There are people who are convinced that we’re all living in a computer simulation. And others who just wish it was true because they’d like to leave now, please.
But in Daryl Gregory humorous cyberpunk science fiction novel When We Were Real (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), people know they live in a computer simulation…and not a good one, either. Which is why two friends are taking a bus trip to see the glitches.
Well, that’s not the only reason.
In the following email interview, Gregory discusses what inspired and influenced this sci-fi story, including how he decided on the specifics of the sim.
Photo Credit: Liza Trombi
To start, what is When We Were Real about, and when and where does it take place?
The book’s set in a world where, seven years ago, we were all notified that we’re living in a simulation. Two old friends, J.P. and Dulin, decide after J.P.’s terminal cancer diagnosis to take one last road trip. It’s a bus tour of North America’s Impossibles, which are these glitches, anomalies, and physics-breaking “what-the-fuckery” that appeared in the landscape on Announcement Day. Other passengers on the bus include a nun hunting for an absent God, a pregnant influencer determined to make her child too famous to be deleted, horny octogenarians, an indignant skeptic…and a professor on the run from sociopaths who take The Matrix as scripture.
Where did you get the idea for When We Were Real?
It started from a cross-country road trip I took with my friend and fellow writer, Jack Skillingstead [The Chaos Function], about ten years ago when I was going through a tough time. I wanted to write about male friendships, and that time of life when writers start measuring the distance to the graveyard in the number of novels they have left in them. Friends and family had had cancer scares, and my brother in law had died of a glioblastoma. You might say brain tumors were on my mind. (I’m sorry. This is a warning to readers that this is the kind of dark humor that’s in the book.)
Simulation theory had been in the news a lot since Nick Bostrom proposed his argument (see Wikipedia). It’s essentially become a kind of religious argument for tech bros. The idea’s been a part of sci-fi and movies for decades, but I thought there might be a way to take it on in a new way that would let me talk about the existential issues that were bothering me during that road trip with Jack.
Is there a reason why J.P. and Dulin take the bus as opposed to driving themselves, maybe even renting a convertible?
Right? That’s what I started with. But then I realized that I wanted to have many different points of view on the simulation. And I wanted to cover everything: Why did the Simulators create the world? Will they delete us when they get bored? Are any of our relationships real? If you believe in God, why did He sublet the creation of this virtual word to other people? It’s a lot of territory.
For each of these points of view I needed characters who held them, and that led me to the bus tour. And as soon as I thought of that, I realized this was basically The Canterbury Tales, but with 21st-century pilgrims trying to figure out what really matters in an artificial world.
Also, is there a significance to it being 7 years since people found out they were living in a simulation as opposed to 70 or 700 or even 7,000?
This is something even the characters wonder about: Why did the Simulators only tell us seven years ago? Were they waiting until we were on the verge of creating AI ourselves? And they don’t know when the sim started. Maybe it goes back to the Big Bang, or maybe we’re just reliving the same day over and over. (The people who believe that call themselves Groundhoggers).
One big question is why the Simulators told them at all. I mean, you and I live in a simulation (obviously), but they just haven’t told us officially.
Well, they haven’t told you…
From a story perspective, seven years felt right to me. Most books and movies about the simulation are about the big reveal: the day we take the pill and find out we’re in a sim. I was interested in what happens after the initial freakout, and life keeps going. You need enough time after the Announcement to start wondering about the deeper questions.
So, is the sim like the one in The Matrix where people can leave and come back or is that the people are all digital and living in a simulation and their body isn’t lying in a pool of goo?
There are no pods, and nobody’s using their bodies as batteries — as far they know! But they don’t really know, just as we don’t. The premise of the book is basically our world, with one change on Announcement Day, backed up undeniable proof that we are, indeed, living in a sim. Of course, being humans (and Americans), undeniable proof doesn’t mean that a lot of people don’t insist that it’s a hoax.
The characters also don’t know what happens when they die. Will the sim restart? Are there other sims? They try to figure this out over the course of the novel, but these are big, religious questions, and just as in religion, there are no easy answers.
Now, When We Were Real sounds like it’s a humorous cyberpunk science fiction story…
It does sound like that, doesn’t it? But I don’t want to mislead people. This book’s about the people who aren’t Neo, and never get superpowers, and are struggling to get answers. It’s humorous, but only because the characters are humorous about it. They realize, just like we would, that they’re in a ridiculous situation where nothing they believed seven years ago is true. Some of them are still freaked out. But some of the younger people, who’ve spent a chunk of their lives with this being a fact of existence, are like, Duh! Of course it’s a sim! Video game rules make sense to them.
You kind of just answered this, but in terms of the humor, is When We Were Real jokey like Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy or is the humor situational like in one of John Scalzi’s relatively more serious novels?
I love comedy, and I will admit there are some jokes in the book that I like, even if no one but me laughs. There’s one that’s a mash-up of Blade Runner and Mario Brothers that I’m particularly proud of. But almost all of the humor arises out of character. If you don’t believe the character would say it, at that moment, then it doesn’t work for me and I have to cut it.
I did build in one cheat, though. One of the characters, Dulin, loves to tell jokes. And one of his favorites keeps getting interrupted every time he tries to tell it, which I found funny. Does he ever get to the punch line? Well, read the book and find out.
So, who or what do you feel had the biggest influence on the humor in When We Were Real?
My friends and fellow writers. I enjoy hanging out with highly verbal people who can joke about the darkest things — and so those kinds of people (and jokes) are in the book.
I should also say that sections of the book are told by a semi-omniscient narrator, who has definite opinions about what’s going on. And that narrator, too, is someone I’d hang with.
Aside from your friends and fellow writers, are there any other writers who had a big influence on When We Were Real, either in what you wrote or how you wrote it?
Philip K Dick is always an influence. For Real I was thinking of his novels Ubik and Time Out Of Joint, both of which deal with people trapped in simulated environments. But these were usually normal joes who spent much of the book confused about the true state of things. I find that more relatable than someone who can dodge and do super kung fu.
For other parts of the book I was thinking a bit of Neal Stephenson and his talent for explaining how systems work. I spent years as a computer programmer (I still have a consultant business), so it was important for me to portray realistically what goes into software design, how supercomputers work, and what is really, truly impossible to do if you live in a sim.
How about non-literary influences? Was When We Were Real influenced by any movies, TV shows, or games? Because The Matrix movies seem like an obvious one, as does Ready Player One, Free Guy, and the episodes of Rick & Morty with Story Lord.
Rick & Morty has destroyed science fiction! Dan Harmon and crew have covered so many sci-fi ideas, at such depth, that they’re not leaving anything for the rest of us. The Story Lord stuff is brilliant. But please, everyone, stop watching and read my books.
That reminds me: The new season of Rick & Morty starts May 25th…
The book is definitely responding to The Matrix and the sequels. Neo and Trinity kill dozens of innocent bystanders who just happened to be possessed by the agents. And by the rules (of the first movie, anyway) those people are really dead, suffering heart attacks or whatever in their pods. I wanted to write about those bystanders. They’re just trying to get by, you know?
As for Free Guy, never heard of it. Or Ryan Reynolds.
Now, it sounds like When We Were Real is a stand-alone story. But then, so did the first Matrix movie. So, I’ll ask: Is it, or is Real the start of a series?
It’s a stand-alone novel. This is my usual M.O. By the end of a novel, I’ve almost always used up every idea I have on the topic, or that world. The main characters are usually in no shape to have a similar adventure.
The one exception to this are my Harrison Squared books. I wrote a novella called We Are All Completely Fine about group therapy for survivors of horror stories. One of the patients, Harrison Harrison, lived through some Lovecraftian adventures when he was in high school, and his story was made into a series of young adult books. Then I wrote Harrison Squared, which was one book in that YA series. And just recently I wrote another novella, about one of Harrison’s classmates, who also survived.
Earlier I asked if When We Were Real had been influenced by any movies, TV shows, or games. But to flip things around, do you think When We Were Real could work as a movie, TV show, or game?
When We Were Real is currently under development as a TV show with Ryan Reynolds’ company, Maximum Effort, in cooperation with Fifth Season. The showrunners are Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, who directed and co-wrote Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, and Dan Dietz, who worked on West World, is writing.
I feel very lucky. TV is great for novels, especially large-casts books like Real. You have space for an ensemble cast, and time for more story arcs. If we did this as a movie, we’d have to pick one or two main characters and follow them closely. It could still work, but it would be even more different from the book than the TV show would be.
But! It’s early days and this may never reach the screen. Let me tell the new writers out there, don’t be surprised if you get an option and it all falls apart. I’ve had many options, on many of my books. I’ve had deals with Warner Brothers and Universal, and I’ve had shows under development at Showtime and Netflix. I’ve even worked on some of the scripts. None of them have made it to your television.
Right. But if this one does, and Ryan Reynolds asks you for casting ideas, who would you suggest for J.P. and Dulin and why them and not Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter? Or Keanu and Laurence Fishburne? Or Keanu and Carrie-Anne Moss? Those two get along well.
Keanu, if you’re listening, please ignore what I said about the moral implications of The Matrix. Call me! (But seriously, by all accounts this man is a true gentleman, and thinks seriously about science fiction.)
I never have any good ideas for casting. I don’t write with actors in mind, and so I’m at a loss to do fantasy-league casting when I’m done. And if I did have suggestions, my producers would smile and nod and then completely ignore me — as they should.
So, is there anything else you think potential readers need to know about When We Were Real?
Go in knowing that it’s book with a large cast, though there’s a bus seating chart on the opening pages to keep track of every character. You know how in fantasy novels, where all the place names are unfamiliar, so they give you a map? This is like a map of Middle-earth, but, you know, bus.
Finally, if someone enjoys When We Were Real, and it’s the first book of yours they’ve read, which of your others would you recommend they check out next?
I’d send people to Spoonbenders, about a family of down-on-their-luck psychics in Chicago. If you like another big book with a lot of characters, banter, and the same sense of humor that’s in When We Were Real, this is the book to try.
