Boom follows a recently released from prison space Captain and a group of cadets with disabilities who must now save the Earth from all the different species looking to go to war. What was the inspiration for the setup...
David Fairchild Author InterviewBoom follows a recently released from prison space Captain and a group of cadets with disabilities who must now save the Earth from all the different species looking to go to war. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I have family with severe disabilities. I’ve grown up with people with disabilities. I’ve worked extensively with people with disabilities, raised money for organizations that serve people with disabilities. I’ve seen a lot of ignorant and hateful people on the matter. For instance, I worked at an amusement park, and my sister wanted to go on a ride. She waited her turn like everybody to get on and she took some special accommodation. There was this heartless (no other word for it) jerk in line who was raising a ruckus because he didn’t like that the ride operators and park staff were going out of their way to help my sister enjoy her visit just like everybody else. One of my supervisors had had enough and kicked the guy out of the line. When the guy got violent, he got kicked out of the park. I’ve seen a lot of people with so much hate towards people with disabilities simply because they need a little extra help. I knew this story needed one of those hateful people at the center of it, and I knew he needed to come from some sort of banishment, but I also needed him to be really good at what he did and pompous enough to know how good he was.
What was your inspiration for the characters’ interactions and backstories?
The people around me who have had disabilities. Although people without disabilities aren’t always aware of it, people who do have disabilities have goals and aspirations as well. Sometimes, I think that many who see disabilities from the outside see the people with them off in some sort of la-la land where everything is just rainbows and butterflies. People with mental disabilities want to reach success just like anyone else. They might not have logic that everyone can follow, but they have logic, and it makes sense when others take time to understand how self-realization might work for someone who doesn’t connect with other people as easily because of a disability. I wanted to show a hint of that drive to attain goals. We have a character who wants to prove herself, but anxiety gets in the way. We have a character who has been pawned off to a career in engineering because it kept her busy. She’s really good at it, but it’s not what she wants to do, and no one’s ever taken the time help her connect with what she wants to do. We have a man with unsteady hands who other pilots can’t keep up with. The book even presents characters with disabilities that never get revealed so we can even see what it’s like interacting with people who have never even been diagnosed for whatever reason they never saw that they had a disability.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Inclusion is by far the biggest one. I get really annoyed when I watch all these futuristic space travel movies and they act like having disabilities is something that needed to be cured. It really says something about how well we understand the spirit and resolve that people with disabilities can inspire within others. In these types of shows, we see disabilities used as a novelty gimmick to make someone seem more alien than human, and we see the disability ultimately serve a purpose of showing why a person shouldn’t be ashamed of who they are, but the person with a disability is always portrayed as someone who is well-spoken and the equivalent of having fifteen Ph.Ds. I’m not aware of any space adventure where the bridge includes a person with a developmental or mental disability. Today’s society is so outspoken about including others, that we get hung up on it being about skin color, religious beliefs, ideologies. Space travel has always approached inclusion and oppression from looking at other worlds and alien races, but it tends to exclude people with disabilities from their own race by making disabilities something that needed to be cured so it was prior to the start of whatever space adventure we’re embarking on.
Another theme is how people deal with imposter syndrome, and not just people with disabilities, but everyone. This is a story about an entire crew of people who aren’t supposed to be there, all the way from the highest command down, and everyone is just trying to step up without looking like they don’t belong.
One theme deals with pro-choice vs. pro-life. It’s not heavily discussed, but it’s there throughout the book.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
So, since releasing Boom in September, I’ve released a two-volume set of books aimed at helping university students navigate college life and study approaches better. I wrote it with Elyse Kunzler who was a former composition student of mine and we presented a student vs. teacher set of perspectives. Volume one, entitled Jello Freeways, explores 10 behaviors that students use to sabotage their own efforts. Volume two, entitled Steering Classes of Cliffs, discusses 10 ways that professors sabotage their students’ ability to succeed in the college setting. Each book presents one of the behaviors and it shows the behavior and consequences of the practice from both the professor’s view and also the student’s.
I’m also working on the next in the series for Boom as well as a religious-fantasy story that dives into the Book of Revelations from The Bible.
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Rumor has it that Earth has a god that can destroy entire galaxies and birth new ones if she ever finds her mate.Naturally, every species in the galaxy wants her.
Earth’s prime admiral pardons “Barbarian” Captain Vincenti Merrecci from prison to prepare a new ship and crew for imminent war.
When The Divide attacks before his ship is ready, Merrecci finds help from the only people he managed to save during the attack: The cadets from the program for students with disabilities—the very people he argues should not be allowed in the academy.