Get Real

When I first created the Diadem, one of my main intentions was to have a series where pretty much anything could happen. The problem with a lot of series is that after a handful of books it seems as if the writer has to repeat ideas they’ve already used. I wanted a format where that would not happen. As a result, I created a series where the main characters could travel from world to world. If I tired of one, I’d just move on. That way, I wouldn’t be forced to repeat the same sort of story time after time.

It also gave me the chance to move between genres. Diadem is primarily a fantasy series, but I didn’t want to be limited to simply having magicians battling it out, or another new mythical monster turning up — that too could get dull. Instead I could have a story that’s mostly adventure, for example in Book of Oceans, our heroes battle pirates. Or I could have almost straight science fiction, as in Book of Reality.

Both Score and Helaine have been home and visited their families (with varying degrees of success) so it seemed as if it was time for Pixel to do the same. Pixel’s world is a little like ours might be in a hundred years or so — perhaps even less. The privileged few live in electronic cocoons, their minds inhabiting worlds of virtual reality. Others, less fortunate, slave away in work camps to support the dreamers. I created the world in 1997 with the aim of eventually going back to explore what was happening there. It was obviously a world where injustice ruled, and Score, Helaine and Pixel would never allow that to continue if they could do something positive to change it.

Of course, as always, the “best-laid plans” go astray. Between my first Diadem story and Book of Reality, the movie The Matrix came out. As often happens to writers, somebody else had come up with an idea that was very close to what I’d wanted to write myself. It left me with a big problem: whatever I did to Pixel’s home, I had to make sure it didn’t look like I was simply ripping off The Matrix — no matter that I’d planned it years before the film even came out!

So I had to go back and have a good think. Could I still do something involving people in virtual reality that wouldn’t make the readers think of The Matrix? And, after a little thought, I realized that I could. So I put the movie out of my mind and set about creating a different sort of virtual world, where things are never quite what they appear to be, and Pixel discovers that everything he believed he knew about his family is a complete lie.

Calomir, Pixel’s home world, ends up being one of the most nightmarish places I’ve ever invented. Could it ever really come true? Are we getting so dependent on our computers and other machines that we’d be willing to exchange our real lives for fantasies lived out inside a computer? On Calomir, people have done just that. It has become a world where people are being raised like animals, valued only for what they contribute to the real ruler of their planet. Some work as slaves, others dream their lives away, but both are ultimately doomed — unless our heroes can save the day. Only this time around, one of them turns out to be a strange sort of traitor, which leaves the story with a horrible cliff-hanger …

When I started planning the story, one idea stuck in my mind. I knew that Book of Reality would have to be the first half of a two-part story, because I really wanted to end the first part with a scene that I couldn’t get out of my head. It left Score, Helaine, Pixel and Jenna in a really terrible spot, but it felt like it was exactly the right ending for the story. Of course, the problem with that is that when it comes time to write the next book, an author has to find a way out of the sticky situation he’s created! But that’s a challenge for Book of Doom …