I’m a big fan of “Watership
Down” by Richard Adams. I first saw it
on TV when I was a kid. Get it. Watch it.
All the voices are done by these really great old UK actors.
Then I discovered it was actually a book. I remember thinking: “How could a book about bunnies be that big?” This was not a children's story. At least, not entirely a children's story.
What I found most fascinating about the story was the society Adams created. You get a totally compelling bunny society and culture that, for the most part, does not defy what the average person observes of bunnies. Maybe bunnies really can’t count higher than five. Maybe some bunnies have the gift of precognition. How would we know different? Pretty cool thought, at any rate.
I was also really fond of "Silverwing" by Kenneth Oppel. The idea of echo chambers storing bat history was cool. If bats developed a "technology" that would totally be it. Wouldn't it? I mean, really, that was so cool. "Silverwing" takes Adams idea one step further; an animal society, culture and technology.
Since reading "Watership Down", I always wanted to write my own animal Sci-Fi story. Then I discovered lemmings. I don’t remember how or where. What I found most striking about them was the phenomenon that lemmings, for some debatably unknown reason, committed mass suicide by jumping off a cliff into the sea. Some thought it happened naturally because the lemming population reached critical mass. Others thought it was part of some primordial urge to migrate to the sunken continent of Atlantis. Atlantis! Really! I’m not foolin’. It seemed the perfect fodder for a story because it also fed my desire for apocalypse science-fiction (Blood Music, Childhood’s End, A Canticle for Leibowitz, etc.).
Then disaster struck my young writer’s mind. I learned that lemmings don’t actually commit mass suicide. It was a wild and ill-conceived notion. How could I write a story about lemmings based on a myth? Adams would turn over in his grave. So would Oppel if he was dead. I shelved the idea for a very long time.
Then I started to toy with the idea of basing my story on lemming myth and not lemming fact. I've read a lot of early pulp sci-fi. Some of which was written based on some pretty dubious science. Why not? I decided to go for it.
Recently I saw the movie "The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole" (I should mention that I only saw the movie and didn't read the book.) In the story, owls were forging metal weapons and helmets. It was a pretty neat story, but forging metal weapons? It wasn’t like “Watership Down” or “Silverwing” at all. It wasn't owl technology. It was human technology used by owls. In my mind, the story crossed some line. Since then, I’ve felt less conflicted about writing a story based on lemming myths.
So that’s what my “Things to Come” is all about. It is an apocalypse story based on lemming myths we once thought were reality.
That’s my juicy rationalization for the year.
I hope you’re enjoying the story.
Then I discovered it was actually a book. I remember thinking: “How could a book about bunnies be that big?” This was not a children's story. At least, not entirely a children's story.
What I found most fascinating about the story was the society Adams created. You get a totally compelling bunny society and culture that, for the most part, does not defy what the average person observes of bunnies. Maybe bunnies really can’t count higher than five. Maybe some bunnies have the gift of precognition. How would we know different? Pretty cool thought, at any rate.
I was also really fond of "Silverwing" by Kenneth Oppel. The idea of echo chambers storing bat history was cool. If bats developed a "technology" that would totally be it. Wouldn't it? I mean, really, that was so cool. "Silverwing" takes Adams idea one step further; an animal society, culture and technology.
Since reading "Watership Down", I always wanted to write my own animal Sci-Fi story. Then I discovered lemmings. I don’t remember how or where. What I found most striking about them was the phenomenon that lemmings, for some debatably unknown reason, committed mass suicide by jumping off a cliff into the sea. Some thought it happened naturally because the lemming population reached critical mass. Others thought it was part of some primordial urge to migrate to the sunken continent of Atlantis. Atlantis! Really! I’m not foolin’. It seemed the perfect fodder for a story because it also fed my desire for apocalypse science-fiction (Blood Music, Childhood’s End, A Canticle for Leibowitz, etc.).
Then disaster struck my young writer’s mind. I learned that lemmings don’t actually commit mass suicide. It was a wild and ill-conceived notion. How could I write a story about lemmings based on a myth? Adams would turn over in his grave. So would Oppel if he was dead. I shelved the idea for a very long time.
Then I started to toy with the idea of basing my story on lemming myth and not lemming fact. I've read a lot of early pulp sci-fi. Some of which was written based on some pretty dubious science. Why not? I decided to go for it.
Recently I saw the movie "The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole" (I should mention that I only saw the movie and didn't read the book.) In the story, owls were forging metal weapons and helmets. It was a pretty neat story, but forging metal weapons? It wasn’t like “Watership Down” or “Silverwing” at all. It wasn't owl technology. It was human technology used by owls. In my mind, the story crossed some line. Since then, I’ve felt less conflicted about writing a story based on lemming myths.
So that’s what my “Things to Come” is all about. It is an apocalypse story based on lemming myths we once thought were reality.
That’s my juicy rationalization for the year.
I hope you’re enjoying the story.
PS: I really love
saying the word bunnies.
Joao
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