MG Harris
About Author
M G (Maria Guadalupe) Harris was born in Mexico City. When her parents split up, five-year-old MG moved to Frankfurt, Germany before moving again to Manchester, England where she married a British cellist from the Halle Orchestra.
As a teenager she made regular visits to her father in Mexico, where she became interested in Mayan archaeology. She made several trips with family to Mayan ruins in Yucatan and Chiapas and when she was 15, a visit to one site gave her the seed of the idea for The Joshua Files.
MG studied biochemistry at St Catherine's College at Oxford University and, following a doctorate at St Cross College, Oxford, she worked for several years in research laboratories before setting up her own internet-based company.
MG lost both parents to sudden illness while she was in her twenties. Her parents died within six years of each other, having both been taken ill in the same district of Mexico City.
MG began writing The Joshua Files after a skiing accident left her with a broken leg in 2004. It combined her two loves archaeology and biology - and featured a young boy searching for a lost codex of the Mayan.
She is now writing the Gemini Force books, beginning with Black Horizon, based on a concept developed by Thunderbirds creator Gerrie Anderson.
MG now lives in Oxford with her husband and their two daughters.
Author link
Interview
GEMINI FORCE 1: BLACK HORIZON
APRIL 2015
ORION
Adventure and rescue are at the heart of this dramatic new series, GEMINI FORCE 1, conceived by Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson before his death and written by bestselling author MG Harris.
In the first Gemini Force 1 book, BLACK HORIZON, after Ben Carrington's father dies suddenly in a climbing accident, Ben helps to persuade his mother to join a wealthy entrepreneur in creating a top-secret rescue organisation called Gemini Force. The risks are high yet Ben knows that he, too, wants to be part of the team - but has he got what it takes?
The Gemini Force 1 series has been approved by the estate of Gerry Anderson, led by his son Jamie. We spoke to author MG Harris about the new series that begins with the title, Black Horizon.
Q: What took you into writing for young people?
A: I took a long time to find out what I wanted to write. I started by trying to write literary fiction before deciding I would never be as good as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and that I should instead try to write the kinds of books I liked at that age.
As a child I loved plot twists in stories and wanted adventure stories that weren't too linear. I thought that Harry Potter gave a jump in complexity from most of the children's books that I was reading to my child at that age; it had more plot twists than I'd seen before, so I took my cue from that.
Q: Like the Gemini Force 1 books, your earlier adventure stories involve a lot of male characters. Were you quite a tomboy as a child?
A: I grew up on a street with a bunch of really fun Irish lads and not many girls so if I wanted to play, it had to be with the boys in the street. I did my best to fit in with them and we played very boyish games, enacting scenes from television series like Dr Who.
Q: How did you get involved in writing the Gemini Force 1 books?
A: I was asked by my agent if I'd consider writing for a franchise and I said yes, I would, and I was later contacted by Jamie, the son of Gerry Anderson.
The Anderson family was keen to have the books developed but at this point, Gerry was very ill. They had three openings written by Gerry and some voice recordings with Gerry talking about his ideas for the books.
Jamie had read the first book I'd had published, Invisible City (The Joshua Files), and asked if I'd consider writing the books. I thought that the concept of a rescue agency was such a great one that I said yes. I'd also grown up with television programmes like Thunderbirds and Sting Ray, created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, and loved their work.
I was asked to write the first three chapters and a synopsis for the Gemini Force 1 story and once I'd done that, they said that that was what they were looking for. Then we had to find a publisher; after we'd successfully raised funds for the first book through a crowd-funding initiative, Orion Children's Books said they would like to publish it.
Q: Were there any major changes made to the series, from your initial concept?
A: The publisher wanted the books to be more child-focused than we had initially planned. To begin with, we had told the story from three people's point of view - Ben's, his mother's and from a female pilot's point of views - as the story was planned to appeal to adults as well as teenagers. We decided to change that so everything was told from Ben's point of view as a 'coming of age' story.
I resisted a request to make all the other characters, like the pilots at Gemini Force, younger and used the model of the teachers at Hogwarts to show that they could instead act as mentors and role models. Some more younger characters will be brought in later on.
Initially, Ben was also a much more reluctant hero, like my character Joshua in The Joshua Files, but the editor suggested he should be more adventurous. I decided to push him to the other extreme - to make him crave adventure and to love the adrenalin rush of action. Emotionally, he's less mature but he is far more gung-ho than I'd planned. He is trying to live up to the memory of his mum who was heroic and brave.
Q: How did you decide on the hidden setting for Gemini Force HQ, the ocean off the Mexican Caribbean coast?
A: My settings are generally drawn from real life. After reading Harry Potter, I thought about the amount of work that had gone into creating the fantasy world of Harry Potter but to most people, places like Indonesia are as fantastic as any fantasy world.
So I try to write about places that I have been to. I based my Joshua Files books in Mexico because I once lived there, so I could also draw on it for the setting for Gemini Force. Having said that, I had to mentally go to South Africa for the second book in the series.
Q: The Gemini Force HQ lies under the sea - which is reminiscent of Thunderbirds - so had Gerry Anderson left you details about the base and the special crafts used by the organisation?
A: Gerry had left some ideas for the base and we kept to his original plans - but there were no designs for the experimental craft used by Gemini Force so I went online to find out about new technologies. Legendary Hollywood designer, Andrew Probert, who has been involved in projects including Star Trek: The Next Generation, has been drawing the designs for us. They aren't finished yet but when they are, we'll put them onto the website.
All the technology for the crafts in the book exists, except for the invisibility cloak for the Aquarius aircraft - though they are starting to work on disguising tanks by covering them with LED's to project their surroundings, so they become camouflaged.
Q: Can you tell us why you decided to base the first rescue for Gemini Force on a leaking oil refinery?
A: That idea came from Gerry. He had watched the Deepwater Horizon disaster and thought that it would be a good job for the Gemini Force organisation and that it would make a great first adventure for the series. Both the incidents on refineries in the story are based on real life happenings.
Q: So can you tell us what you're planning next for Ben and Gemini Force?
A: I've already written the first three books because they will be published quite closely together, about six months apart. The first book sets the scene with Ben discovering Gemini Force and wanting to be part of the rescue organisation, although he doesn't get involved in a rescue mission until later in the story.
In the second adventure, Gemini Force is asked to help with a mine rescue in South Africa; we chose that because Gerrie Andersen had the idea for Thunderbirds after watching a mine rescue on television.
The story is called 'Ghost Mine'. It begins with a vivid description of Ben going down into the deepest gold mine in the world in South Africa, where some miners work illegally for months at a stretch. They are called ghost miners and Ben starts to feel empathy for marginalised people like these; he came from a very rich family but they have lost their fortune and he's trying to distance himself from that. He needs to be able to live in his own right and has to reinvent himself.
In the third book we move to avalanches, so the story is set in Davos where the World Economic Forum takes place, and we confront again the issue of the super-rich.
Q: If you could go someplace in any of the Gemini Force craft, which would it be and where would you go?
A: I'd probably choose to go underwater in the Pisces submarine, I've never been on one before, and it'd be great to go to the Caribbean and stay in Truby's villa from the story. I'm fascinated by the sea and would love to go underwater.
Q: How does your writing day go?
A: I tend to write very quickly, each of these books took three months to write, and I write from 8.30am to midday and then go and do something different. I write at a desk in my bedroom, or in a coffee shop where I meet with other writers once a week and we write without any internet distractions!
MG HARRIS TALKS ABOUT THE JOSHUA FILES
OCTOBER 2010
MG Harris is one of the authors included in the 2010 Booked Up programme for schools, which gives a free book to Year 7 pupils.
We spoke to her about her series, The Joshua Files, which begins with the title, Invisible City. The series is published by Scholastic.
Harris first had the idea for the Joshua Files and the 2012 prophecy begin during a trip she made to the Yucatan ruins when she was 15. She explains, "I got a book out of the hotel bookshop which proposed that the Mayans were people from space and lived in Atlantis before settling in South America. I loved the idea of space ships and aliens and that was the spark for my series."
Harris' series is based around a main character, Josh, and the story about his search for the legendary Ix Codex and the secret of time travel. Josh believes that, if he could travel to the 'zero moment', he could prevent his father's death.
The search for the Ix Codex centres around the Mayan prophecy that the world will end in 2012. Very little is known today about the Mayans as most of their writings about their rituals were burned. All that remains are their four Codices and inscriptions in the temples, which tend to be about historical details.
Harris says, "What we know about their prophecy for the world ending in 2012 is in the Dresden Codex, which is like an almanac of the religious seasons. But even that is likely to be nothing - how could people have known thousands of years ago that the world would end in 2012? The prophecy is firmly in the world of fiction." Although she adds, "I wouldn't put it past something massive happening but that would purely be a coincidence."
In the story, Harris describes a secret city called Ek Naab in which much of the action is centred. The gateway to the city is Becan in Campeche Mexico, which does exist, and there is a reference to the name Ek Naab (which means 'Dark Water' in Mayan) in historical writings.
However, Harris says, "I don't pretend to being a proper Mayan scholar and I am not using any authentic Mayan culture here. The people in Becan are Mayans from mixed races but I am not saying, 'these people are a lost tribe or sect'."
The story throughout the series focuses on Josh and his search for the secret of time travel. Harris didn't find it hard to introduce time travel into her fiction while keeping the story remarkably realistic.
She explains, "It really isn't hard to introduce time travel into fiction these days. Think about the Hadron Collider and how it kept breaking down at the start - one of the scientists joked that someone from the future was coming back into the past to sabotage it so it wouldn't work. There's a lot of talk about time travel in among today's scientists.
"Children are also watching programmes like Dr Who on television where the world of time travel collides very convincingly with our present day world and characters that could have walked out of East Enders."
Harris says her readers are split equally between boys and girls (Years 6 and 7), "but boys tend to contact me more than girls". That 'boy appeal' is down to "Josh being an ordinary boy", says Harris. "He's not magic, he doesn't have any gadgets, and boys can identify with him. Josh doesn't want to be heroic or a hero, he's a reluctant hero and not a high achiever. Boys also respond to the puzzles and enigmas in the book and they like the action, but so do the girls."
She adds, "I've even had a few fans take up Capoeira (freestyle dancing that originates in Brazil) after reading about it in the book - it's not something I've ever done myself but I have seen it done in Oxford and in Brazil."
The third book, Zero Moment, has just been published by Scholastic and Harris has just finished writing the fourth book that goes back in time to the 7th century and a parallel world.
She says, "The great thing about time travel is that you can go into the future or the past and have a character meet himself across different timelines."
Because each book raises several questions, Harris has to plot them carefully. "At the end of every book, I write down what we know and what we don't know and then I answer a few more of the questions in the next book."
There will be five books in the series and the last one will be published in 2012 "and it will explain everything", she promises.
Harris has visited many schools as a result of her readers asking their school or librarian to organise a visit by her. She says, "Usually I talk about how I came to write The Joshua Files, I show photographs of the Mayan ruins in Mexico to make the story real and talk about my teen years and visiting the area. I show some videos and sometimes I get them cracking codes or do a storytelling session."
Harris recently presented the SLA School Librarian of the Year Award and says, "I see some wonderful librarians who have really integrated their work into the school curriculum and that's the way to make school libraries relevant and to increase the relevance of the librarian within school life."
MG Harris is one of the fabulous authors included in this years Booked Up programme for schools, which gives a free book to Year 7 pupils. We spoke to her about her series, The Joshua Files, which begins with the title, Invisible City. The series is published by Scholastic.
Where did your idea for the Joshua Files and the 2012 prophecy begin?
The story began with a trip I made to the Yucatan ruins when I was 15. I got a book out of the hotel bookshop which proposed that the Mayans were people from space and lived in Atlantis before settling in South America. I loved the idea of space ships and aliens and that was the spark for my series.
The book is based around the Mayan prophecy that the world will end in 2012 and, if you think about it logically, how could the Mayans know that Earth was going to end unless they had travelled to the future?
Can you tell us more about the Mayan prophecy that the world ends in 2012?
We know very little about the Mayans as most of their writings about their rituals were burned. All that is left is the four Codices and inscriptions in the temples, which tend to be about historical details.
What we know about their prophecy for the world ending in 2012 is in the Dresden Codex, which is like an almanac of the religious seasons. But even that is likely to be nothing - how could people have known thousands of years ago that the world would end in 2012? It's firmly in the world of fiction. Although I wouldn't put it past something massive happening but that would purely be a coincidence.
Have you researched much into Mayan culture for this book?
The story is set in a secret city called Ek Naab and the gateway to the city is Becan in Campeche Mexico, which does exist, and there is a reference to the name Ek Naab (which means 'Dark Water' in Mayan) in historical writings.
But I don't pretend to being a proper Mayan scholar and I am not using any authentic Mayan culture here. The people in Becan are Mayans from mixed races but I am not saying, 'these people are a lost tribe or sect'.
Did you find it hard to introduce things like time travel and hidden cities while keeping the story very realistic?
It's not hard to introduce time travel into fiction these days. If you think about the Hadron Collider and how it kept breaking down at the start - one of the scientists even joked that someone from the future was coming back into the past to sabotage it so it wouldn't work. There's a lot of talk about time travel in among today's scientists.
Children are also watching series like Dr Who on television where the world of time travel collides very convincingly with our present day world and characters that could have walked out of East Enders.
Who are your most enthusiastic fans?
I know that my readers are split into half boys, half girls (Years 6 and 7), but boys tend to contact me more than girls.
Why do you think the series appeals so strongly to boys?
I think it's because Josh is an ordinary boy, he's not magic, he doesn't have any gadgets, and boys can identify with him. Josh doesn't want to be heroic or a hero, he's a reluctant hero and not a high achiever. Boys also respond to the puzzles and enigmas in the book and they like the action, but so do the girls.
I've even had a few fans take up Capoeira (freestyle dancing that originates in Brazil) after reading about it in the book - it's not something I've ever done myself but I have seen it done in Oxford and in Brazil.
How many books are you planning to write?
The third book, Zero Moment, has just been published by Scholastic and I've just finished the fourth book that goes back in time to the 7th century and a parallel world.
The great thing about time travel is that you can go into the future or the past and have a character meet himself across different timelines.
At the end of every book, I write down what we know and what we don't know and then I answer a few more of the questions in the next book. There will be five books in the series and the last one will be published in 2012 and it will explain everything.
