I am pleased to welcome Wil Mara, author of
The Gemini Virus, which released in October 2012. This is one of those novels that tends to give me the chills as it deals with the possibility of a pandemic virus sweeping through our world and the chaos that erupts as a result. Having studied the Spanish Influenza of 1918-1920, I definitely understand how possible something like this could be and how devastating this would be in our world today. Wil Mara is also here to discuss the inspiration to this novel, the challenges to writing a novel such as this, his future projects, as well as some fun and interesting Hallowe'en tidbits. But before we get this, take a look at a summary of
The Gemini Virus.
Bob Easton thinks he has
a cold. Before he dies in agony, four days later, he infects dozens of
people. Local health agencies become quickly overwhelmed by the sick and
dying and beg the CDC for help. Dr. Michael Beck and Cara Porter, a
member of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, race to identify the deadly
bug. They can't cure it until they know what it is.
Dennis and
Andi Jensen and their children are terrified. Schools and offices close.
Fresh food disappears from store shelves. Three of their children's
friends die. Their neighbors are dying or running away, fleeing the
unstoppable infection. Desperate, the Jensens join the exodus, making a
nightmarish journey to their isolated mountain cabin along empty roads,
through abandoned towns, past looted shopping malls.
The
superbug—and the panic—quickly spreads beyond America’s borders. On a
packed plane, someone coughs—and at their destination, the pilots are
told, “you can’t land here.” US military bases are quarantined. Yet the
virus continues to spread. Some believe the plague is man-made. Others
see it as a sign of the end times.
In the lab, Cara Porter makes a
potentially fatal mistake. In the mountains, Andi Jensen tells her
husband that she doesn’t feel well.
The world is running out of time.
INTERVIEW
1) To start off, can you tell me a little bit about
yourself? How did you become interested
in writing science-fiction novels?
I’ve been a
sci-fi fan all my life. There were paperbacks lying around the house when I was
growing up, and all the biggest names—Bradbury, Asimov, Matheson, Clarke, etc.
I’d read the synopses on the back, and the stories always sounded interesting
to me. I can’t tell you how many hours I sat in my attic with one of these
books in hand; if the house had caught fire, I swear I wouldn’t have noticed. It
was escapist storytelling at its finest, and almost always with some kind of
moral underpinning. That dimension gave it real value to me. It was entertainment,
but entertainment with a substantial message. Sci fi, I realized in time, was a
wonderful way to present important themes to the world without sounding too
preachy. As an author, you had a lot of room to run.
2) Can you tell us a little about your novel, The
Gemini Virus?
It’s the story
of a supervirus that just shows up one day and begins rapidly burning through
the population. The WHO, CDC, and all other healthcare agencies are unable to
stop it—in spite of all their experience and empirical data, this one’s the
heavyweight of heavyweights. It’s highly contagious and kills very quickly. And
each person who gets it goes through horrific suffering. The story is told from
the viewpoint of several characters. One is an epidemiologist from the CDC who’s
been charged with the task of backtracking the virus in the hope of figuring
out how to stop it. He’s a very talented guy, but he’s also dogged by personal
demons, as is his faithful assistant. Then there’s a suburban family of four,
who struggle with the notion of abandoning their community and then try to
outrace the pandemic while holding their domestic life together in isolation. There’s
also the geopolitical facet of the book, where the American government is
trying desperately to respond to the situation while the death toll continues
to mount and some unsavory factions from overseas become involved. So there’s a
lot going on.
3) What inspired you to write The Gemini Virus? How much research was involved in the
writing?
One of my
favorite sci-fi subgenres is the virus-no-one-can-stop story, and I very much
wanted to contribute to it. And since so few books in this vein have been
presented to the general reading public lately, I saw an opportunity to do it
in a fully modernized context.
As for the
research, that required quite a bit of work and time. I got in touch with two
very experienced figures in the world of virology, both authors in their own
right, in order to assure that all the science in the book would be realistic
and credible. To that end, the safety buffer that enables readers to think, Well, it’s scary, but at least it can’t
really happen, is completely stripped away. And that’s exactly what I
wanted—a nightmare scenario that could occur in the real world.
4) What was your greatest challenge while writing this
novel? How disturbing was it write about
something that has the potential to happen?
The greatest
challenge was making sure all the science fit together. This meant tweaking
certain passages multiple times and discarding others. It also meant enduring
the painful experience of having someone tell you that something you wrote is flat-out
wrong. But I soldiered through all of it because I wanted to be able to give
readers the most compelling—and unsettling—story possible.
As for
disturbing, good Lord, yes. Writing about this stuff was tough enough, but reading
about it during the research phase was even worse. Stories about grieving
parents in Africa having to toss the disease-riddled bodies of their dead
children onto huge funeral pyres, and how healthcare workers from other nations
who witnessed this could never get the scent out of their noses. It was beyond
awful.
5) Who was the most fun to write about? Which character presented the biggest
challenge?
The epidemiological
characters—Michael Beck and Cara Porter—posed the biggest challenge, simply
because I’m not an epidemiologist. Again, I wanted to get the details right, so
I consulted with people who’ve done this kind of work before, plus I read about
a million pages of material concerning their profession. (If you’re ever in
need of these services and there isn’t a ‘real’ epi on hand, I’m your man in a
pinch.) At the same time, however, they were a lot of fun because I got to
learn something new and interesting. Epidemiologists are the detectives of the
virological world.
6) What are 3 things that are 'must haves' when you
write? Do you have any writing rituals?
I seem to do
my best work when it’s quiet (which sometimes means locking myself in a small
room and putting on some source of ‘white noise,’ e.g., fan, heater, etc.),
when I have the most energy (i.e., in the morning), and when I have a cigar
going. I know, I know—the latter’s going to kill me eventually. I live without
it most days, but sometimes the urge becomes too much.
7) What was the most interesting thing you learned
during the course of research for your book?
That a
pathogen like the one described in Gemini
is not only possible, but long overdue. Mathematically, the human race has been
beating the odds for quite awhile now—and that kind of luck always runs out
eventually.
8) Can you share with us any projects that you are
currently working on or plans for the future? What can fans expect next from
you? ?
The next book
in the disaster series is tentatively titled Fallout. I’ve been working on it for a few months now, and my
editor and I are both pleased with the storyline. But I don’t want to reveal
anything else about it at this point. I’m not trying to be coy or curmudgeonly,
I just want readers to be delighted by the surprise of it.
And beyond Fallout, I have a fourth disaster story
that I’ve been putting together for several years. It’s very fresh and exciting,
and it could conceivably stretch well beyond 500 pages. Again, I can’t give out
any details now, but I think it’ll be worth the wait.
9) Favourite authors? Role models?
There are so
many novelists I whose work I enjoy, even beyond science fiction. I’ll give
just about anything a try. If an author’s work strikes me in That Special Way,
I’ll become a fan and seek out everything else that he or she has written. I
love discovering new authors and new stories.
As for role
models, pretty much anyone who has succeeded without compromising a basic set
of moral standards; someone who ‘made it’ without crossing the wrong lines.
I’ve always admired and tried to emulate that.
10) As an author who has published previous novels, I
am curious as to your thoughts with regards to the publishing industry? Have some of the changes affected your
publishing and marketing process?
The Internet
and the digitalization of everything has had the biggest impact, both on myself
and the industry at large. Authors make better royalties on eBooks, but then
there are all the security issues. And the Internet has become a wonderful tool
for getting the word out (case in point), but it has also drastically reduced
the number of live author events, e.g., talks and booksignings, etc. As a
result, that personal touch between author and reader is being lost. So there
are ups and downs to this latest step in publishing evolution. I want to say,
“Let’s see how it all turns out,” but then again I don’t think evolution is a
process that will ever come to a conclusion. You just need to learn to move and
groove with the times.
11) What do you like to do when you are not writing?
What is your ultimate luxury?
I like to
spend time with my wife and daughters. That’s my greatest joy and my greatest
privilege. It doesn’t matter what we do as long as we’re together. They’re my
sustenance and my antidote.
12) Is there anything else you would like to share
with your readers?
Thank you very
much for taking the time to read through all of this. If you have any remaining
questions, you might be able to find the answers on my web
site—www.wilmara.com.
13) And now for some Hallowe'en fun!! Favourite Hallowe'en memory? Favourite
costumes? Have you ever played a Hallowe'en prank on somebody?
I was born and
raised along the Jersey Shore, and our winters could be brutal. I remember one
Hallowe’en when it was so frigid and windy that none of the neighborhood kids wanted
to go out in their costumes. So I talked two of my closest friends into doing
just that. My brilliant theory was that, due to the weather and the lack of
‘consumer interest,’ every home would have so much spare candy that they’d be
giving it out in handfuls. And I was right—when the night was over, we each had
four pillowcases stuffed to the splitting point.
Three days
later—no joke—I had to have my stomach pumped. So much for brilliant! What an idiot.