The excellent Helen Lowe, who is a Christchurch spec-tic writing gal like me, recently interviewed me about When We Wake for her regular feature on SF Signal.
I really love interviewers who take the time to read the book and think through some meaty questions – it’s a lot of time and effort, and it’s always appreciated! Helen is one of the good ones.
Karen: I did quite a lot of research on the environmental change, much of which I used, and also a fair amount of cryonics research – much of which I discarded. I wanted the landscape to feel real, and that meant projecting a realistic future in terms of climate change (if anything, I was too kind in terms of negative effects on the country!) But the cryonics is the more fictional aspect of my science fiction. To be honest, I was far more concerned with something that would read as really awesome, rather than as scientifically likely. I know this will turn some people off the book, and I won’t blame them! That’s just the trade-off I made.
