John E. Stith is the author of the new novel Disavowed. His other books include the novel Manhattan Transfer.
Q: What inspired you to write Disavowed, and how did you create your character Nick Sparrow?
A: I’ve long enjoyed series books about knight errant characters, people who travel through a series of adventures in which they leave the world a better place for the innocent and a worse place for villains.
I grew up on The Lone Ranger and Have Gun Will Travel and moved on to John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee novels, Robert B. Parker’s Spencer, and Lee Child’s Jack Reacher.
Writing about the near-future is more and more challenging today, given the accelerating rate of change, so I decided this book would be far enough into the future that we have a multi-planet civilization and aliens.
When I considered a character who gets into various difficult situations and who wasn’t a carbon copy of a pre-existing character, I decided on a military guy who’s also a doctor. His background gives him training in stress situations and the medical career puts him in the camp of wanting to help others.
I wanted him to be unique in other ways, so I gave him a past to run from, and I provided him an AI assistant. I had the book complete just before the ChatGPT revolution came along, but I’ve written a lot about AI characters before, mostly in Memory Blank and Naught for Hire.
Q: How did you create the world in which the novel is set?
A: Much as I created the character to fit the kind of book I wanted to write, I picked the world the same way. I wanted a big canvas, so Nick could encounter interesting and varied situations. I didn’t want the adventures confined to one planet, so we have a space-faring society.
Limiting this future to speed-of-light travel would mean lots of delays for suspended animation or the long tales of generation ships, so I assumed we will find a way around that limit. (Quantum mechanics gives us regular supply of amazing new discoveries, so this doesn’t seem too far out.)
Once I had the broad strokes, I filled in some of the gaps with smaller details.
Q: Did you know how the story would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: I had an overall idea of how the book would end, but I didn’t know the specifics. I liken this to planning to hitchhike across country with the goal of getting to, say New York, alive. I don’t know early on if one of the rides will have multiple flat tires or get carjacked, but I plan for the best.
Q: The writer David Zindell said of the book, “Disavowed tells the story of an intelligent and resourceful man trying to survive against almost impossible odds.” What do you think of that description?
A: I’m very pleased with it. In real life, it would be cool if everywhere I went I saw an endless string of green lights ahead, but in fiction we want obstacles. Overcoming the munchies one afternoon isn’t a very satisfying accomplishment because the hurdle is miniscule and the stakes are not in evidence.
In adventure fiction, we get more fully engaged when the character is under threat, if there seems to be the real possibility he or she won’t survive. It’s not cathartic for a character to overcome a dim, lazy antagonist, so the opposition and the hurdles need to be smart and strong.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I have a near-future thriller in the formative stages, but some of my time lately has been consumed with seeing Tiny Time Machine: The Complete Trilogy through the final stages of the pipeline (and working on a graphic novel version) while also getting Disavowed finally out the door.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: A team is trying to put together a deal to make a TV pilot from my novel Manhattan Transfer (about the kidnapping of Manhattan). They, too, face significant obstacles, so I’m supporting them by crossing my fingers.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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