{"id":5238,"date":"2022-11-27T10:23:41","date_gmt":"2022-11-27T16:23:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/?p=5238"},"modified":"2022-11-27T10:35:25","modified_gmt":"2022-11-27T16:35:25","slug":"the-prometheus-interview-part-3-with-wil-mccarthy-on-his-first-novel-antediluvian-and-his-cool-sci-fi-portrait-pics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/the-prometheus-interview-part-3-with-wil-mccarthy-on-his-first-novel-antediluvian-and-his-cool-sci-fi-portrait-pics\/","title":{"rendered":"The Prometheus interview, part 3, with Wil McCarthy: On his first novel Antediluvian and his cool sci-fi portrait pics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is the third and final part of the Prometheus interview with Wil McCarthy, the 2022 Prometheus Best Novel winner for Rich Man’s Sky.
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Will McCarthy (Photo courtesy of Baen Books)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n


\n\"\"<\/a><\/em>Q: Talk about the impetus for your first novel Antediluvian,<\/em> once you returned from your recent writing hiatus. <\/em>I recently read and enjoyed it as an ingenious twist on the standard time-travel novel, offering a genetic-memory approach to experiencing what really might have happened millennia ago to our \u201ccave man\u201d ancestors. Your novel plausibly reimagines key events \u2013 like the massive flooding 12,000 to 14,000 years ago that\u2019s the reality behind the story of Noah\u2019s Ark \u2013 that gave rise through generations of oral history to our inherited (and likely highly distorted) mythologies about ancient history.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s how your novel is described on Amazon:
\n\u201cWhat if all our legends are true?… All the Stone Age has left behind are rocks and bones; all other materials have rotted away, leaving no trace. But what if \u201ccave men\u201d never existed, and the Stone Age was a time of great sophistication still preserved in our oldest stories?”<\/p>\n

“In a brilliant and dangerous brain hacking experiment, Harv Leonel and Tara Mukherjee are about to discover entire lifetimes of human memory coded in our genes, and reveal ancient legends \u2013 from knights and trolls, to flood myths, to the birth of humanity itself \u2013 that are as real as they are deadly.<\/p>\n

“Before disaster erased the coastlines and river valleys of the Antediluvian age \u2014 before the Flood \u2014 men and women struggled and yearned and innovated in a world of savage contrasts into which Harv and Tara are thrust, unprepared. Will their science be enough to save them?\u201d<\/p>\n

So how do you feel about Antediluvian<\/em> as your first \u201creturn\u201d novel?<\/p>\n

A: I adore and am super proud of Antediluvian,\u00a0<\/em>but it ended up being a sort of placeholder book.\u00a0 These happen sometimes in a writer’s career, where you pour your heart and soul into something that doesn’t really end up going anywhere.\u00a0 But I think it helped set the stage.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It got enough attention that people were aware I was writing again, and… well, if you imagine the first book being thrown off a high bridge, it hits the water like it’s slamming into concrete.\u00a0 But that breaks up the surface of the water, churns up a bunch of bubbles, so the next book gets a softer landing.\u00a0 I certainly didn’t write Antediluvian\u00a0<\/em>with that in mind, but I am glad Rich Man\u2019s Sky\u00a0<\/em>was that second book.<\/p>\n

Q: Finally, here’s a trivial but fun question: The LFS received from Baen Books some really cool pictures of you (pictured above) \u2013 including one surrounded by a mountain of books and another looking like you\u2019re at the controls of a futuristic sci-fi spaceship. Just out of curiosity, where were these photos taken? (Because if the latter was at some Area 51 spaceport or even at an amusement park, then I\u2019d love to take my turn someday in that nifty cockpit.)<\/p>\n

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Wil McCarthy in the cockpit of some starship (Photo courtesy of Baen Books)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A: I\u2019d prefer to be cagey about where and how these photos were taken.\u00a0 I will say, sometimes good author pics are spontaneous and opportunistic, and other times I’ve gone to great lengths to stand in front of the right thing at the right time.<\/p>\n

I once got a picture taken of me at the border between Springfield and Shelbyville.\u00a0 Cool, right?\u00a0 Except there’s no such border, anywhere in the U.S.<\/p>\n

I had to get a picture in front of the Shelbyville sign in Kentucky, and then get a second picture in front of a Springfield sign in a different state, under the same weather and lighting conditions, in the same clothes.\u00a0 This required accomplices, planning, time, and luck, and isn’t the kind of thing I can do very often.<\/p>\n

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Wil McCarthy surrounded by books (Photo: Baen Books)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But another publicity pic I used for years was snapped by my wife while I was just sitting in front of my computer, so there was literally no effort involved for anyone.<\/p>\n

Check out the first part<\/a> of the Prometheus interview with Will McCarthy.<\/p>\n

Read the second par<\/a>t of the Prometheus interview with McCarthy.<\/p>\n

Read the Prometheus Blog appreciation<\/strong><\/a> of McCarthy’s Rich Man’s Sky<\/em>, the 2022 Prometheus winner for Best Novel.<\/p>\n

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*\u00a0Watch\u00a0<\/strong>videos <\/strong>of the 2022 Prometheus ceremony with Wil McCarthy, and past Prometheus Awards ceremonies, Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog\u2019s\u00a0Video page.<\/strong><\/a>
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\n<\/u><\/strong>* Prometheus winners:\u00a0<\/strong>For the full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees \u2013 for the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards \u2013 visit the enhanced\u00a0Prometheus Awards page\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>on the LFS website, which now includes convenient links to the full set of published appreciation-reviews of past winners.<\/p>\n

* Read\u00a0\u201cThe Libertarian History of Science Fiction,\u201d<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0an essay in the international magazine\u00a0Quillette<\/em>\u00a0that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf\/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.<\/p>\n

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*\u00a0Join us<\/strong>! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards,\u00a0join\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf\/fantasy fans.<\/p>\n

Libertarian futurists believe that culture matters! We understand that the arts and literature can be vital, and in some ways even more powerful than politics in the long run, by sparking innovation, better ideas, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other\u2019s rights and differences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is the third and final part of the Prometheus interview with Wil McCarthy, the 2022 Prometheus Best Novel winner for Rich Man’s Sky. Q: Talk about the impetus for your first novel Antediluvian, once you returned from your recent writing hiatus. I recently read and enjoyed it as an ingenious twist on the standard … Continue reading The Prometheus interview, part 3, with Wil McCarthy: On his first novel Antediluvian and his cool sci-fi portrait pics<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32,36],"tags":[1513,1657,1760,1761,46,1487,1762,1484],"class_list":["post-5238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-updates","category-interviews","tag-antedeluvian","tag-best-novel-winner","tag-disaster","tag-floods","tag-prometheus-awards","tag-rich-mans-sky","tag-the-birth-of-humanity","tag-wil-mccarthy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-1mu","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5238"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5253,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5238\/revisions\/5253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}