Get Booked – End Of 2023 Round Up 111223

Hello, I'm Hazel and this is Get Booked for Women's and Men's radio station. We are coming up towards the end of 2023 and I've compiled a little bit of a selection of a few of my favorite shows, kind of rounding up the year. We're going to be listening to a little bit of a sample of Tom Weaver's Artificial Wisdom, 39 1 by Ragbir, The Graveyard Shift by Maria Lewis, and Moth, still an absolute favorite of mine, by Jane Hennigan. We've actually done over 40 interviews with authors here on Get Booked throughout the year. And I'm so looking forward to so many more. In fact, even next week on the show, we're going to be discussing Collapse Feminism by Alice Cappelle. Definitely not one to miss. I have been watching some of her YouTube videos and she is incredible. She's a writer from France and she's known for her critical video essays on YouTube that have accumulated more than 10 million views. I think you're really going to enjoy that. Definitely not one to miss. Um, right, well, let's kick this off, shall we? And let's start today with The Graveyard Shift. Right, my lovelies, now it is time for today's guest, Maria Lewis, and her book The Graveyard Shift. The killer is out there and they're listening. I love thrillers, and I read this in the perfect setting to just kind of holidaying alone while also being a radio presenter who is regularly in the studio solo. It's a good old thriller slasher akin to the kind of Scream franchise, but with far better writing, less cheese, and a great dose of pop culture. Now, just how far will some people go to not have their dreams slashed? Ah, so I did that. To hold their ground when the world is oversaturated with competition and egos? Tinsel Monroe has finally worked her way through the ranks to have her own paid radio show, The Graveyard Shift. Literally. Although a show focused on cult thrillers is to attract a certain clientele. What unfolds is beyond most radio presenters' level of comfort. Luckily, Tinsel's sister Pandora is on hand with her investigative expertise to uncover what the hell is going on. Maria, thank you for joining us on Get Booked. How the devil are you? I'm good. What an amazing intro. I don't know if anyone in my— I don't know if I will take any compliments stronger and more seriously than saying the writing in the Graveyard Shift is better than Scream. That has absolutely tickled my pickle. Oh my God, definitely better than Scream 3 for sure, but I don't know if I'm quite up to the standard of the others, but I'll take it. It's— I mean, because it was kind of a little bit— I mean, you write characters fantastically, um, and I love how you kind of I was kind of giggling sometimes at a book about someone getting kind of constantly slashed and people getting murdered left, right and center. But I think it was kind of like how you brought a lot of normalcy to these kick-ass characters who are still in, you know, shitty relationships and still kind of failing in other areas and smashing it in others. But that's normal, right? And I assume that was quite intentional. Yeah, I just think this idea, and it's a very old school idea, I think the narrative on this is changing, but um, you know, separate to this being a slasher, right? Each character existing and having their own life. Like, this is the thing with stories like this, is I think the best kind of characters and the best sort of immersive storytelling— it doesn't feel like you're at the beginning. It feels like you've immediately stepped into somebody's life. You've stepped into the middle of their story. And this idea that women can have it all is a fairy tale and maybe impossible. And it's just like, I don't know about you, but I've never really had that thing where it's like, my career will be going great and my relationships are going great simultaneously. It's like one thing or the other, or like one thing is up, one thing is down. Or like, you know, your health might be growing really great and then something else might be not going so great. And just that feeling, like the, you know, the, the narrative is that's abnormal, but the reality is that's normal. That's the human experience, right? Is that your life comes in seasons, and there are sometimes that are like career season, sometimes a love season, sometimes a family season, all that kind of stuff. And I wanted Tinsel and Pandora, both of them specifically, like, obviously Tinsel's our in-character, she's the one who brings the audience into the story and she's, you know, sort of the driver of narrative. But Pandora is such a big part of her world, and I really wanted those two sisters to feel really real and lived and authentic as they are living through a slasher, you know what I mean? Yeah, it kind of interwoven really, really well and just kind of you kept on getting these surprises of kind of what you would expect a certain character to be or what they would admit to. And then— no, I enjoyed it. I just— it kind of felt a little bit comforting in a weird way of a thriller slash. Well, yeah, I mean, horror movies are my favorite thing in the world. It's like my favorite genre, period, whether that's TV, film, books, whatever. And it is a comfort for me, which I think it is for particularly like women's place in horror. I think it's a comfort for a lot of women. Is because you're watching the horror happen to somebody else rather than happen to you. Because, you know, statistically, women are the ones who horror happens to. And so the final girl mechanic has, I think, always been something that's really connected to me because it's like you watch these women who are interesting and complicated and prickly go through stuff and come out the other end. And yes, okay, maybe sometimes that's Michael Myers getting decapitated and somehow he comes back with a head in the next movie, but the, like, central message is, you know, it's there. It's, it's comforting in that way. And I was sort of— I've always been a fan of the literary slasher, but as a genre, it really died off sort of in the '70s and '80s. And like, you know, I Know What You Did Last Summer was a book that I really loved. And sort of like, as slashers were taking over in the film space, they were sort of dipping off in publishing. And it's exciting as somebody who loves to consume them and had a lifelong dream of getting to write one, that we're at this intersection now where there's actually like quite a few slashers bubbling up pop culturally in film and television, but also in the literary space, which is wonderful because it means I can like elbow my way in there. Well, I was having a look actually, because you've written quite a few books and I'd say this is quite— this is slightly different, isn't it? It's what you normally— the normal genre. The Graveyard Shift is my 10th book, and all of my previous books have all been let's say fantasy in some regard. Um, urban fantasy used to be the big term, but that sort of like died off. But like speculative fiction, you know, I've written a superhero book for Marvel. I had a series of 8 novels that was all about different types of women as monsters. So a banshee book, a werewolf book, a witch book, a medium book, a sprite, a selkie, and they all crossed over into like a big finale in book 8. So I'm better known for fantasy and speculative fiction, but genre broadly is the space that I operate in. And you know, books is something that has always been my passion, but my primary job is as a screenwriter. And so I primarily work in film and television, writing on TV shows, writing films, stuff like that. And that space, I have done a lot more horror, but it's just really fascinating, like, especially when you do an event or a signing or something like that, um, or you pop it up at a pop culture convention, it's always really fascinating to see where people— like, what's the Venn diagram of intersection of where people know you from? You have your book fans, obviously, but, um, you know, I also in Australia, I was on this, um, live nightly news show for years called The Feed, which was like youth news. So you have a lot of loyal Feed watchers, and then you have people who know me from more of the film and television stuff, and it intersects in all that way. But I started out my career as a police reporter at a local newspaper. And so yeah, it had always been something that had been really interesting to me, and I'd always had to do radio work in some capacity, whether that was on guest guesting on other people's shows, or— and as I moved into more film and TV stuff, it was something that popped up all the time. So it was always like the world of radio was always in my life as a function of my job, but crime was always something that I was like covering and doing and familiar with the mechanics of, um, and trying to find a way for the two of them to intersect. And like, okay, yes, it is a slasher and there's always an element of disbelief, but you know, you see things like the Moscow Murders, for instance, and you're like, actually, this stuff happens all the time. Stuff like this happens every day, and young people, people from all different backgrounds, get caught up in this essentially like cycle of terror. And I think there's a lot to talk about in terms of like PTSD and women and how they move through that space. And I was just seeing so many literary slashes talking about female trauma that were written by men, or written by men under female pseudonyms. And it was really giving me the shits. And I was like, you know what, okay, I'm like 9 books in now. Like, it's really hard to pivot when you're known for one thing, to shift to another genre. And so I was sort of hoping that horror broadly, which is what the, you know, The Graveyard Shift fits into, wasn't too much of a left turn from what different publishers know me for. And so I was thankful that my agent Ed Wilson was like really able to sort of, you know, fight to get it out there. And this being my first murder mystery, I hope I get to do more because I love the genre and I love getting to sort of like elbow my agenda in there, whether it's pop culturally or diversity or, you know, women and like different ages of women as well. I think is really important, this sort of like idea that everyone's, um, an 18-year-old virgin in stories. I'm just like, actually, there's a whole breadth of world and possibility to get into when you're talking about, um, you know, grown adults. Do you know what I found really interesting and relatable? I mean, also your knowledge of radio and community radio really helped kind of— I was so stressed. No, it was just me and us having this chat because I was like, there's lots of things you can bluff your way through, but this isn't one of them. And also, like, you know, lots of people who have been consuming the book and have been reaching out about their responses to it don't have your background, don't work in radio in that space, so don't know the technical specifics. And I really shadowed a friend of mine, Hal Lotakefu, who runs The Hip Hop Show in Australia, which is like a sort of— he's one of Australia's hip-hop pioneers. And that show was groundbreaking, and it was the overnight slot. So it was one thing to be like, yes, I have radio experience, but can I shadow someone who works in that exact slot, who is in a studio by themselves, who is the only person in there and Urban Legend has that scene with Tara Reid where, um, she gets attacked while doing her, uh, sex show at the college campus. And I was just like, it's such a creepy setting, and if you can find a way to sort of stretch it out of just a setting or just a mechanic, I thought that was an interesting space to play in. Uh, yeah, definitely. I mean, the thing is, you, you nailed the whole element of why you wouldn't just— why Tinsel wouldn't just back off when she was in danger because we work our ass off to get into these positions. And some people work in radio for 10, 15, 20 years, still do, where they never get paid but they love it or they want to bring something to the community. And when you finally get a job where you're getting paid, you're like, you are not going to scare me out of this. And then you have especially women going, I'm fed up of being made to be scared so that I am less than. And that came across in the book. So that kind of, not only was it kind of thrilling, but I was kind of getting angry for Tinsel at the same time. I was like, yes, you might get stabbed, but no one's taking that slot from you. Yeah, no, oh my God, I, um, I kind of always have like a thin sheen of rage sort of like just under the surface in my everyday life, right? And it's not just within— in journalism spaces, the things that used to really frustrate me was when you would get, you know, death and rape threats from, um, people who are mad about a film that you wrote about. Or they felt like you weren't giving Zack Snyder enough credit for XYZ thing and therefore you deserve to die. And it's like you couldn't operate in certain spaces. And it took me a while to sort of really understand that. And these were people who would like find out where you lived, show up at events, like really threatening, scary stuff. And it was always this thing that the line that used to piss me off the most was like, oh, they're harmless, or it's harmless, or like you need to not take it so seriously. This assumption that women are safe, they're always going to be safe, and it would always come from men. And it would just really anger me because it is the feeling of unsafety, number one, but also the reality of unsafety, number two. And I have a lot of friends who work in media as well who have gone through similar sorts of things. And so when this is happening to Tinsel and the story is unfolding, it was really important that there was— you could speak to that real-life experience but also speak to the reality of what women go through but also like how hard you bust your tits to get into those positions, and usually male-dominated spaces. And community radio, God bless, in every city there are people out there who just give up hours of their lives to go and show up and do a show that's, you know, some niche type of like Antarctic reggae or something, you know what I mean? Like they're so passionate about a certain thing and like they donate their time and they donate hours of their lives. And so trying to capture that passion that people have for radio and the reach that it can have as well. Because I know people think of it as like an analog thing, but in the internet age, your audience is almost limitless now. If people know everything is on, on the internet, even if it's a local station, you know, I, I have, um, a local radio show where my sister in Spain listens every single week. You know, anyone can listen anywhere. It's completely irrelevant. You're right, you are absolutely everywhere. Yeah, and people are loyal. Like, people who tune into a show, if it's a niche thing and they like you and they like what you're about, they will tune in. And so that was also important for Tinsel's type of show, for it to be super specific and to really like underline that idea of doesn't matter. Like, her audience reach is international essentially, and locally it's almost like she's a little bit ahead of the curve because the station doesn't quite get it. Um, but the people who listen get it. The people who are passionate about horror movies and pop culture are really passionate about it in the same way people are passionate about, you know, ukuleles or something, you know. I absolutely loved chatting chatting to Maria Lewis. She is so much fun. Right, now as promised on GetBooked, we have Rag Bear who's going to talk to us about 39 1 that was released on the 24th of November. I'm going to put lots of bits and pieces and details up on hazelbutterfield.com so you can have a nice easy link to get hold of it. Now this book, the quest to find our perfect imperfect Soulmate. Wow, what a challenge indeed. We have to kiss a lot of frogs to find our prince, supposedly, or more realistically, get smeared with bogeys and try and find good humor in the journey. Yeah, Rach, the character in the book, has decided that with a year to go until the milestone of reaching 40, she will embrace dating without being picky, give them all a go, and see if she gets Yes, lucky. Uh, will Rach find love, find herself, or just curate entertaining stories to tell her good friends on a Friday night? This is a very entertaining, if not quite cringy at times, journey through dating mishaps, human nature, and importantly, friendship. Let's find out more from the woman herself. Hello, thank you for joining us on Get Booked here at Women's and Men's Radio Station. How are you? I'm very well, thank you. Hello. Now, I was reading this book and I was in Gail's just having a nice coffee and it was in a really nice kind of quiet environment and all of a sudden I just burst out laughing and then started gipping at the same time. Do you want to guess which page I was on? There's so many parts that I can't even start with which part, but I think pretty much from what I've heard is the bogey face. Oh, I mean, it grosses me out when my own children have bogeys visible, so especially with a complete stranger who's trying to kiss me, that would make me really, really squeamish. Right, and then it lands on your face and you're just— Oh, oh, the movement is there again. This— that was a true story. Oh, the thing is, when I was reading it, it felt like it was true, um, as well. I mean, so from, from what I gather, this book is, is based on real events that's been condensed for the whole year quest, because it is fiction, but it's fiction that's kind of based on things that have happened to you. Um, tell us a little bit about why you decided to write this book. Oh well, um, I decided to write the book— I always thought that I would be— I would write a book. I didn't know what it would be about, but when I embarked on the quest, I think it was in year 1997, I decided I had a good job. I just bought— the year before I bought a house, and I'd go out with my friends and I'd say, I just can't find a boyfriend. Men weren't asking me out. So I decided that— and they were saying, they would say to me that you're just too picky, you know, you're just too picky, you know. So I decided that I would, um, say yes to anyone. Who asked. And that's how it began. So I slowly started getting myself out there on dating sites, and, and it all began. But I never just thought in my head it was going to be a quest. I just wanted to go out there and date anyone who was bold enough to ask me out. Or, well, do you know what the irony is, is that if we have a particular person that we go for and we're still aimlessly wandering through the dating pool, we're clearly looking for the wrong person that actually doesn't work for us. And sometimes we want to go for something that's in our comfort zone, and then we keep on doing the same thing and wonder why it keeps on going wrong. So the idea of the quest, I wholeheartedly got, because you need to go out of your comfort zone. And if you're always going— you know, I've got friends who always go to these slightly younger pretty and she's like, but they've just got, you know, it never works out. We never seem to kind of have the same sense of humor. And I'm like, well, babe, you need to be looking at somebody who's got the same sense of humor then. And, you know, that could come in any kind of package. And get yourself out there a little bit more and just stop going down the same route. And, you know, it's, it's, you know, I like the idea of the quest because it's a challenge and we don't know what's going to work unless we try something different. That's exactly it. And that's exactly what I did, because I was the same. I'd go for the same kind of guy. And, and I think with my job as well as airline crew, um, I think, um, I never really got asked out. Really? Yeah, by guys that I liked. And so I decided that, well, and maybe they saw me as too independent from what my friends said. You're too independent, you're fussy, you're picky. So Yeah, I think that that's how the quest began, with just deciding that, okay, I'm going to go out there and open myself up. Well, not open, you know, just go out there and see what's out there and, yeah, not have any constraints. Yeah, be open to new experiences. I think that's key, isn't it? Yes. I came up with this idea not so long back. I should kind of trademark it, really. But I like the idea— the whole idea of dating sites fills me with dread. It is ridiculous. People are swiping left or right based on what you look like. And I actually had Laura Price on the show recently, and she's written a book called Single Bald Female, and she went through the dating process as she was going through chemo. So she was bald, and she knows that anybody who actually swiped on her were interested to find out more about her because obviously she was going through quite an experience and it wasn't just solely based on superficial looks. And I love that kind of concept, but I like the idea of a dating site where it was like you went for a dog walk. It's like dog walk dating. So there's— yes, you're kind of out and about with a dog for safety, but there's kind of that whole distraction as well. Because if you meet in a bar, you're nervous. And so you might— I know for a fact I've been nervous and drank too much sometimes and then just gone, oh, I either come across as an idiot or I've got the beer goggles on and you have no idea. So, but, but similarly, I've been on dates when I have used the Dastardly apps where I've taken my dog along for safety. You're making— you're meeting a complete stranger, especially in lockdown. Where you didn't have the safety of the pubs, you know. The whole idea of going to a restaurant or a pub is that if something goes wrong, there's somebody there. But in lockdown, you were essentially in a park with a complete stranger who knew you'd be walking home at some point, and it just all felt a little bit weird. So I used to take my dog, but my dog would sense my apprehension, and she'd either hump them I swear to God, it was so ridiculous, which would make me even more nervous. And it was always a bit counterproductive unless they were huge dog fans. But, you know, it's just— I've had some incredibly messed up dating scenarios where it's just been horrific. I actually, just coming out of lockdown when the pubs were open, I met a guy who was a psychologist who tried upsetting me and riling me because he was interested in my response. Wow. Yeah, that was not good. Um, there were a few expletives, and I was just like, is this how it's gonna go? Because otherwise I just want to go, what are you actually doing? And he explained. I went, that's really messed up. I'm not paying you for a psychological analysis. This. I know I messed up. I don't need you to tell me. You're a complete stranger. And the next one, it was so bad. He was just like, the next day he's going, hey, I had a great time. Do you fancy going out again? I was like, no, you're offering me sandwiches short of a picnic and not in a good way. I'm— no, no, not a good way to start off a relationship or meeting someone, playing psychological games. No, I did not. Like, he tried telling me that that my feet were big and, and did it bother me? I'm size 6, I don't think they're that big. And he just wanted to insult me to see whether I would— it was so, it was so bonkers. I kind of stayed a little bit longer than I should have done because I was intrigued to see what he was going to come out with next. And then I just started giggling, and at the end I just went, I think you should pay the bill because I don't really think that I should— I deserve— I owe you anything. Oh, that's funny. I think you've got a book in you now. Um, yeah, uh, don't need to. 39 1 covers it all. Oh yes, I must admit 39 1 has been a labor of love. Um, I started writing it actually in 2007. I wrote 3 chapters and then I completely froze. Yeah. And I only came back to it when we went into lockdown, um, and, uh, um, within the year I'd written the whole book. So it was just— it's been quite a journey. And, um, yeah, because those dating sites, you know, you just go on them. And the first time I went on, on the dating site was in 1997, and They lie, they lie, they lie a lot. I— yeah, I don't— do you know what? I had this one guy chatting to me, and I was only intrigued in chatting to him because I knew that he was using my best friend's ex-husband's pictures. And I was just intrigued, so I took a screenshot and I sent it to the guy and went, by the way, you've been cloned. Because he was, um, a very pretty policeman who worked out a lot post kind of separation. And I was like, this isn't you. I did it just because I thought it was funny. Oh gosh, it's hilarious. You just think people can get away with anything. I just don't— I just— I don't know, why can't we just go back to the situation? Normal traditional courtship. And yeah, you sit in a bar and somebody says, hey, 'You're single?' Yes. It's like people don't do it because they're, they're scared of the reaction, I suppose. If they're not single, it's like, 'No, back off,' or, you know, we just need to be polite to each other and a bit more— it's a toughie because sometimes people are relentless anyway. I suppose there isn't really an answer, and some— something will work for somebody out there, but dog walk dating, I think, is a winner. I think so. I need to get that patented, don't I? You need to. Anybody listening, if you can help— I really loved reading that book, 39 1. I'm sure she still owes me a drink, actually. Uh, right, next up and on to Mok by Jane Hennigan, a dystopian thriller that really did put my noggin in a bit of a pickle. One of those books that just really gets you thinking. I loved it. Right now, time on Get Booked to discuss Moths with today's author, Jane Hennigan. And I really don't know where to start with this one. It's such a clever and introspective fictional look at a world in which men had to be contained and sedated for their own safety, leaving women in charge following on from a plague of moths carrying an infection that attacks the male central nervous system, rendering them a blue, where they die pretty quickly, or affecting their whole psyche that turns them into prolifically violent and murderous manics. However, we still need to procreate to keep humanity alive. The men need to be cared for, both those infected and those from being infected. 40 years on and the world is evolving. Anyone younger than 40 has no real understanding of how it was before. It is inconceivable that these terrified men protected in confinement with limited knowledge and uses, how they could ever rule the world. Could a potential vaccine be the answer? Decisions need to be made about what is for everyone's futures. Those originally infected are dying off. The only men left are those born since the pandemic that no longer have inherent ideas of superiority or expectation, quite importantly. So many complex ideas, opinions, and basic human rights issues to be addressed. And quite frankly, this book is brilliantly written. Jane, thank you for joining us on Get Booked to discuss Moths. I can't wait to get started. Well, thank you very much for having me. Yes, that's a pretty comprehensive, um, description you've just done there. Thank you. Yeah, I was so absorbed in the book, and as I said a little bit off air, I kind of spent a couple of weeks just getting really angry with men, uh, which it's not the aim, but it's just that whole— we get angry when we've got complex feelings about Well, anything and everything. Um, the book is fantastic. Why don't you kick off by telling us a little bit about yourself? Oh, okay. Uh, so I am— so I've been writing probably about 10 to 15 years. Yeah. Um, before that I was in marketing, and then I went from marketing— I worked in marketing for about 15 years, and then I was a teacher for 6 years, an English teacher for 6 years. And, and then I went and did a master's in creative writing at University of Surrey. And then kind of the pandemic hit, and I was, I was toying with the idea of giving up teaching at that point anyway. And I had, during my master's, started to write a number of novels. I had written a couple of novels before that as well. And, and I was writing Moths during the pandemic, although I had started writing Moths before the pandemic hit. And yeah, I decided to give it a go. I decided to stop teaching. There were other things happening in my life at the time as well. There were sort of relatives that needed looking after and such like, which didn't work with kind of with being a teacher. Life gets in the way. Exactly. And it kind of gave me the confidence actually to come out of teaching and to start writing in earnest. And yeah, then, yeah, so that's basically where I got to. And then I started writing Moths as part of my master's MA in creative writing. And it went down well. It went down really well at the kind of, in the workshops, I got a lot of encouragement. I met some fantastic writing friends whilst I was on the Masters as well, and they were a huge encouragement to me, and we would swap work quite often, and it just kept the focus on writing. And yeah, so I ended up writing Moths. I can imagine if you started before COVID-19 and then continued afterwards, I guess that changed your tack a little bit because you actually had real-time knowledge of how certain pandemics affect how we live. I mean, these dystopian novels, they're getting increasingly scarier due to how pandemic research is going. They're not completely inconceivable. We've seen the effects of COVID-19, and The Last of Us on Sky Atlantic or Sky something or other is based on factual evidence of a disaster that could actually happen. So these novels, we kind of, as I said before, when I was getting a little bit kind of stressed but so engrossed when I was reading it because it just stirs so much inside of you, you really kind of get into the psyche and you cover so many different viewpoints so well. I the hugest congratulations on writing the book. And I know you released it— was it last year? And then it's what, picked up again, and you've been, you've been taken on by an agent, and it's getting re-released with slight changes, and I've just been released. Am I correct? Yes. So, um, well, your first point, uh, when I— so writing a pandemic before a pandemic and writing a pandemic during a pandemic are very, very different things. And I actually had to take 6 months away from writing it in the actual pandemic, because there's something ghoulish about writing a pandemic when you're surrounded by the effects of, you know, of that, of a disease that is, you know, that is making people ill and killing people. So I could, so for a long time, I just couldn't. I mean, I imagine it's the same for a lot of people in the pandemic as well. For a long time, I couldn't really concentrate on very much except just getting through the next day and not thinking deeply about anything, and I definitely wasn't going to think too deeply about a story I was writing about a pandemic. So, actually, as it happened, I'd written most of the story by the time the pandemic hit. Later on in the pandemic, when it— weird to say— it kind of normalised a bit, then I went back to editing and changing some of the parts of the novel in line with what I now know— knew how the government might react, how other countries might react, what the fear was like. There is a lot of fear in the book, and that fear comes from the actual fear that I was feeling during the pandemic. So yeah, there is a big difference between, um, between the fantasy of a pandemic and the reality of a pandemic. One you can write excitedly into the, you know, and just carry on with it. The other one you can— you think very carefully about the reality of it. So, uh, yeah, it did change the novel, and, um, Yeah. Well, I think also moths, it is not like COVID-19. We will look back on COVID-19 in 40 years and it's, you know, it's a bit like SARS. We got over it. We'll probably slightly change the way we do things, but we're not locking up people and changing the whole way that life is kind of run. It is very different to COVID-19, but it still is kind of of helping us understand, you know, what could happen with these slightly more dangerous pandemics. I mean, have you watched The Last of Us? I guess that's something that's— I absolutely loved The Last of Us. I consumed every episode. It is the exact sort of thing I love. So yeah, I thought it was brilliant. I loved it. I mean, obviously terrifying, um, but yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed. And I will watch any— I will watch any disaster movie. I will watch any pandemic kind of TV series. I was a big fan of The Walking Dead, right up, you know, I stuck with it right up to the end. I, yeah, so I guess also the book is a kind of reaction to many of the kind of dystopian stories and apocalyptic stories that I've read, you know, throughout my life. So if I was going to write a story, it was, you know, it was probably going to be in that area. I was like, yeah, no, fair enough. And of course, you've got the two timelines as well. So the second timeline was quite easy to write, um, in the pandemic because it, as you say, it's not a reaction, it's not a reflection of reality. It's a very different world. I wrote about a very different world. Um, but the first timeline, i.e., the past when the pandemic actually hits, um, then that story was very difficult to What really got to me is if it was the other way round and if it affected the women's central nervous system and how the men would react. And that sent me off spiraling in so many different ways because of how the men had to be contained. If women were contained in the same way, I think that puts a lot of fear into everybody. And I think you wrote it quite sympathetically with a lot of thought taken and put into how they were treated and how the system, the new system, had to be managed. Obviously, obviously there's lots of controversial issues with 40 years on, and especially as all the old manics are kind of dying out and you're, you're protecting all the new men from even contracting the disease or the virus. Um, but obviously the, the concept of a vaccine, which can throw so many issues as to what can be controlled— the only reason that people are walking around safe is because it was highly controlled, and if you no longer have that control, chaos can ensue. I think the story is riddled with tough and controversial viewpoints. Do you have a favorite? So, um, so this idea that, um, what will happen when this vaccine— you know, if this vaccine— when this vaccine— spoiler alert, there's a vaccine— uh, when this vaccine comes out, whether women women will want men back into— well, whether women will want men to come back into society. What will happen then? Will the, will the, um, will the kind of, uh, the gender power dynamics revert to what they were, or will they continue as they are? So these are, you know, questions that I absolutely love to think about. What, what does gender mean when there is, you know, when men are locked away and is in the society, in society there is just the one gender to, uh, to kind of, uh, on display, as it were. Um, so these are, these are questions that I, I really enjoyed, uh, looking at in the book. I also had a bit of fun with the idea of just flipping the, the script a little and, you know, having men treated basically like 1950s housewives. They were, they were, that is kind of the, the vibe I was getting. They, they are patronized and they are seen as weaker and just not seen as, as intelligent as the women. Well, if you're constantly told that you're not as intelligent and you are the weaker sex, eventually you're going to believe it if you've never known any different, right? Absolutely, yeah. And if you have no, um, examples of strong, uh, male, uh, figureheads or leaders, uh, then of course they're not going to be able to assimilate any kind of a positive male role model, so they would feel like that at that point. Yeah, so that was me kind of, you know, playing with the— with, with notions, with current notions of, of gender as well. Well, the female powers that be 40 years on, they've got a lot of tough decisions to make, but human rights are human rights no matter what. But these men that have been contained for their own safety they have been medically subdued as well to keep— for their own safety, to make sure that they don't kind of lose it and want to break free. Because if they do break free, they will contract the virus and that is the end. But if they're given the virus, given the vaccine, then that would stop and they'd experience a whole different type of man in their lives that they've never actually— the majority majority of people have never come across. Even, you know, anyone 40, 45 and below have never experienced that. I just think the concept just sent me off in such overwhelm. I mean, every now and again, you know, there'd just be, there'd be something that would happen, and, and either, even if it's just the male kids in my family, or, or, you know, my partner, and I just suddenly like, "Mm-hmm, just imagine. Oh look, there's a moth flying around." And it does kind of— I did get a little bit evil. It did, it just invoked a lot in me, and I think that's the power of a fantastic book. I mean, the response must be similar to mine, I guess. Yeah, I mean, the response is mixed. Some people are horrified. I've been accused of not being a feminist because some of the female characters in my book are are evil. So it— I— but in general, it has been a hugely positive reaction to the book. So as you say, the— the— it— I self-published the book. So in 2021, I self-published the book. I tried to get representation. To be fair, I went I went to some websites and they said absolutely no pandemic stories, like literally written on their website. I was like, oh no. Um, so of course this is during, uh, COVID, and, um, so I, I was like, I'm not going to get much joy. So I did send it off to a few agents, but I didn't get, um, a lot of, a lot of joy. So I, I self-published it. I found a few Facebook groups and websites online, and I learned about self-publishing and the things you can do and things not to do. I went and got a cover off of a kind of website for, I think, $90. I think I got the COVID for, and I kind of just popped it up on Amazon so I could show my friends, and I went, there it is. And then it kind of took off. It went really well. We put a kind of moderate marketing campaign behind it. I said I was in marketing before. Of the marketing I was in was in online marketing, so I had a little bit of experience about how to kind of do an Amazon, a small Amazon campaign. And yeah, it grew from there and it got, and it ended up, I think there was sort of well over 10,000 sales in the end. And then I had a, I had a little bit of interest from a TV production company who emailed me. And so I then, on the back of that, that didn't end up coming to anything, but on the back of that, I went and, and went to a couple more agents who'd been recommended to me by a friend. And one of those agents, Liza Dubloc at Mushin, said, yeah, I think this is a great book and I think we can do something with this. And by that time I had the sequel on pre-order as well. So the sequel was getting quite a lot of pre-orders. You talk about what it, what it would be like if men, um, came out into the world and how would they be treated. Now the sequel is literally that entire story. No way, I can't wait! How men come into the world, these men, wide-eyed, innocent, have been brought up in these facilities. They then get— they then come out into the world in small, small groups initially, and how they are treated, uh, out in the, out in the real world., and obviously they come up against a lot of misandry, a lot of bias, a lot of people don't want them around. So again, playing with the, with the kind of gender norms there. That was Moths by Jane Hennigan, and last but not least, here is a little bit of a sample of my chat earlier this year with Tom Weaver on artificial wisdom. Right, now on the show we are going to be looking at Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver. An AI thriller that hits way too close to home in terms of where we are look— looking like we're heading as a global issue. In Artificial Wisdom, it is 2050, and the effects of global warming, ignored for too long as an issue for the future, has left the world unrecognizable. California no longer exists. London is a flood-transformed cesspit. Kuwait suffered an astronomical murderous heat wave that killed millions, and the rich have moved to floating islands that are climate-controlled and engineered to be a perfect solution for those that can afford it. A global dictator has to be elected to make all the important decisions for the planet to prevent an apocalypse, and the final two in the running are an ex-US president and an art a fully AI commander who has been successfully managing the floating states for a decade. Politics, they are a dirty, dirty game at the best of times, but when global annihilation is at stake, we need truth tellers like journalist Marcus Tully to make sure everyone has all the information required to make an informed decision as to who is the best candidate to save the world. This is an immaculate and creative piece of work by today's guest, author Thomas Weaver. And Artificial Wisdom, it's not only intoxicating, but it's terrifying. A fantastic thriller. And I'll now introduce today's guest, the author of Artificial Wisdom, Thomas Weaver. Hi, how are you? Hi, I'm great. Thank you for having me on You are very welcome. I've had, um, I've been devouring this book. It looks fantastic. I think the cover's just brilliant. But I've had so many people who have had their eye caught as I've been walking past, kind of head in a book. I'm one of the— I'm that annoying person that has a head in a book, that walk around everywhere. And I've had people going, oh wow, what's this? And like 45 minutes later, you know, I'm on my way walking again. And you must be so proud bit. Uh, well, I am, because I'm— funnily enough, that was actually always my dream. Um, when I wanted to become a writer, aged, um, you know, it's probably around 9 or 10 when I first read Roald Dahl's BFG. And there's, there's a dream which the BFG gives Sophie, the protagonist, which is that she writes a book. And this book is so amazing that people are walking around not able to put it down, and their heads are in it, and, you know, they're crashing cars and, you know, uh, having all these accidents because they love this book so And I remember that scene captured me so much, I thought, I want to write something that captures people like that. And so that was my hope. And even if that only happens for one person, I will feel immeasurably proud of what I've managed to pull off. I think you don't have anything to worry about. It's— I've just been enthralled. I mean, it is intoxicating. I've annoyed many people by just kind of ignoring them and choosing to read the book instead because Yes, it's brilliantly written, it's a great story, but it's, it's so close to home. It's so easy to imagine that this is where we're going to be in 20, 30 years. And the detail you go into— and I read a bit at the back about how, you know, a lot of people kind of pushed you to go into more detail and be more creative and go back and redo things and expand on them. And it's It's so intricate, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, I think, um, I, you know, I'm a big fan of thinking about the future. I've always loved great science fiction. Um, you know, my— one of my favorite movies as a kid was Back to the Future 2, where obviously they go into 2015 and it's this— it's pretty utopian actually as to what you might imagine things to look like today. But the thing I always felt was that, um, you know, we always imagine massive change over a future period, whereas whereas in actual fact, if you look back over your lifetime, you know, 15, 30 years, you can see that whilst there are some things that have moved a lot, there are other things that have moved very slowly. And so, you know, I really didn't want to write a future with flying cars. You know, I wanted to, to take the things good and bad that we can see evident in today and project them forward 30 years. It's not actually that long a period. And obviously I did that from a technological point of view. I took things that we can see emerging today, like augmented reality, and said, okay, what will look like in 30 years' time, but also of course having to, to take the state of, um, of the planet into account and, and the geopolitical landscape. Um, you know, how will things like climate shift, um, everything we understand about things like borders and where people live and, um, where's even habitable? Um, so that— so yeah, I mean, there was a lot, obviously a lot of thinking going on. It was a lot of it was born from worry and my own worries about the world and where it's heading and the feeling that, you know, we obviously have this space to act now. And unless we actually start acting now, we are going to find ourselves in an even bigger pit to extract ourselves from, which is surely the role of any science fiction. It is to paint, like, some of the pictures of this is what happens if you ignore all of our warnings. And this is the thing, and in artificial wisdom, just for all the listeners, they— it's been decided that they need to elect a global leader because this is the problem. We're always working against each other. There are so many nations that don't agree with other nations, and so sometimes you kind of feel like they're working against them just to spite them. And so it has to be one person making the decisions, and we're all on exactly the same path, otherwise it's a wasted journey. So I think the concept is fantastic, and I think it's, you know, it's not far from what is very likely going to happen because we do all work against each other. And I think there's a lot of people that just think, oh, there's so much that needs to be done, what's the point? Because we're doing this and somebody else is ruining it 10 steps down the road. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can see even this morning, I mean, there's topical news about the UK government, uh, you know, changing their their kind of green policy. But what actually sparked this one for me, I remember it actually very vividly a few years ago, reading an article about how certain countries above a particular latitude will actually be beneficiaries of climate change because as the Arctic warms and as, you know, a lot of the sort of tundra and the kind of areas which today are in places like Siberia and in kind of, you know, the very north part of Canada and asked, um, you know, there are going to be, uh, resources that open up. And that really floored me because it kind of brought a lot of things into perspective. The idea that actually, um, of course, you know, if you're, if you're living below that latitude, of course you think, well, you know, we can't destroy the planet for resources. And then yet there are probably a few countries thinking, actually, you know what, this is going to be a to me. And so I kind of realized this is such a complicated issue, it's incredibly complicated, but the climate is interconnected. If one country is polluting very heavily, other countries pay the price. And therefore individual policies on a country-by-country level, I was thinking, well, you know, ultimately it's going to make no sense. We're not going to be able to tackle it. What if one country decides to launch a load of dust into the atmosphere or, you know, something to geoengineer, kind of block the sun. Can they do that? Like, what's the rules on this kind of thing? How do you make decisions which affect everyone, uh, from a national standpoint? Um, and so that's really— that was really the inspiration for this idea of a dictator, um, which was, you know, has become such a negative word. And actually, one— I had one editor beg me to take it out because they said, look, dictator is, you know, it's a bad word, it's a negative word. But obviously, the— it wasn't always a negative word, actually. The Romans actually— Caesar actually had a bunch of dictators, and they were appointed literally just to come in, solve a crisis. Like, hey, we've got a bunch of Carthaginians coming over the Alps at us and marching on Rome. What do we do? Go fix it. Here's all the power. They go and fix it, they come back, you know, and hand power back. And that was, that was the point of dictatorship in, in early Rome. Well, this is the thing, it's part of it is reworking the narrative and reworking working preconceived ideas. I mean, we've been harping on for the last 30 years about how we're scared computers and robots are going to take over the human race, and yet they have the capability to do things that we can't do. And it's, it's a fine line between trying to figure out what we should use AI for, uh, and, and if— well, I suppose it's an age-old issue of if you give too much power power, can you get it back? Do you regain control? We all like to keep control. Which was the issue with the dictators in the first place. And that, you know, this is where it kind of went off the rails with Julius Caesar, who decided not to give power back. Um, you know, but I think this is really valid what you just said around AI and computers, because when we write books, when we create movies, um, when we, you know, film these wonderful TV series that are around today, we seed people's imaginations for better or for worse. And of course, when you're telling stories, the obvious thing to do is to paint some worst-case scenarios because that's what makes stories interesting. Characters have to dig themselves out of a hole that they've got themselves into. And so I think it's perfectly natural that actually sci-fi writers over the last 30 years have imagined the worst cases of robots and AI and have seeded it to the point where we do imagine, of course, that these things are going to destroy us. Because if we were suddenly catapulted to the, you know, the top of the power chain, we'd probably do that. So we see it from our own perspective. But that is possible. And I, you know, I don't think anybody can say, but I'm a tech optimist. But I'm somewhere in the middle where I'm a tech optimist who always believes that whatever innovation we have comes at a price. You know, we have smartphones which have transformed our world but have stolen our attention in the process, you know. So there's, there's a huge amount of positives that have come from it and a huge amount of negatives. And I know we'll get on to mental health later, but I think smartphones is a great one to talk about in that segment. Thank you so much for joining me today for my selection bit of a roundup of 2023. We've had Artificial Wisdom, 39+1, The Graveyard Shift, and Moss. And I'm so looking forward to bringing you so many interviews on Get Booked, the women's and men's radio station, throughout 2024. You can listen to the full episode of all of these shows by popping onto womensradiostation.com/shows getbooked, and on theirs and my SoundCloud. You can just pop onto hazelbutterfield.com. I hope you're all having a fantastic festive period. I'm Hazel Butterfield, and you've been listening to Get Booked.