If you’re like me, then you’ve been a teenaged boy who woke up on a strange spaceship, only to find the crew didn’t trust you because you have telepathic abilities, and since everyone knows that male telepaths are dangerous…
But while we’ve all been there, that doesn’t mean we don’t like reading stories in which this common occurance happens to someone else.
Which brings me to J. Warren’s young adult science fiction space opera novel Worldburner (paperback, Kindle).
In the following email interview, Warren talks about what inspired and influenced this sci-fi story.
To start, what is Worldburner about, and when and where is it set?
So the idea is that in a distant future, far off in the galaxy, a teenage boy, Akari Tatsuro, wakes up aboard a ship full of people he doesn’t know. He’s lost his memory and has no idea where he came from. The crew of this ship are kind, but once they discover he’s a telepath, things get tense. Male telepaths are extremely rare and very dangerous because they often give in to their anger and rage and use their power to destroy. The captain of this ship, though, has a plan. She thinks maybe he can use his power to get control of an ancient relic of great destructive force she knows about.
The whole book then revolves around the kid finding his power, recovering his memory, and the decision of whether or not to help the captain gain control of that relic. It’s kind of a heist, in a way.
Where did you get the idea for Worldburner, and how different is the finished story from what you originally conceived?
Well, it comes from two different ideas that met in the middle.
One is that I’ve become really aware of the way that we as adults are always using kids for our own gains. We don’t have any idea how to solve global climate change, for instance, so we’re always putting it off on them to think about and do, hoping that one of them will come up with the answer that saves us all.
The second idea comes from Alastair Reynolds in a way. His novel Revelation Space is one of my all-time favorites. In it, one of the characters has inherited a huge cache of very old, incredibly dangerous weapons. It’s not the main plot of the book, but it is a very strong B plot. She’s always having to think about what to do with them, how to keep them from others, etc. It might not sound like it, but it’s riveting.
I started to think about what would happen if a young man who didn’t have her wisdom or experience got a hold of one of these relics. How would he react?
So, is there a reason why Akari wakes up on a spaceship as opposed to a space station or an alien planet?
I wanted that sense of movement to the early part of the book. The idea of him waking up already far from wherever he came from was intriguing to me.
Similarly, is there a reason why male telepaths are considered dangerous as opposed to female telepaths or all telepaths?
I grew up loving Chris Claremont’s run on Uncanny X-Men. Specifically, I was a Jean Grey fan. I feel, like I think he does, that there will be a difference in how the genders handle telepathy. That male energy is going to gravitate to using the abilities to dominate and control, where feminine energy will be more about healing and connection. So in this book I played that out to its most logical conclusion: people are very afraid of male telepaths (so it’s kind of lucky that there aren’t very many of them).
Worldburner is clearly a sci-fi space opera story. But are there any other genres at work in it as well?
There’s the bildungsroman. A big part of the middle of the book is the story of a teenage boy learning about himself, his power, and growing up. Finding a positive male role model.
There’s also a heist-like section. I don’t want to give away too much of that, but imagine Ocean’s 11 meets Rendezvous With Rama.
Worldburner is also a young adult novel. But YA novels are sometimes that way because they’re written for young adults, and sometimes because they don’t have anything inappropriate for young adults. Where does Worldburner fall, and does that mean that old adults won’t enjoy it?
It’s a good question. I’d have to say both, though I know that’s not fair as a response. I would say it’s YA because it shows that there is some power in the status as a young person, too. That they can gain a kind of power (I can’t say too much more because it has to do with the ending).
Worldburner is your eighth novel. Are there any writers, or specific stories, who had a big influence on Worldburner but not on anything else you’ve written?
Worldburner is my first YA novel. I thought about that a lot when I was writing. A lot of YA writing that I see is about pacing. I thought about sentence length, length of paragraphs, that kind of thing. There’s no specific one YA novel that influenced that, but seeing that style is so many of them definitely had a pull.
This is also my second sci-fi novel. The first, The Consort, was much more influenced by such queer sci-fi as Samuel R. Delany. Worldburner operates closer to hard sci-fi, and has a lot of Alastair Reynolds, Ann Leckie, and David Brin in it.
What about non-literary influences? Was Worldburner influenced by any movies, TV shows, or games?
Any time I write I’m always paying homage in little ways here and there to the movies and TV series I love. I could deny that there’s a healthy dose of Firefly in the beginning of the novel but I’d be lying.
Sci-fi novels are sometimes stand-alone stories, and sometimes they’re the start of a larger saga. What is Worldburner?
I haven’t planned any other books so far, but one of the editors did say she was interested in seeing where it might go. Never say never, right?
A moment ago I asked if Worldburner had been influenced by any movies, TV shows, or games. But to flip things around, do you think Worldburner could work as a movie, TV show, or game?
I think it could work as a great streaming movie. I’d love to see Logo TV do sci-fi.
And if they did, who would you want them to cast as Akari and the other main characters?
I’d love them to get that kid from The Mysterious Benedict Society, Mystic Inscho. I thought he did a great job in it, and he’d be about old enough now to play Akari.
So, is there anything else you think potential readers need to know about Worldburner?
If you liked [Orson Scott Card’s] Ender’s Game, I think you’ll like Worldburner.
Finally, if someone enjoys Worldburner, which of your other novels would you suggest they check out next and why that?
If they like the way I do sci-fi, they should try The Consort.
If they like the way I write adolescent characters, they should try Tygers.
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