Khira
asked
Bill DeSmedt:
Hi Bill, I'm reading 'Singularity' at the moment (and loving it). I was wondering what inspired the novel? I know you've mentioned living in Russia for some time. Did you ever get to see the site of the Tunguska event?
Bill DeSmedt
Hi, Khira -- Glad you're enjoying Singularity. And thanks for the questions!
Sadly, my academic-exchange sojourn in the USSR was spent exclusively in Moscow, some five time zones to the west of the Stony Tunguska River basin, and travel was pretty restricted back in the Brezhnev era. All of which is a longwinded way of saying no, I never got there. Also, at the time, I would've had no compelling reason to go, since the seed that years later would grow into Singularity had yet to germinate.
As to how that happened, thereby hangs a tale, one that was first told in the "Further Reading" afterword to the original Per Aspera edition.
Since that section is missing from the WordFire Press reissue, though, I’ll reproduce the salient portion below:
* * *
It was years back, a rainy Saturday afternoon in mid-summer. I was sitting around watching a rerun of Cosmos, Episode IV: “Heaven and Hell” — the episode that deals with meteor and cometary impacts.
So, about midway through, Carl gets around to the Tunguska Event. And from there to the Jackson-Ryan hypothesis: that the Event was a collision between the earth and an atom-sized black hole. And then he’s refuting J&R, citing the standard missing exit-event objection — namely, that the black hole should have cut through the earth like a knife through morning mist, and come exploding up out of the North Atlantic about an hour later, wreaking all manner of havoc. Never happened. QED. And, next thing you know Carl’s gone on to Meteor Crater in Arizona or some such.
Meanwhile, I’m sitting there, staring at the TV. “But, Carl,” I say slowly, “What if the damn thing never came out?”
Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then. The idea wouldn’t leave me in peace. It kept rattling around in my hind-brain, gradually accreting mass as more and more pieces from my personal history fell into place: my background in Sovietology, my career as a consultant, just enough physics to glimpse what the KGB might want to do with a captive black hole... Over the next couple years, that one minuscule germ of an idea metastasized into a plotline.
Finally, on an equally rainy Saturday over a lost Memorial Day weekend, I sat down at the word processor, and Singularity began to write itself!
Sadly, my academic-exchange sojourn in the USSR was spent exclusively in Moscow, some five time zones to the west of the Stony Tunguska River basin, and travel was pretty restricted back in the Brezhnev era. All of which is a longwinded way of saying no, I never got there. Also, at the time, I would've had no compelling reason to go, since the seed that years later would grow into Singularity had yet to germinate.
As to how that happened, thereby hangs a tale, one that was first told in the "Further Reading" afterword to the original Per Aspera edition.
Since that section is missing from the WordFire Press reissue, though, I’ll reproduce the salient portion below:
* * *
It was years back, a rainy Saturday afternoon in mid-summer. I was sitting around watching a rerun of Cosmos, Episode IV: “Heaven and Hell” — the episode that deals with meteor and cometary impacts.
So, about midway through, Carl gets around to the Tunguska Event. And from there to the Jackson-Ryan hypothesis: that the Event was a collision between the earth and an atom-sized black hole. And then he’s refuting J&R, citing the standard missing exit-event objection — namely, that the black hole should have cut through the earth like a knife through morning mist, and come exploding up out of the North Atlantic about an hour later, wreaking all manner of havoc. Never happened. QED. And, next thing you know Carl’s gone on to Meteor Crater in Arizona or some such.
Meanwhile, I’m sitting there, staring at the TV. “But, Carl,” I say slowly, “What if the damn thing never came out?”
Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then. The idea wouldn’t leave me in peace. It kept rattling around in my hind-brain, gradually accreting mass as more and more pieces from my personal history fell into place: my background in Sovietology, my career as a consultant, just enough physics to glimpse what the KGB might want to do with a captive black hole... Over the next couple years, that one minuscule germ of an idea metastasized into a plotline.
Finally, on an equally rainy Saturday over a lost Memorial Day weekend, I sat down at the word processor, and Singularity began to write itself!
More Answered Questions
da AL
asked
Bill DeSmedt:
I much appreciate your terrific writing as well as your generosity to fellow creatives -- would you please guest blog post for my site? if you’re so inclined, here’s a link to general guidelines: https://wp.me/p6OZAy-1eQ - wishing you the best with all your endeavors - da-AL
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Oct 08, 2021 05:38PM · flag