Ask the Author: Jeremiah Strickland
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Jeremiah Strickland
Ship Of Theseus began its life as “Tales Of The Birdman, “ my first novel, which was published serially on a now defunct pop culture website. After Birdmant was complete, my editor and I began world building for “Tales Of The Skyrat,” a superhero book that was also intended to be published serially, and featured Wayne Bird, the protagonist of Birdman, as an elderly mentor to the superhero called Skyrat.
Flash forward nearly twenty years, with hundreds of pages drafted, and there’s nothing close to a complete book. Then the pandemic struck, and I took advantage of my layoff to create an expansive board game with role playing elements based on Skyrat’s world, called “Gangs Of Green City.” It was a huge undertaking, requiring hundreds of drawings and info-blurbs about the titular city and the heroes and villains that populate it. This work reignited my flame for the Skyrat book, and I essentially wrote “Gangs Of Green City,” which would become Part II of SOT, without using the previously written pages. The end result was inevitably influenced by my pandemic experience.
Finally, after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police, I rewrote Skyrat as an African American teenager, believing that our world didn’t need another white savior/superhero. I also rewrote three chapters of “Tales Of The Birdman” to preface Wayne’s Green City adventures, and attached the trilogy of chapters to the beginning of the book as Part I, which added new layers of depth, complexity, and mystery. Altogether, Ship Of Theseus was Nearly 40 years in the making, and I’m so very pleased that Skyrat finally lives outside of my imagination!
Flash forward nearly twenty years, with hundreds of pages drafted, and there’s nothing close to a complete book. Then the pandemic struck, and I took advantage of my layoff to create an expansive board game with role playing elements based on Skyrat’s world, called “Gangs Of Green City.” It was a huge undertaking, requiring hundreds of drawings and info-blurbs about the titular city and the heroes and villains that populate it. This work reignited my flame for the Skyrat book, and I essentially wrote “Gangs Of Green City,” which would become Part II of SOT, without using the previously written pages. The end result was inevitably influenced by my pandemic experience.
Finally, after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police, I rewrote Skyrat as an African American teenager, believing that our world didn’t need another white savior/superhero. I also rewrote three chapters of “Tales Of The Birdman” to preface Wayne’s Green City adventures, and attached the trilogy of chapters to the beginning of the book as Part I, which added new layers of depth, complexity, and mystery. Altogether, Ship Of Theseus was Nearly 40 years in the making, and I’m so very pleased that Skyrat finally lives outside of my imagination!
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