Ask the Author: Thomas P. Hopp
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Thomas P. Hopp
People sometimes get fired for arguing with their bosses. But to get fired after you made your bosses rich with patented scientific discoveries on which they staked their fortunes? That's hard. Especially after you won those patents with work done after they specifically ordered you to stop the project? There's an irony in there somewhere.
So then you find yourself in an unemployment line while your bosses are written up in Forbes Magazine as biotechnology tycoon geniuses. All the while, they're gabbing about the discoveries you made for them. Now, some folks might go nuts and get a gun vowing revenge. How's that for a mystery plot motive?
In fact, I did just that. No, not the gun. The plot. I wrote my old bosses into a couple of my books, and I gotta say the results were quite satisfying. In my Peyton McKean medical thrillers, I described a greedy, overbearing boss who hinders the hard-working scientist hero, Dr. McKean, then claims credit for his successes. But this is fiction, so McKean gets his revenge. In The Smallpox Incident, his boss is exposed for the sham that he is. And in The Neah Virus, the boss gets taken down by the very microbe McKean is fighting. Fun!
My scientific career never fully recovered from the damage done by my bosses, though it goes on more modestly in consulting work. Meanwhile, every time I write about an evil boss enduring a comeuppance of the kind that rarely happens in real life, my writing gets a spark of delight that I hope my readers can share.
So then you find yourself in an unemployment line while your bosses are written up in Forbes Magazine as biotechnology tycoon geniuses. All the while, they're gabbing about the discoveries you made for them. Now, some folks might go nuts and get a gun vowing revenge. How's that for a mystery plot motive?
In fact, I did just that. No, not the gun. The plot. I wrote my old bosses into a couple of my books, and I gotta say the results were quite satisfying. In my Peyton McKean medical thrillers, I described a greedy, overbearing boss who hinders the hard-working scientist hero, Dr. McKean, then claims credit for his successes. But this is fiction, so McKean gets his revenge. In The Smallpox Incident, his boss is exposed for the sham that he is. And in The Neah Virus, the boss gets taken down by the very microbe McKean is fighting. Fun!
My scientific career never fully recovered from the damage done by my bosses, though it goes on more modestly in consulting work. Meanwhile, every time I write about an evil boss enduring a comeuppance of the kind that rarely happens in real life, my writing gets a spark of delight that I hope my readers can share.
Thomas P. Hopp
The inspiration for my latest title, Dinosaur Tales https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... was the notion of combining an exciting adventure story with one or another of the types of dinosaurs many readers would like to know more about. The result is a book with five action-packed episodes in which Kit Daniels and Chase Armstrong encounter intriguing beasts of the past. No dry textbook descriptions here--the humans are too busy keeping themselves safe and in one piece for that!
Thomas P. Hopp
The Jihad Virus arose out of my background in medicine and virology, combined with the ever-present threat of terrorism. It's a classic what-if. What if terrorists unleashed a deadly virus within the U.S.? How would we deal with the crisis? Could we respond in time to avert a major epidemic?
In answering these questions in the story, I drew on my actual experience as a scientist. Having worked in laboratories where vaccines are created, I know the details of how the Centers For Disease Control would react, and I also have some ideas about how scientists could create new and better ways of neutralizing viral threats. These details are woven into a story that maintains its tension by closely following the heroes as they struggle to overcome the virus--and to survive being infected themselves!
Add an oil billionaire gone bad, and some light romance, and I have crafted a story that I hope will engage readers on multiple levels and keep them reading through the thick of the adventure.
In answering these questions in the story, I drew on my actual experience as a scientist. Having worked in laboratories where vaccines are created, I know the details of how the Centers For Disease Control would react, and I also have some ideas about how scientists could create new and better ways of neutralizing viral threats. These details are woven into a story that maintains its tension by closely following the heroes as they struggle to overcome the virus--and to survive being infected themselves!
Add an oil billionaire gone bad, and some light romance, and I have crafted a story that I hope will engage readers on multiple levels and keep them reading through the thick of the adventure.
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