The reissue of Jason Sanford's Nebula and Philip K. Dick Award-nominated novel, Plague Birds: The Red Day Edition, will be coming out this June. In anticipation and celebration, we're doing a series of interviews with the author! Part one explores the past, discussing the publishing industry, inspiration, and dreams of the future. Keep reading to learn more!
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Darian Bianco: Think back on the world in 2021, when Plague Birds first came out. What were the big issues and hot topics of the time? What was the state of the publishing industry? How did these factors affect the timeliness of Plague Birds upon release?
Jason Sanford: When Plague Birds was publishing in September 2021, we were in the second full year of the COVID pandemic. My novel came out around the same time the first COVID vaccines began to be readily available. Most people were extremely eager to receive the vaccines and there were long lines for the shots at hospitals and medical clinics.
Note I said most people, not everyone. Unfortunately, even then anti-vaccine and anti-science attitudes were being freely expressed. In response to this, I published an essay on John Scalzi's Whatever asking if fantasy was the end result of all science fiction. My point was that too many people believed they could ignore or discard the science behind our modern world if they disagreed with it. Five years ago, this attitude manifested in people refusing to receive the life-saving COVID vaccines because they didn't trust the science behind the shots, even as many of those same people promoted unproven horse dewormers as effective treatments.
Sadly, in the years since, these anti-science beliefs have gone viral and are now mainstreamed not only in the United States but in many parts of the world.
The publishing industry five years ago was also in a weird place. Book sales increased heavily during the first years of the pandemic, but a paper and printing shortage drove up costs for publishers. And because of the pandemic, authors couldn't do bookstore visits to promote their work. I remember many of the authors with books coming out that year, like myself, being horrified. It felt like our books were dropping into a vast void, never to be seen or read.
Fortunately, people embraced Plague Birds and word-of-mouth helped my story find readers. And the topics covered in Plague Birds—including how to survive in a world where both information and what you experience can be manipulated and altered—remain as relevant as ever.
DB: How did Plague Birds first come to you? Walk us through how the spark of an idea became an entire book, award-nominated and all! I'd love to hear about your initial inspiration.
JS: I've long been fascinated about how humanity changes based on the tools we use. For example, humans used Acheulean stone hand tools for approximately two million years, with humans both creating those stone tools and our species being changed by that tool use.
Naturally, I'm curious how newer technologies such as artificial intelligence and genetic manipulation might change humanity. Plague Birds is my exploration of those issues.
I first wrote Plague Birds as a short story that was published in the British magazine, Interzone. The story was very popular with readers and won the magazine's annual readers' award. The short story is approximately Part 1 of the novel, basically the beginning of Crista and Red Day's tale.
DB: Did you know, when Plague Birds first came out, that you'd do more writing in this world, like short stories and sequels? Were ideas for more stories percolating even then, or did they sneak up on you?
JS: I always planned to write more Plague Birds stories and I'm glad I'm getting the chance to do so. I've already written two additional short stories featuring Crista and Red Day. One of these stories will be published in Plague Birds: The Red Day Edition and is set about six months after the events of the novel.
The other short story will be released later this year alongside the novel's sequel, which is titled Plagues of Dissension. This sequel is set a decade after the events of Plague Birds and features Crista and Red Day needing to yet again save the world, resulting in much annoyance and mutual bickering between the two of them.
What I love most about the world of Plague Birds is how many dreams and ideas it contains. In addition, I can write about themes traditionally found in fantasy stories while also exploring science fiction ideas and tropes. There's no limit to the stories I can explore in this world, so yes, those ideas continually sneak up on me. I hope I'm eventually able to share with my readers all of the stories I want to write about Crista and Red Day.
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