far-fetched or a complete impossibility in our own world?
A. I would suggest that they
haven’t been paying attention. Look at the Citizens United supreme court decision,
opening the floodgates to allow corporate interests to buy elections. Look at the political pressure to privatize
every corner of the government, from charter schools, to the correctional corporations
that run our prisons, to military contractors that continue to take on
increasingly large roles in our national defense. Look at the bailout of the banks, where
hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money was given away, with very few
conditions, to the same crooked banks that sold bad mortgages to homeowners,
packaged them as investments, sold them to individual pension funds, retirement
accounts, college funds, etc. as grade A investments, then bet against them,
wiping out the life’s savings of millions of people, while they themselves
walked away with millions in bonuses—and none of them went to jail, because all
the regulators are former buddies of theirs from Goldman Sachs. Only 6 companies control 90% of the media in
the U.S., down 40% since 1990. I could
go on and on, but those who refuse to see the problem will still refuse to see
it.
Q. In Blood Zero Sky there are individuals within The Company that could be considered the villains of the novel, but I found The Company's all-powerful grasp on every inch of the people's lives to be sinister on another level. Was it more difficult to characterize The Company as the nemesis of humanity as opposed to a specific person?
Q. In Blood Zero Sky there are individuals within The Company that could be considered the villains of the novel, but I found The Company's all-powerful grasp on every inch of the people's lives to be sinister on another level. Was it more difficult to characterize The Company as the nemesis of humanity as opposed to a specific person?
Q. I really liked May
Fields as the main character and found her to be very relateable. Were you
concerned that readers would have a hard time connecting with a lesbian MC? How
important was it to you that she stay true to how you originally pictured her?
Although she is a lesbian,
I don’t see sexual preference as her defining trait— or any other person’s
defining trait, for that matter. She’s
just a human being trying to understand the world and her place it in. The choice of whether or not to make the
effort to understand May falls to the reader; she’s too proud to go begging for
their adoration. You just have to either
accept her, or not.
Q. Is this the last we
will see of the world in Blood Zero Sky?
Q. I'm always curious to know how writers do their writing thing. Do you have a favorite place to do your writing? When are you most productive?
Q. Aside from writing really
cool books, what do you enjoy doing?
A. I’m pretty active. I
like to go for runs, lift weights and go mountain biking. I spend a lot of time with my family. My dad and my grandparents live fairly
nearby, so I spend a lot of time with them .
I’m pretty into the simple life—give me a nice run under a blue sky,
some pizza and a glass of wine, some good conversation, a good book, and church
on Sunday, and I’m a happy man.
J, thanks so much for your thoughtful answers. I hope eveyrone enjoys Blood Zero Sky as much as I did. I know I've already referenced it once or twice in regards to government :)
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About J. Gabriel Gates:
Blood Zero Sky will be available October 1, 2012 and is available for pre-order on Amazon.
