The Unnamed Way (The World Walker Series Book 4)
Page 28
Having said that, this particular book was the hardest to write. In a spirit of casual, carefree and misguided optimism, I had assumed it would flow out in an unstoppable torrent since I had already planned most of it before writing The Seventeenth Year. I was wrong. Really, really wrong. Could hardly have been wronger. It wasn’t that The Unnamed Way was hard to write. It was no harder, or easier than the other books in The World Walker series. It was just that I hadn’t allowed for the gestation period.
(I’m not sure anyone other than a mother should be allowed to talk about a “gestation period.” At the end of a couple of months’ thinking, I wrote a book. After nine months of weight gain, swollen ankles, and hormone swings, women poo a basketball. Still, it’s a handy, familiar metaphor and I can’t think of a better one. Sorry.)
This book—working title The Gyeuk Egg, think yourself lucky I finally saw reason on that—just wouldn’t let me start until certain tectonic mental shifts had taken place. Huge, slowly turning gears were grinding their cogs inside my head, and there was no way to get going until everything major had fallen into place. I filled a notebook and a half with scribblings, made voice notes on my phone and drove my family to drink, which is bad for the under-tens, apparently. I was wandering about the house lost in an imaginary universe of my own making. That may sound cool, but try being married to it. I briefly considered buying a smoking jacket and drinking absinthe before lunch, but Mrs. S drew the line.
When I finally got started, progress tended to proceed along the lines of fast, fast, slow; fast, fast, stop. Back up a bit, what the hell was that? Slow, slow, very slow, fast, faster, aargh!
You can thank me later for this in-depth and thorough examination of the craft of writing science fiction. It’s all part of the service. Education and entertainment, folks.
The simulated world inside the Gyeuk Egg became intricately detailed. Too much so. I had to dial it all back a bit, make sure there were a few missing pieces, a few seeming shortcuts (the measurement of time, for instance. Why would an alien planet use months, weeks, days and hours?). Sopharndi’s world was never intended to be fully developed in every detail. Ultimately, it had been constructed by the Gyeuk as an elaborate, beautiful, but deadly, trap for Seb and, by implication, Baiyaan. But Sopharndi and the People seemed very real to me, despite the fact there was much about them that never left the pages of my notebooks. They were a simulation within an illusion within a particular branch of the multiverse within a work of fiction. A work of fiction that would, for the most part, be read as a digital file, therefore never having a physical presence in the so-called real world.
Mrs. S, bring forth the absinthe immediately!!
I hope this book goes some way to answering a question that was often the subject of my own idle speculation years ago, particularly as I watched movies, or read comics and graphic novels featuring superheroes. Why was Batman more fascinating than Superman, particularly as I got older? Notice, I said “got older” rather than “matured.” I’m still reading the graphic novels and watching the movies, after all.
The answer, as a couple of reviewers of my own books pointed out, is that making someone too “super” was a problem. Where’s the jeopardy? The danger? If your hero can sneeze and accidentally kill an elephant, how can s/he be hurt?
There was an answer in the first two books: to hurt this superhero, just hurt his friends. Mee and Bob were endangered by Mason, Seb couldn’t prevent Mee’s torture or Bob’s death. But this was just a partial answer. Before I’d finished the first book, I knew where the whole shebang had to end. Seb would, ultimately, choose to be human, to lose his power.
This, for me, is why Superman II is the best Superman movie (I’m geeking out now, I know.) Mostly because of Zod, Ursa and Non and that scene with the redneck in the diner. But also because, at its heart, it’s a tragedy. A proper tragedy. (Skip the rest of this paragraph if you’ve never seen Superman 2. Although, if you haven’t seen Superman II, why are you even still reading? Go and watch Superman II!) Superman gives up his powers to be with Lois, but the tragedy comes at the end when he regains his powers in order to save the world. And loses Lois again. Forever. Great ending for the world. Great ending for me when I first saw it, as a kid. Even a great ending for Lois, as she remembers nothing after a memory-wiping superkiss (a what?!). But for Superman? Tragedy. Proper gut-churning, heart-rending tragedy.
If only Superman had been able to keep his powers and be with Lois, right? But this was back in the day, there were rules, and those rules said that was never going to happen. But, hey, this is my book. My rules. Okay, Seb doesn’t get to keep his powers and be with Mee, but he finds a way he can be with her and not leave the universe unprotected.
I knew this was the way it would all end before I started writing The Unmaking Engine. I knew Seb wasn’t, actually, too super. He could meet more powerful beings (hello, Kaani and, possibly, the Gyeuk) and be injured, or killed. But, ultimately, he could, and would, choose absolute vulnerability to be with Mee and Joni. Now, that’s the choice of a hero. Just don’t tell my Superman II-loving twelve-year-old self.
Finally, there was the question of religion, spirituality, and mysticism - running themes throughout all four books. Did Seb live up to Baiyaan’s hopes sufficiently? What does his eventual choice mean for his spiritual progress, when it seems that Baiyaan exhibits the traits of an advanced mystic?
(I’m not answering any of those questions, by the way.)
One last thing, for those of you who have followed me since The World Walker, as I slowly realized that, as unlikely as it seemed, readers were, overwhelmingly, responding positively to my first novel - so much so that I was able to write a second, then a third, and now a fourth. I hope you’ll permit me this slightly self-indulgent anecdote. We leased a car recently, and the salesman sat down with me to fill out the forms.
“Occupation?”
I only hesitated for a second and a half, tops. I swear.
“Author,” I said.
More books to come, I promise. Thank you, thank you, for reading.
Ian W. Sainsbury
Norwich
June 12th, 2017
My blog is ianwsainsbury.com and I’m on Facebook too - https://www.facebook.com/IanWSainsbury/
Apparently, I’m on Twitter, but I’m a bit shit at Twitter.