It gives the Speculative Fiction Showcase great pleasure to interview David M. Kelly, whose latest novel Kwelengsen Dawn was our featured new release on Tuesday, June 7.
We interviewed you last in April 2018, around the time your second novel Perimeter was released. You have just released your seventh book, Kwelengsen Dawn (Logan's World, Book 2). How does that feel?
It feels great to have got the book out there. I dedicated this one to all the readers who cursed me after book one, as they had a long wait to see what happened to Logan! I tend to write things in timeline order. As a result of that, book one fell between the events in Joe Ballen books three and four, so that’s how I wrote them. Book two of Logan’s World is set after the final Joe Ballen book, and so is only now getting a release.
The good news is that book three in the Logan series is already well under way, so there won’t be such a big gap between books two and three!
Perimeter was set in the Joe Ballen universe. Kwelengsen Dawn relates to a spin-off character, Logan Twofeathers, who first appears as the protagonist in Kwelengsen Storm. What can you tell us about Logan and what makes him tick?
Logan first appeared in my Joe Ballen series as a close friend of Joe, someone who often helps him out when things are at their worst. An equally adept space engineer, he’s quieter than Joe, but with a drier humor, and doesn’t suffer fools gladly. He believes Kwelengsen is a new start for humanity, a chance to leave war behind and work together to build something better. But as the series progresses, his ideals are increasingly challenged, and he's pushed to the limits as he fights for justice and the people he loves.
What about the world in the title, Kwelengsen. How would you describe it?
The word comes from Logan's native language, Salish, and means "Eagle." He named the planet “Kwelengsen” after seeing a large continent on the surface that resembled a soaring eagle. It's pronounced kwuh-leng-shun and represents Logan's dreams of freedom.
At the beginning of Kwelengsen Dawn, Logan is stranded on Earth. Who are the Corporate forces who threaten him?
In the first book, Kwelengsen was invaded by a ruthless Corporate invasion force. Although planets are common, habitable ones are scarce, making the planet incredibly valuable, especially as Earth is starting to deteriorate badly, due to uncontrolled climate change. The Corporates are a loose-linked group of independent communities built in space for commercial reasons and, with the exception of certain trade links, have largely broken ties with Earth. They want the planet and its resources for themselves, and see the settlement as a road block to be eliminated. Unfortunately, when Logan left the planet in book one, he found that many of the settlers were left behind.
What other trials will Logan face as he struggles to return to Kwelengsen?
His quest to return to Kwelengsen involves physical hardship and mental anguish as he's forced to journey through a backward society, deal with criminal groups, and seek help from one of the last people he would choose to go to for assistance. There are also several mysteries on the planet that the settlers have not encountered previously.
Why did you decide to follow Logan and give him his own series?
When I was researching the types of people who might take on space construction roles for the original Joe Ballen series, I happened upon several articles detailing the high numbers of Native Americans who worked on constructing the skyscrapers of New York and other cities. This made me think they might play a similar role in space construction. During one of the later books in that series, Logan discovers the planet he names Kwelengsen, and it felt right that I develop that situation further. Also, there have been few Indigenous roles traditionally in science fiction, and I wanted to base a series around him and develop his character.
What can fans of the Joe Ballen series expect?
Right now, I have no plans to continue the Ballen series. Writing Joe was a lot of fun, but I feel it's time to move on to other projects. I have a continuous book universe planned moving into the future as humanity explores deeper into space. So it's safe to say his influence will be felt throughout books to come, but I can't give anymore details on that yet :-) I hope readers who liked Joe will give my other series a try and hopefully enjoy them just as much. The Logan's World series is a little darker in tone than Joe with more of a military edge, but there's still plenty of action, humor, and characters to care about.
You will be appearing at several events and conventions this year from July through September. Where will you be and what will you be doing?
I'm so excited to get back to in-person events this year. I have two events in central Ontario over the summer: the Elmvale Scifi Fantasy party and the Coldwater Steampunk Festival. These are close enough to be day trips from where I live in Northern Ontario. In the fall, I'm heading south to the Eden Mills Writers Festival, and then the big one: a 12-hour road trip to Thunder Bay, Ontario for their 2-day Thundercon - Bring the Thunder!
In your last interview, you talked about your lifelong fascination with science. How do you feel about the latest advances in space exploration?
I think there are a lot of amazing developments happening, and it's wonderful to see an upsurge of interest in space and its development. At the same time, I'm disappointed we're not seeing more international collaboration on these ventures. I also think some of the commercial projects being talked about are not sufficiently grounded in reality, in some cases to the point where you'd have to describe them as deceptive.
You moved from Yorkshire, England to Ontario, Canada in 2005. Has that change affected what you write about and the landscapes you imagine?
I'm not sure if it's changed how I write, but Sudbury, Ontario is a great place to be a sci-fi writer. The Sudbury Basin was formed 1.8 million years ago from a huge asteroid or comet impact, as evidenced by the local shattercones you can see here. NASA has used the rocky landscape for training exercises, and we have our very own Nobel prize-winning neutrino observatory. Thinking about it, the Kwelengsen landcape is very barren and rocky with harsh winters, so perhaps I've been influenced by Sudbury more than I realise! (There's more about the area on a blogpost I wrote a few years ago - https://davidmkelly.com/2016/11/28/space-town/)
One thing that the move has affected is my awareness and knowledge of First Nations cultures, which fed directly into my novels featuring Logan Twofeathers. The Indigenous people of North America have been abused for hundreds of years, all the way up to recent times, and, sadly, still have to deal with a lot of prejudice and injustice.
Apart from a foot injury, you have been physically very active. How far do activities like IPSC combat (target) pistol shooting, being crew chief on a drag racing team, hiking and camping in the wilderness enable you to imagine the adventures of your characters?
That's an interesting question! I hadn't thought about this before, but it's true that weapons, fast, powerful spaceships, and tests of endurance feature heavily in my books :-) Quick reactions and the ability to "cobble things together" McGiver-style were also quite advantageous in those situations, so perhaps I've passed some of those qualities onto my two space engineers. Before taking up writing, I was a software engineer and have worked with a lot of engineers in various roles, both on the IT side, but also mechanical and electrical, so I feel I have an understanding of how they might think and feel.
On your website, you list online resources for writers who are researching space travel. Tell us about these.
One of my goals when I started writing the Joe Ballen series was to create a story that was realistic AND fun – something a lot of people said couldn't be done. As I was writing, I found a number of very useful sites that I leaned on heavily to get the technical details right. Many of them were a little obscure, so I felt it would be helpful to highlight them to anyone else attempting to write similar books.
Will there ever be a warp drive or something of that nature?
To me, the universe seems too large for speeds to be limited to below the speed of light - it feels inelegant somehow. There should be a way around it. Wormholes and warp fields have become a common theme in science fiction. My books are based around the idea of a universe comprising a dozen or more dimensions, where it's possible to temporarily slip into a different dimension and "skip around" great distances. More recently, we've heard that we could be living in a multiverse, which may also offer potential opportunities. That being said, if we do find a way to make one of these ideas possible, I believe it will take immense levels of energy to enable such shortcuts. Another question is whether humans could survive such a transition. My heart wants it, but my head says it's a long way off, if it's achievable.
What further adventures are you planning for your characters, including Joe Ballen, Logan Twofeathers and Hyperia Jones?
As mentioned above, Joe is taking a well-earned retirement. Book 3 of the Logan's World series is well under way and will be the final instalment of the series. As for Hyperia, she's just getting started and I have lots more adventures planned for her and the FIRE team – that's the Federation of Interstellar Rassling. That series is firmly in the sci-fi comedy genre :-) I'm also planning a new military sci-fi series that I'll be writing alongside Hyperia, so there's lots to look forward to!
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About David M. Kelly:
David M. Kelly writes intelligent, action-packed science fiction. He is the author of the Joe Ballen sci-fi thriller series and the short story collection Dead Reckoning And Other Stories. He has been published in Canadian SF magazine Neo-opsis.
David’s interest in science and technology began early. At the age of six his parents allowed him to stay up late into the night to watch the television broadcast of Neil Armstrong stepping on to the surface of the moon. From that day he was hooked on everything related to science and space. An avid reader, he worked his way through the contents of the mobile library that visited his street, progressing through YA titles (or ‘juveniles’ as they were known back then) on to the classics of Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Harry Harrison. David worked for many years in project management and software development. Along the way his interests have included IPSC combat (target) pistol shooting, crew chief on a drag racing team, and several years as bass player/vocalist in a heavy rock band. He also managed to fit in some real work in manual jobs from digging ditches and work on production lines to loading trucks in a haulage company. Originally from the wild and woolly region of Yorkshire, England, David emigrated to Canada in 2005 and settled in Northern Ontario with his patient and supportive wife, Hilary. Foot surgery in 2014 temporarily curtailed many of his favourite activities – hiking, camping, piloting his own personal starfighter (otherwise known as a Corvette ZR-1). But on the plus side, it meant a transition from the world of IT into life as a full-time writer—an opportunity he grasped enthusiastically. David is passionate about science, especially astronomy and physics, and is a rabid science news follower. Never short of an opinion, David writes about science and technology on his blog davidmkelly.net. He has supported various charity projects such as the Smithsonian’s Reboot The Suit and the Lowell Observatory Pluto Telescope Restoration. He also contributes to citizen science projects such as SETI@home.
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