Breaching the boundaries of virtual reality with David Corbett

 

HALLIE EPHRON: David Corbett is one of those crime fiction authors who writes books that reviewers shower with superlatives. 

Lyrical. Compassionate. Rich and hard hitting. Both serious and thrilling.

Today we’re thrilled to host David on Jungle Red at a very exciting moment: his new book, THE TRUTH AGAINST THE WORLD, which breaks new ground with an apocalyptic thriller, comes out *today*. 

Here’s what our own Deborah Crombie had to say about it:

“The Truth Against the World is bloody amazing—a wild, enchanting ride across an apocalyptic America with characters who will steal your heart and surprises you won’t see coming. The best novel yet from one of today’s finest writers. I absolutely loved this book.”

Welcome, David! 

Your new book is about an author’s worst nightmare—having someone steal your book—at a time (now?), with the world as we know it is both polarized and weaponized. Not only is the book stolen, it becomes the basis of a wildly popular video game. 

How did all those ideas come together for you… and when you started writing it, did it all come to you in one Blam-shazam! Or did it grow and evolve as you invented the characters and unrolled their journey?

DAVID CORBETT: If only the book came together in one Blam-shazam. This was a novel that took shape over numerous rewrites as I puzzled over how to create a single story from the three thematic threads that were important to me:

(1) The prospect of political violence in the U.S. in the coming years (not too different from the troubles that afflicted Northern Ireland from 1970-1998).

(2) A desire to incorporate the “wondrous and strange” atmospherics of Irish myth/folklore, specifically the Fenian Cycle with its tales of the Fianna with Finn mac Cumhal and his son, the warrior poet Oísin. (My previous books have been in the realist vein; I wanted to break out of that.)

(3) A story that included “the love that dare not speak its name:” a genuine Platonic and devoted friendship between a man and a woman. I was incredibly gratified when Amanda Gorman in her review of the book for Twin Cities Geek remarked, “[F]or me, nothing really compares to the friendship that Shane and Georgina have. Not once did I pick up on a hinting at a forced romantic relationship between the two, which I find rather rare in media in general.”

HALLIE: The fictional stolen novel inspires a popular video game which may be responsible for further polarizing its users. Wow. Scary. Can you talk about how you came up with that. Are you a gamer?

DAVID: I learned of the use of video games as a means of money laundering from Kim Howe. From there, I continued doing research on the issue and learned that video games, especially multiplayer games, were becoming worldwide watering holes for white supremacists, anti-government militias, and other malcontents (like Jack Texeira, recently arrested for illegally sharing classified material with his fellow gamers, who called themselves Thud Shaker Central).

Game designers have also remarked on how the QAnon phenomenon was modeled on an Alternative Reality Game (ARG) or Live-Action Role Playing(LARP). Game designer Reed Berkowitz remarked in an article for the Washington Post: “When I saw QAnon, I knew exactly what it was and what it was doing. It was the gamification of propaganda. QAnon was a game that played people.”

HALLIE: I’m curious… did you start with an outline or a synopsis? An opening scene and an ending? An opening sentence and went from there?

DAVID: This was my first foray into pantsing. It will also probably be my last. One of the reasons it took numerous rewrites (and two different developmental editors) to get the story right was the lack of a coherent idea of what I was trying to say. 

I had to keep asking myself: where the devil is this going? I didn’t figure that out clearly until very late in the already overlong process.

HALLIE: This novel is more thriller than mystery. It’s also got elements of speculative fiction. Was that a conscious decision from the start?

DAVID: I’ve never had a clear idea of what category this book falls into: urban fantasy? Dystopian? Adventure? Thriller? As I mentioned in my answer to the first question, I was inspired more by three core themes than any desire to craft the book in accordance with any specific sub-genre’s conventions. That proves to be a challenge in marketing the thing, but I’ve never had much of a head for marketing.

HALLIE: Thanks, David - that gives me a lot to think about. Video games. They're an alternate reality, right in our midst. Have been for years. Add to that the chatbots among us, masquerading as people. 

There's always the question: is the player controlling the fictional character or are there rules inherent in the game? 

Wondering if this makes us feel the line between reality and virtual reality are increasingly blurred, and is it just when we're online?