New novel After the Fall, Edward Ashton interview

Welcome to Edward Ashton, author of the critically acclaimed novel Mickey7, who is preparing for the release of his latest literary work, After the Fall. How did the idea for a successful narrative come about, first appreciated by readers and then by moviegoers, from the novel Mickey7 to the film Mickey 17?

an image that's gotten stuck in my head to build around. When I started working on MICKEY7, the idea was the teletransport paradox: if you could copy your mind and body exactly (like the transporter beam from Star Trek seems to do) would that copy really be you? Or would it just be a different person entirely who happens to know the codes to your bank accounts? The image for that book (which you may recognize from the first scene of the movie) was a man trapped at the bottom of a crevasse, injured and freezing. I didn't know anything more than that about Mickey when I began. The rest came to me as I went. With AFTER THE FALL, the idea is the concept of personhood: who gets to claim the privilege of being considered a person rather than a thing, and who makes that decision? The image was an abandoned house in winter, alone on a hilltop in the middle of the woods. That may seem like thin gruel to begin writing a novel, but for whatever reason that sort of thing is enough for my brain to go on.

Your narrative not only defines the science fiction aspects of the story, but also addresses the protagonists' souls, developing the plot with an eye on the current human condition while projecting it, with biting humour, into a hypothetical future. Or at least this seems to transpire from Mickey7. Will this also be the case in After the Fall?

Absolutely. I write what is generally referred to as "character centric" science fiction. Some SF authors focus their stories on some neat piece of tech, or on a super intricate plot, with their characters a secondary consideration. I love reading stuff like that, but I could never write that way. My books, at their heart, are about people and their relationships with one another. MICKEY7 has some neat tech ideas and philosophical stuff and whatnot, but when Director Bong asked me what the heart of the story was, what the one thing was that needed to be in the film to make it still be my story despite all the changes, I didn't hesitate: it's the relationship between Mickey and Nasha. That's what the book is about. The rest is just background. Similarly, in AFTER THE FALL there are mysteries and humor and horror, but the heart of the story is the relationship between the two main characters, a human bondsman named John and his alien employer (owner?) This book explores the question of whether you can truly have a bond of friendship, or even love, when all of the power in the relationship is in one of the partners' hands.

In After the Fall, you explore the concept of friendship in relation to interests: that of the protagonist and the bond of ownership between him and his alien owner. The protagonist struggles to redeem his life, much like many people today.

Yes, absolutely. In this book, I was very interested in exploring the interaction of power and friendship, or power and love. It's very clear from the start that Martok and John feel genuine affection for one another, and that John, at least, feels a deep sense of loyalty to the person who saved him from a horrifying death by adopting him. John quickly learns, though, that this loyalty is not entirely reciprocated. From there he has to decide what he really owes to Martok, and what he should reasonably be able to expect from him in return.

The concept of the domestication of humans by aliens reverses the relationship between humans and animals. However, could it also conceal a criticism of the relationship between rulers and the ruled, or between freedom and respect for the rules?

The power dynamic that I explore in this book could be applied to any number of relationships. You could certainly see John, for example, as a stand-in for an employee of one of these businesses (like one I once worked for) where the owners constantly tell the employees how they think of them as a family, how they're all in this together, blah blah blah. When things go wrong, though, the family is somehow not so equal, and the employees are shown the door without a second thought.

How did Edward Ashton's passion for science fiction, which is both topical and ironic, come about? His work is never banal or predictable.

There's nothing all that deep about it. I try to write things that I'd love to read. My first goal with every book is always to be entertaining. If you don't succeed at that as an author, none of the rest matters, because nobody is going to read your books. Once I feel secure on that front, I can worry about things like social commentary or philosophical musings. I know some authors build their books the other way around, but this is what works for me. 

Who is Edward Ashton in everyday life when he is not working on his novels? What hobbies does he have?

I'm actually a cancer researcher by trade, so that takes up a lot of the time that I'm not spending writing silly stories. I also try to spend at least an hour or two every day walking in the woods with my hounds. I'm pretty sure that's where most of my serious work as a writer gets done. There's something very calming about wandering along an empty forest trail with nothing but your own thoughts for company, and I find that's extremely conducive to creativity.

Can you give your fans a preview of any new ideas or novels you are currently working on?

I just finished the first draft of my next book, which is the third installment in the MICKEY7 series. It's still in the editing process so I don't want to say too much about it, except that it's funny and sad and I love it very much, and I really hope that my readers will as well. I also have another project in the works, just a few chapters in at this point, but that one's kind of top secret on my publisher's end, so we'll have to wait until it comes out some time next year to see what that's all about. :-)