Why I like apocalyptic fiction
Q: What attracts you to stories about the end of the world?
There's something cathartic about seeing everything being torn down. It also makes for amusing daydreams when the boss is being a tool or when the commute seems to take forever. And who doesn't think they couldn't do better at building a society if given a chance?
So there's that, and there's also the sheer spectacle of the thing... the same reason people like to slow down to look at car crashes. There's a "there but for the grace of God" vibe you get when watching or reading the world being torn down. Emmerlich and Devlin hooked into that early and have made a pot of money out of those very same vibes.
Q: What are some of your favorite post-apocalyptic stories? Why?
I started young and at first it was from a Science Fiction perspective, and the British ones from the '50s and 60's that got my attention, in particular John Wyndham's DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS and THE CHRYSALIDS. Them, and A CANTICLE FOR LIEBOWITZ were my earliest introductions to the form. After that came tales of cosmic disaster, mainly Lieber's THE WANDERER and Niven and Pournelle's LUCIFER'S HAMMER. My interest was further piqued by Terry Nation's TV show THE SURVIVORS, and Stephen King's THE STAND, the first to being real horror to the genre IMHO. But my favorite in the genre is by Robert Macammon. His SWAN SONG is a roller coaster blockbuster which eschew's King's religious trappings for non-stop action and gritty realism mixed with a slug of the supernatural. My kind of tale.
Q: Do you think civilization deserves to fall? Why or why not?
There is much that is good about civilisation that I'd certainly miss, such as books and entertainment, central heating and modern medicine. But on the whole, civilisation as mankind defines it is hell-bent on destroying the ecosystem and we're too stupid to stop shitting where we eat. I don't think it's a matter of why or why not. We're now at a stage where it's only a matter of when. I just hope it's a few more years yet.
Q: If a world-wide zombie outbreak occurred, what would you do?
I have a small island off the coast of Newfoundland in mind. It has an artesian well, plenty of fish and seabirds to harvest, and some run down buildings from an abandoned settlement that could be made habitable quickly. I'd have to dig up the small graveyard to make sure nothing's coming up out of the ground, but it's been disused for many years, so any revenants will be a bit brittle by now
Q: What scares you?
Cancer. That's the biggie -- the silent, invisible killer inside. It's taken many friends and family and is the real monster that infects my psyche. In the face of that, all fictional beasts and bogles fade in comparison.
Q: Why did you write THE INVASION?
A: The first science fiction I ever encountered was Fireball XL5, one of the early Gerry Anderson productions. I was only about four years old, but I was hooked immediately on spaceships and adventure in the stars. I grew up during the exciting part of the space race, staying up nights to watch space-walks then moon missions, eyes wide in wonder as Armstrong made his small step. At the same time Gerry Anderson had continued to thrill me, with Stingray, Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet. The Americans joined in, with Lost in Space then, as color TV reached Scotland, Star Trek hit me full between the eyes.
Also at the same time, my reading was gathering pace. I'd started on comics early with Batman and Superman. As the '60s drew to a close, Marvel started to take over my reading habits more, and I made forays into reading novels; Clarke and Asimov at first, and most of the Golden-Age works. By the early Seventies I had graduated to the so-called New Wave, Moorcock, Ellison, Delaney and Zelazny dominating my reading, and they led me on to reading, then writing horror.
I more or less stopped reading Science Fiction round about then, but I never stopped watching, especially after Star Wars gave the visual genre a huge push forward. I re-discovered the '50s classics after the advent of the VCR and quickly built a huge collection of movies, many of which I still watch avidly.
Which brings me, in a long winded manner, to the novella, The Invasion. Invasions, and the resulting carnage, have always loomed big in my favorites of the genre, through War of the Worlds, Earth vs Flying Saucers, the original V series and even the spectacular failure of Independence Day. Neil Jackson asked me if I was interested in writing a four-part serial, and laid out a basic timeline. I ran with it, and soon discovered that I had a story to tell.
To regresss slightly, another part of my early reading, and the one that united my Science Fiction reading with my horror reading, was the works of H P Lovecraft. I realised that the Invasion in my story would have Lovecraftian antecedents, in that it would come from space, and be completely uncaring of the doings of the human race. My training as a biologist also made me realise that aliens should be -really- alien, not just simulcra of pre-existing terrestrial forms. Once I had that in my mind, it didn't take much to come up with a "color out of space" that would engulf the planet.
Most Invasion movies concentrate on the doings in big cities, and with the involvement of the full force of the military. I wanted to focus more on what it would mean for the people. Living as I am in Canada, in a remote Eastern corner, I was able to draw on local knowledge and home in on people already used to surviving in extreme conditions. I just upped the ante.
So come with me, to a winter storm in the Maritimes, where a strange green snow is starting to fall.
This one is my homage to '50s SF. The Invasion is an old-school alien invasion story, complete with fleets of ships overhead, plucky survivors, and last-minute rescues.
