Dana
asked
Adam Bender:
The way I found your book was googling "unknown dystopian fiction book" for my research paper. I couldn't put your books down because they were so good. I hope there is a movie in the works. Why is your book relevant in modern times with the current political climate of today? What messages are you trying to convey through Seven about your own beliefs on how society should change?
Adam Bender
Great to hear you found my novels and enjoyed them! I've written a screenplay based on We, The Watched, but no movie in the works yet...
Those are good questions. I was inspired to write these novels by that helplessness one can feel when reading about all the ways a government can track its people. On one hand, some of the surveillance happening seems so invasive of personal privacy. But it's difficult to fight against that when the government says these are tools to protect the country and keep people safe. I wrote We, The Watched in the decade following 9/11, when there was a lot of debate about how much power do we give the government in the name of protecting us.
A similar conflict is growing now with big businesses like Google and Facebook. I'm an Android guy and love the innovation and convenience of these technologies, but the truth is that these companies track what websites we visit so that they can sell us targeted ads. Trying to figure out how much to let the government or businesses know about us can be a tricky question, and it's easy to just brush it all aside.
With Seven, I liked the idea of a character who could come into all this with fresh eyes and immediately go, "Hey, this is obviously wrong." But of course, he's just one guy against a country that's mostly either on board with the surveillance or frightened to do anything about it. He has to figure out what he can realistically do to help, and if it's even worth it.
One idea I wanted to convey, especially in Divided We Fall, is that people from different sides are going to need to come together if society is going to change. I think that's especially relevant in today's divided times. It can feel good to tear apart the other side and call them names on Twitter, but exacerbating the division just makes us weaker as a whole and more vulnerable to outside forces. Without open communication, there will never be change.
Those are good questions. I was inspired to write these novels by that helplessness one can feel when reading about all the ways a government can track its people. On one hand, some of the surveillance happening seems so invasive of personal privacy. But it's difficult to fight against that when the government says these are tools to protect the country and keep people safe. I wrote We, The Watched in the decade following 9/11, when there was a lot of debate about how much power do we give the government in the name of protecting us.
A similar conflict is growing now with big businesses like Google and Facebook. I'm an Android guy and love the innovation and convenience of these technologies, but the truth is that these companies track what websites we visit so that they can sell us targeted ads. Trying to figure out how much to let the government or businesses know about us can be a tricky question, and it's easy to just brush it all aside.
With Seven, I liked the idea of a character who could come into all this with fresh eyes and immediately go, "Hey, this is obviously wrong." But of course, he's just one guy against a country that's mostly either on board with the surveillance or frightened to do anything about it. He has to figure out what he can realistically do to help, and if it's even worth it.
One idea I wanted to convey, especially in Divided We Fall, is that people from different sides are going to need to come together if society is going to change. I think that's especially relevant in today's divided times. It can feel good to tear apart the other side and call them names on Twitter, but exacerbating the division just makes us weaker as a whole and more vulnerable to outside forces. Without open communication, there will never be change.
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