| Non-fiction author Kent
Lester decided to write his first novel, The Sixth Extinction, on a
bet. A friend had challenged him to leave the
non-fiction arena and give fiction a try, claiming that Kent was a natural
at creating tall tales.
But Kent joked that the conventional wisdom
required him to "write what you know." So he made a mental
checklist of subjects that he had a degree of interest or knowledge in:
computers, travel, scuba diving, oceanography, the environment, and
genetic engineering.
From that diverse list of subjects, Kent outlined
a plot with all the elements of an action packed, environmental techno-thriller.
He filled the plot with interesting characters and loads of whiz-bang
technology. The more far-fetched the plot elements, the better he
liked them.
But when he began gathering research to make the
plot more "believable," Kent kept stumbling on facts and events
that seemed to indicate that his work of fiction wasn't quite as fictional
as he had originally intended.
"It seemed that every time I'd come up with
an interesting or dangerous plot premise, I'd discover that something
similar to it had actually happened, or seemed destined to happen
soon," said the author, his shoulders wagging up and down with obvious
morbid delight.
"As I wrote each chapter, some news story
would inevitably appear a week or two later that validated what I had
imagined as a purely fictional idea. It was spooky. I began to
worry about writing the ending, since it threatened the world as we know
it, for fear that my imaginings might actually come true." |
Luckily for the human
race, it's been a year since the ending was drafted, and the world is
still here. But that hasn't stopped Kent from tweaking the plot for
accuracy.
"Researching these subjects has really given
me an appreciation for the complexity of the environment, and how quickly
things can change, so I decided to make the story as true to life as
possible. If it hasn't already happened, it could in the near
future. I didn't have to change much," Kent said.
But is the world ready for a scientifically
accurate techno-thriller about the environment? Kent thinks so.
"There have been a lot of natural disaster
stories lately, with volcanoes exploding, rampant viruses, tornados and
such, but to my knowledge, no one has written a novel that explains how
these events could happen on their own. And yet we are
seeing evidence of new diseases, for instance, every day. Global
warming is changing weather drastically in a matter of a few years.
Researchers think we've entered the next great mass extinction, similar to
the one that killed the dinosaurs. I think the factual basis of this
story makes the events in it all the more chilling."
And Kent believes that readers will experience just
as many "chills of the spine" reading The Sixth Extinction
as he did writing it.
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