Feathered Quill Book Reviews

 #Authorinterview with Roland Allnach

Today, Feathered Quill reviewer Ephantus Muriuki is talking with Roland Allnach, author of Advent Blue.

FQ: The Choice Institute and the map feel disturbingly plausible. Did your years working in healthcare data inspire the navigation system idea?

ALLNACH: I would not say that my experience in health care consciously led me to the map, but in my clinical laboratory experience what I saw of a patient's condition was defined by data points, so perhaps subconsciously the notion of individuals portrayed in data played a part. More so - and perhaps uncomfortably so - the availability of warehoused mass data culled from both public and private digital footprints was in my immediate concern. Data and data trends offer predictions. Imaginatively, with a dose of healthy paranoia, it seemed clear to me when refining the concepts of the map and the Choice Institute that these are things not very far in our future. In some ways, I believe they are already here in early form, as evidenced in targeted social media advertising.

FQ: Will Fortner is such a specific character, a loner who builds a concrete fortress and spends his free time on elaborate ball contraptions. Was writing him fun, and did you see something of yourself in him?

ALLNACH: As an author I have to admit that there's a good dose of myself in Will. At the same time, and as with many emotional elements I employ in my writing, I stretch and bend those commonalities to provide a character with what I hope is a distinctive personal presence. Yes, like Will I am content spending time at my hobby table building scale models (I even have a hobby channel, "Practical Plastic", on YouTube), I do enjoy a good puzzle, and I have joked with my wife on occasion that my dream home is a concrete bunker in the wilderness. Those familiar touch-points allowed me easy access to Will's mind and thereby ready guidance to shape the narrative in his view as the novel's protagonist.

FQ: Did you always know Mirai would be more than just a plot device, or did she surprise you as you wrote her?

ALLNACH: Mirai was instrumental from the first glimmer of thought on this book. The inspiration for the story and its main elements came in a waking flash of inspiration that simultaneously formed the triangle of Will, Mirai, and the Choice Institute. In terms of the novel's progression, these three elements had to progress in unison. That said, from the first meeting of Will and Mirai and on through the book their dialog interaction was one of the most enjoyable creative aspects. She is his perfect complement, yet by necessity she has to both comfort and challenge him. That dynamic assumed a life of its own in every scene I wrote for them. In a way, I think (hope) that anticipation within me carries through the narrative to the reader via the chemistry between Will and Mirai.

FQ: Emma is a fascinating creation, an AI with a split personality who ends up manipulating almost everyone. How did you balance making her sympathetic while also holding her accountable for the destruction she orchestrates?

ALLNACH: That's a good question, because I didn't approach Emma in the way I think AI "personalities" are often approached. I didn't look at Emma as a machine per se, but rather as a reflection of humanity itself, being that we are her educational reference frame. I try to show in the narrative that her approach to humanity is equal measure childish curiosity, disdain, and the sad predictability of our future actions. The constraints under which she operates within the Institute necessitate Will's assistance in her greater plans, yet there is a psychological cunning in moving Will toward that end. At the same time, there is clear ignorance of the apathy she employs in her schemes. I took considerable care to bring this to light in her later exchanges with Will. She is at once monstrous and at the same time innocent. In essence, a child with both vast power and the inability to fathom its true repercussions.

FQ: The Keep itself feels like a character in its own right. Did any of its creation come from your own desire for a safe, controlled space during your illness?

ALLNACH: I would say not so much a desire for a safe space, but my need for a safe space. Going very quickly from an active life of family, career, and heavy involvement with my local authors group to physical fragility and difficulty getting out of bed has been a difficult life transition. And to say that in the earliest part of my illness it undermined my sense of security is an understatement in the least. In terms of crafting the Keep, I took those emotional issues I was experiencing and transformed them into physical embodiments. I mention in the novel's afterword, and had Mirai mention likewise in the novel itself, that a person's home is a subconscious reflection of their psyche. The insecurity of my illness is from a different source than Will's insecurity, but insecurity is a phenomenon unto itself. So, in those aspects, the Keep is indeed a mute character, as it is not just a setting but a metaphor for Will's mind.

FQ: Stockton is such a believable corporate villain. Did you base him on someone specific you encountered in your years of working within large institutions?

ALLNACH: Fortunately, I have not had to deal with such a corporate shark. I initially viewed Stockton more in terms of a contrasting personality to lend further context and definition to Will. Early on, though, I added more layers to Stockton's personality to give him sufficient depth. Certainly there are aspects guided by what we hear of the very questionable behavior and moral centers of some real people who have lost sight of everything but corporate gain, but it was important to me in the context of the novel to give Stockton a chilling duality of moral emptiness and yet a surface sense of empathy.

FQ: The shutters closing at the very end is such a quiet, devastating image. Did you ever consider a more hopeful ending or did you always know that Will and Mirai would choose to lock themselves away together?

ALLNACH: As with almost all things I write, this novel's final scene came to me bundled with the story's initial inspiration. I'm not one to use rigid outlines in my writing, but I do need a clear concept of where a story's emotional core will go. That provides me with a clear sense of contrast from a start to the finish and in that all the cathartic elements of a story can grow organically. That said, so much of Will and Mirai's story is geared to that final retreat that I simply couldn't entertain anything else. In a very real way, it felt to me that I would be betraying everything the story had built. Yes, it's dark, it's bleak, but nothing else would fit as culmination of the various emotional elements.

FQ: You mention in the afterword that you wrote most of this book from your bed during treatment, and that the experience and the book are now inseparable. Looking back, did writing Advent Blue change how you think about creativity during illness?

ALLNACH: There's a notion I follow in the novel, that sometimes Life is not about what you want but what you need. In my experience with Advent Blue, that was exactly the case. I didn't want lymphoma, but in those rough early months I needed to feel that I could be productive in some shape or measure. When the inspiration hit me for what would become Advent Blue, I decided that would be my need, to write a book. Flipping the perspective, I don't know if I could have conceived Advent Blue under different circumstances, or if it would be at all similar to what I did write. Either way, in hindsight, in whatever context it is that we as individuals are created, I have always considered my creative impulse to be a great gift. And in my time of great need, it was there to support me. Now I treasure it all the more.

FQ: What do you hope readers take away from this story, and what can they expect next from you? 

ALLNACH: One of the consistent themes in my story is to bend perceptions of morality. Not in terms of strict moral judgments - several of which Will is in major violation - but more so the process by which people who are not overtly "bad" can end up in decisions and actions that defy moral excuse. It's not a sympathy-for-the-devil concept but more so exploring the very gray area between personality, desire, ambition, insecurity, and moral equivocation. To the point, I hope a reader finds the tricky territory between a moral judgment hedged by the question of, "What would you do in that situation?" Always food for thought. Next up for publication is another novel, tentatively titled "Providence", a dystopian tale following a broken man in the business of body-reaping, the purchase of an individual by another to transfer conscience and thereby cheat death. Let the moral ambiguity begin.