Michael Grant

Gone
Michael Grant

About Author

Michael Grant was born in Los Angeles but that's not important because he was soon out of there. His father was a military man, frequently transferred, so Michael was the "new kid" in school every year but one. He left school early and embraced the rootless lifestyle as his own. He's lived in more flats and houses than he can recall, all across the US and in France and Italy as well. He's back in southern California as of this writing but with no plans to stay put.

Michael met his wife, Katherine (K.A.) Applegate, 30 years ago, in Austin, Texas. He saw her through her apartment window and immediately knocked on her door. They've been together since that first meeting.

Michael Grant did not set out to be a writer. He's worked as a stock clerk, a house painter, an apartment manager, busboy, waiter, restaurant manager, janitor, editorial cartoonist, political media consultant, documentary producer, and no doubt some other jobs he's managed to forget. After ten years working odd jobs together, Katherine informed Michael that it was time for them both to grow up, get careers, possibly have children. Once he was revived, Michael agreed.

Katherine and Michael began writing in 1989, often as a team, and wrote 150 books, including the ANIMORPHS series.

They have two disobedient children, Jake, 11, and Julia, 9, an overweight Labrador Retriever named Goofy, a cat named Lightning and a pug named Pugs who is Michael's personal nemesis.


GONE Michaels first novel for teenagers will be published in hardback in April 2009.

Author link

themichaelgrant.com/

Interview

BZRK RELOADED

PUBLISHED BY ELECTRIC MONKEY

MAY 2013

The second BZRK story takes us back into the world of the nano and nano technology as two opposing groups battle for control of the minds of the world's leaders through the use of nano technology.

The fanatical Armstrong Twins have developed nano technology to help them control how how humans think and behave; their first goal is to take control of the mind of the US president.

Opposing them is BZRK, although the aims of this group aren't spelled out. Both groups rely on a handful of trained 'twitchers' to manage the tiny nanobots and biots that do the work of altering how people think and feel.

Author MICHAEL GRANT answered our questions about BZRK Reloaded, as follows:

Q: What made you want to 'dig deep' and take a look at what's going on in the nano world of our bodies...?

A: I think it started with the bedbug epidemic in New York. I already had a certain fear of dust mites. Or maybe it wasn't quite fear, just a discomfort. In any event I think the idea started there.

Q: Where did you research what it all looks like under the microscope and how the different things behave?

A: Google. I don't even know how we used to write back in the days before Google. I spent a great deal of time on Google Images looking at scanning electron microscope pictures of demodex and scabies and intestinal bacteria. It was all quite odd and disorienting.


Q: Do you have a favourite creature in the nano? What's the freakiest thing you came across?

A: I think demodex bothered me most. It's a species of mite that lives in your eyelashes. That was creepy. And in addition to photos I have some video of demodex crawling along an eyelash.


Q: Why did you decide to feature both 'biots' and 'nanobots' in the story?

A: The problem for me as the writer was to make this all matter to the characters. I knew it could not just be people playing video games. There had to be skin in the game, as we say in the states. In other words there had to be real, tangible danger to the BZRKers.

I accomplished this by creating a linkage between the biot and the human -- if a biot is killed, the biot 'twitcher' goes mad.


Q: 'Twitchers' are a bit like a brain surgeon crossed with a gamester - did either of those ever appeal to you as careers?

A: Hah. No, definitely not brain surgery -- I don't have the math or science skills for a medical career. As for gaming, this is embarrassing but I can't play most games. I get motion sickness.


Q: So you're not a computer games fan?

A: Not at all.


Q: Did BZRK Reloaded emerge as you'd planned or were there any surprises?

A: I never plan, so everything is a surprise.


Q: Who is your favourite bad guy in Reloaded?

A: I still love the Armstrong Twins. I've never before written a true grotesque as a villain. It reminded me of old Dick Tracy comics or maybe some Batman villains like Harvey Two-Face.


Q: What gave you the idea of the 'Doll Ship', where the Armstrong Twins experiment on real people?

A: I never know where ideas come from. One minute there's no idea, then a minute later there is. So the Doll Ship - a bizarre, floating human zoo - just popped into my head. I was instantly hooked.


Q: What next for Plath and Keats, the two lead characters - can they get it together?

A: I'd like them to be happy together. But this is a Michael Grant series, and I do have a history of creating difficulties for young love. I hope they do well together, but who knows?


Q: What can we expect in book 3? Is there a title for that yet?

A: I don't quite know what to expect in book 3. I haven't written it yet. I'm working on it at the moment. I'm as curious as everyone else to see what happens.


Q: What are you writing at the moment?

A: Well, we have a sequel to EVE AND ADAM coming eventually, and then I have a trilogy called MESSENGER OF FEAR.

Q: Being a twitcher is a bit addictive - would you say the same of being a writer?

A: Well, I would say that writing is probably the greatest job in the world. I can't imagine ever stopping, ever retiring. I hope to die just as I hit "send" on a manuscript.


Q: How does your writing day go?

A: I write outside on my deck when weather allows. When weather doesn't allow I sometimes park my car in a scenic spot and work behind the wheel. Other times I write in coffee shops and bars. I don't have a regular ritual, just a series of possible choices.


Q: Top tips for teen writers?

A: Sure. Read, obviously. Even more important, write. Write anything. If it sucks, great: fix it so it doesn't suck. The job is not about getting it perfect the first time, it's about getting it right eventually. Finally, don't forget to have a life. That's very important: have a life.

 


LIGHT (BOOK 7: GONE SERIES)

PUBLISHED BY ELECTRIC MONKEY

APRIL 2013


LIGHT, the final book in the GONE series, sees Sam, Astrid and the kids in the Fayz confront the evil Gaiaphage for once and for all - but who will win this killing game...?

Author MICHAEL GRANT talked to us about LIGHT and writing the fabulous GONE series!


Q: How did it feel coming to the end of the GONE series?

A: I have written 150 books so you'd think by now I should be cool and calm when I finish one, but I was actually a bit melancholic because a big part of my life was over and a big phase was now complete.

As a guy I don't 'do' emotion but I must have been feeling something because I listened to the same song over and over for three days!

As well as a bit sad, I felt accomplishment because of having written six books and 3000 pages. I had made a promise to my fans, 'ok guys, if you come along with me I promise you it will be a great trip' and I feel I gave them a great trip.


Q: Did you have the last book plotted from the beginning?

A: My planning process is close to non-existent but there was a version I had told my editors so they'd think I had things better organised in my head than I did in reality. I figure out each day what I'm going to write and I am often as surprised as anyone else but what I write.

I saw GONE as one long story rather than as six stories, but 3,000 page books aren't that popular so we had to divide it up into several books. It came more or less to where I thought things would be by the end of the last book. There's a lot of violence and unhappy stuff in the last few chapters and we all knew that was going to happen...

I did know the story would be resolved in this way. The alternative was a less certain ending but when I took that approach with Animorphs, an earlier series, the fans were not happy. So I decided this time to follow it through to a complete end. I wrote six books and now it's over, I'm not going to write a sequel, I wanted it complete.


Q: The evil in the Fayz is driven by the Gaiaphage, a dark presence. Why did you decide to make the Gaiaphage into a real person towards the end of the series?

A: I gave the Gaiaphage a physical presence because it felt necessary. The Gaiaphage was, to start with, a vague presence but you had to have something that wasn't just a sort of green glue at the bottom of the cave, I had to embody evil in a physical way.

In doing so I am also evoking religious mythology - the idea of divine creatures being embedded in human bodies - because people are familiar with that and you get a reaction.

I am not above stealing things from the Bible, or Shakespeare, and when I do it's to give things resonance. I also called one of the characters Cain because of Cain and Abel - the original murder story in Western culture.


Q: You killed off about 40% of your characters during the series. Do you feel as a writer that any character is expendable?

A: I am not a particularly 'educated' writer so I don't know all the theory and I tend to work things out myself. I create a premise and follow that through. Often the premise is unbelievable but once you buy in to it, I will work through it as realistically as I can.

If a character dies, it's because I had no choice - they are in a situation and I can't work out how to get them out. Or at other times they just piss me off and they have to die!

It's become a feature of the series and I am sure people think I do it deliberately to heighten interest in the book or that I make gratuitous decisions to 'kill off' a character but it's always because, in this situation, that character was needed to do that, and it didn't work out well for them.

There's a major character who dies during LIGHT and I didn't know that would happen until I wrote that scene and realised, 'you can't win'. She got beat and that's it. You have to have a sense of integrity and honest in the story and you have to respect your characters; they have to obey the laws of fiction.

There are 332 people at the beginning and nearly half of them are dead by the end. The last couple of days in the FAYZ are pretty hard, a lot of people die.


Q: Do you have a favourite book in the series?

A: Hunger, book two in the series, was tough to write because I messed up the first draft and when I sent it to my editor, he thought the ending was completely wrong and in my heart I agreed with him.

It meant I had to chop 200 pages from the book and completely re-write them, and give it a very different ending. I am pleased I did and I think it worked well in the end.

I really enjoyed writing Fear because I decided at that point that I would just go for it. Adults were saying the books were too dark and scary but that wasn't the feedback I was getting from readers on Facebook and Twitter; the kids never said that, they are fearless, so I racheted it up and it's probably the most popular book of the series.

It's really gratifying to get positive feedback on decisions like that - I do my 'happy dance' when I read 'stayed up all night to read it' on Twitter!


Q: Are there any characters from the Fayz that you'd like to meet?

A: If there was one guy I could hang out with from the book, it would probably be Edilio. He was my favourite character in many ways. I kind of knew from the start how he would develop. He starts as a side-kick and becomes a bit of a hero.

Edilio's family are undocumented aliens from Honduras so he is as low status as you can get but in the FAYZ he proves to be the most stable character and everyone comes to look up to him.

I am very much a working class person myself; my dad was in the army and I grew up in trailer parks. We moved every few years and I worked in many different jobs for years so I am at the opposite end, in fictional terms, of 'the appointed one'.

I wanted to go that way with this character, I didn't want a kid with super powers or a high IQ but one that shows up for work every day and stands up for what is right, which is shown to be just as important as having special powers and abilities.

So Edilio ends up being the hero of the series in the way that Sam ends up being the hero of the kids of the FAYZ.


Q: What did you enjoy the most about writing GONE?

A: There's nothing more fun that writing the bad guys - I love my villains! Caine is 'medium bad', he's a particular type of evil that interested me, both ruthless and ambitious. He looks for the most efficient way to power and makes the assumption that he should be in power.

Drake I wrote as an exercise for myself. Normally you'd create a bad guy in 'shades of grey' but I wanted an out and out evil guy, a psychopath, and that's Drake, although Ork was the most fun bad guy to write.

The most evil of them all was Penny who was so bad she didn't even get any fan mail! All the others did, even Drake, but there was nothing for Penny.


Q: How do you manage to write so much? What's your working day like?

A: I do write a lot but I don't usually write more than one book at any one time.

I have just finished Light and so now I am writing the third book in the BZRK series for Egmont (Book two, BZRK Reloaded, is publishing in October 2013) and I have also been writing Eve and Adam with my wife, Katherine Applegate, and I have other projects ongoing.

It's more difficult to change the 'voice' of the book you're writing than the plot - I don't want BZRK to sound like GONE, for example. I feel that if I'm not intensely busy, I'm not doing what I should be - although there are times when I wonder how on Earth I'm going to meet all the deadlines....

I used to work longer hours but you kind of compensate for that with experience. These days I get up at 6.45am to get my kids to school, I go to the gym, then I come home and waste time on email and Facebook and marketing until lunch and I start my writing after lunch.

I like to work outside, from my deck, because the house overlooks San Francisco Bay, and I can sit and watch the world go by - but it's also cold! So I sit with my coffee and I type.

The hard part isn't the idea but the typing. I will often go to a bar in the evenings, take my laptop and do some more work. There's a lot of noise so you shut off the conscious part of your brain and just type.

I'll do that seven days a week - I don't do weekends or vacations. I guess that's why I manage to write so much...

 

BZRK

PUBLISHED BY EGMONT PRESS

MARCH 2012


BZRK, the latest novel from Michael Grant (author of GONE), pitches the world of nano technology into a battle for control of politicians and, ultimately, the human race. Here, author Michael Grant talks about his new series.


Q: There was a lot of online activity and games before the actual launch of BZRK - did you help create those?

A: Well, that's a bit hard to explain. I had a thumbs-up, thumbs-down veto over everything. And some of the ideas for specific website elements were mine originally.

I thought the ARG - Alternate Reality Game - was well done. Other elements didn't work as well as we might have liked.

We were among the very first to try to build a transmedia experience off a book, and going first can be difficult.

It's the guy who goes second who has the advantage of watching and saying, "Oh, so that's where the cliff is."

 

Q: Do you plan to do more online activities for your other books?

A: I think transmedia has a great future. But I suspect that I, personally, will stick to writing.

 

Q: BZRK is set in the world of the nanosphere - or very tiny stuff - inside our bodies. What took you there?

A: I'm creeped out by dust mites. So I suppose my own phobias are the starting point. Mild phobias, I should say.

But as a story teller I was also looking for a completely new environment. I've written or co-authored 150 books, most of them one variety of speculative fiction or another. So I was looking for new aliens, new monsters, a new environment. I found one down in the nano.

 

Q: Have you spent much time looking down microscopes?

A: I get quite a variety of scanning electron microscope images from Google and from various online databases. Many of these use computer-enhanced color, so I carried that forward into my universe of nanobots and biots.

It's very disturbing stuff, sometimes. There are things I have a hard time looking at. And then I sometimes have a hard time falling to sleep at night picturing my body as a sort of ecosystem inhabited by millions of little beasts.

 

Q: Could any of this happen in our world today?

A: Well, I doubt we'll be seeing anyone taking over the world with nanotech any time soon, but as with every sci fi writer I have to worry that I'm not staying ahead of technology. Reality is always nipping at your heels.

 

Q: Why do you want biots and nanobots in this world?

A: Because they're way cool.

 

Q: If one of your characters' biots is killed, does the character also die?

A: Nanobots are mechanical, so the loss of a nanobot is more or less like losing an avatar in a video game. It's frustrating, but not debilitating.

Biots are very different. They are closer to being progeny, and they are directly linked to the mind of their creator. The loss of a biot sends its creator spiraling down into madness. The stakes are much higher for the biot twitchers.

 

Q: Who is your favourite character in book one?

A: Bug Man. I love my villains.

 

Q: Vincent versus Bug Man: on equal terms, which one wins?

A: My money is still on Vincent, but it's a razor-thin margin.

 

Q: Do The Twins stage a comeback in book 2?

A: It wouldn't be BZRK without the Armstrong Twins.

 

Q: What can we expect in book 2, how many books will there be?

 

A: There will be three books. We may also publish some shorter form 'tweeners' but that's a bit up in the air.

 

Q: Will you be developing other online activities for book 2?

A: I am so busy with the launch and with a five week book tour coming up that I will smack anyone who suggests I even think about anything else at this point.

We'll see how all that shakes out and figure out next steps.

 

Q: Are you Gone fans picking up BZRK?

A: I think a lot are. I think some feel almost disloyal to Sam and Astrid and the GONE gang if they also read BZRK. But I want to say: Sam has personally told me it's okay for GONE fans to also read BZRK.

 

Q: What next for Perdido Beach, after Fear? How much longer can the remaining characters hang on for?

A: They're going to have to hang on through LIGHT, which will be the sixth and final book in the series. I have them all under contract. Well, except for the ones I kill off....

 


LIES

Published by Egmont Press

Spring 2011


In Michael Grant's LIES, everyone over the age of 15 has disappeared and the children of Perdido Beach are left to fend for themselves.

Life becomes increasingly desperate as gang warfare, murder, hunger and strange powers tear apart the fragile community they build.

Here author Michael Grant talks about LIES, the third book in the series following GONE and HUNGER - and gives us a glimpse into what his plans are for the children of the FAYZ.

Q: In the first book, GONE, everyone over the age of 15 vanishes, leaving the young people on their own. Would you have liked that to happen to you as a teenager?

A: Absolutely. I think every teenager wishes his parents would just sort of disappear. Or at least not say anything. And certainly not be seen in a public place.

It's actually one of the fun things about being a parent - and I have a 13 year old son and a 10 year old daughter - when you realize that you have the power to embarrass your kids by your mere existence.

Q: How would you have spent your time in the FAYZ, the area that has been cut off from the rest of the world?

A: Probably reading, hoarding food and spiraling down into anger, depression and paranoia. Which, come to think of it, is how I spend my time now. Actually, I like to think I would be Albert, finding a way to profit from the situation.

Q: Was there any particular setting that inspired the FAYZ?

A: Yes, the coast of California in the area of Pismo Beach. There's an actual nuclear power plant nearby, and a section of Pismo Beach called Shell Beach was sort of my visual reference. They even have a hotel perched on the cliff, just like my Clifftop. Go on Google Earth and scan the area, you'll find the power plant and a few of the geographical features. (Although I took great liberties.)

By the way, the map at the front of the books is full of shout-outs to various people, including three famous Chicago chefs that I happen to admire.

Q: Some of the young people and children develop special powers in the books - what would be your power of choice?

A: Super speed. I'm absurdly impatient. I'm more impatient than a New Yorker at a deli counter. While you're fumbling in your purse to find your credit card, I'm the guy standing behind you in the queue seething.

Q: One of the children tries to fly a helicopter in Lies have you ever managed that?

A: Does my daughter's radio-controlled toy car count?

Q: Who is your favourite bad guy?

A: I have no affection for Zil, I do like Caine, but I have the most fun with Drake. I've never written a character who was so unambiguously evil before. Although, if you count Diana as one of the bad ones, she'd be my favorite. I love writing Diana.

Q: Can you tell us more about the gaiaphage, the dark force in the FAYZ?

A: Absolutely! Not. I'm seeing some fans starting to put it all together, but I will reveal all in good time.

Q: When will we learn about Little Pete's role in the FAYZ, which he seems to have created?

A: By the end of LIES you have a pretty good idea what's going on with Pete. By the end of PLAGUE you'll have a clear picture.

Q: Little Pete is constantly playing a computer game - will you have a game created based on the books?

A: Do you happen to have Microsoft's phone number?

Q: How well do you think the young people are coping in the FAYZ? Do you think that this is how young people would act power struggles, murder, starvation and gang warfare alongside quite good organisation?

A: If you cut the part about 'quite good organization' don't you have any average day on planet earth?

I take the somewhat controversial position that children are human beings. So I imagine they would behave like humans. And you've seen how well that works out.

Q: Conditions in the FAYZ get a lot worse in LIES, how bad is it going to get for the children in subsequent books?

A: Pretty bad. My approach has been to take this incredible premise and then carry it forward with complete seriousness.

I basically let myself be trapped by the premise, so that I feel I have no choice but to follow it through. And that's going to mean some dark times ahead.

Q: What is the thrust of the next book, Plague?

A: Well with a name like Plague I think we can all expect the book to focus on how cute kittens are when they play with balls of yarn. Or it may be about two terrifying plagues that nearly destroy all life in the FAYZ. Here's a hint: do you know about the species of wasp that lays its eggs inside a living caterpillar and then the grubs eat the caterpillar from the inside out? If you don't, well you do now. And you're stuck with that picture in your head.

Q: How many books will there be and can you give us some idea of where it is going?

A: Six books. I planned it that way from the start. I've already written the 4th book, Plague, and I'm about halfway through the 5th book which I was going to call Darkness but have now decided to call Fear.

So it doesn't sound as though the kids in the FAYZ will be having much fun. If you find yourself a character in a book called Fear, I think you have to expect some unpleasantness. However the final book will be called Light. Which sounds more hopeful, don't you think?

Q: How does your writing day go? What gets you to your desk and what keeps you there?

A: There's a great deal of coffee involved. I usually drive my daughter to school, buy a donut, hate myself for eating the donut, then I go sit in my back yard - I'm in California - and surf the internet until I become very anxious about not getting my work done.

Then I put on headphones, crank up some loud music, and start typing away with my two fingers. I'm a bit of a workaholic, actually, so in the time when I'm not actually writing I think about other things I could write.

I'm currently writing two book series -- GONE and THE MAGNIFICENT 12, and I'm also at work on a couple of speculative projects.

I have to keep working because if I don't I will have to stare into the abyss and . . . Okay, I don't ever actually stare into the abyss. I know that I should stare into the abyss because people expect that sort of behavior from writers, but I find that driving L.A. freeways is all the gloom and despair I can stand.

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