INTERVIEW - David Louis Edelman

David Louis Edelman is a happy man. Not only he has written two novels that are getting rave reviews everywhere (Infoquake and Multireal, the first two parts of the Jump 225 Trilogy), both he recently has become father to twins, the gorgeous Abigail Blakeway Edelman and Benjamin Blakeway Edelman. Just before the twins were born, we sent him a few questions on his novels, literary influences, and future projects. Enjoy.

PWT - Peter Watts called Infoquake "a successful hybrid of Neuromancer and Wall Street". Do you agree? What is the real influence of the cyberpunks in your work?

David Louis Edelman - The cyberpunks in general (and William Gibson in particular) have been great influences on me in the writing of Infoquake and MultiReal. If you're going to write a novel about the intersection between humans, software, and business, you can't help but think about Gibson, Sterling, Stephenson, Rucker, etc. Kind of like if you're going to write a novel about heroic quests, you can't help but think about Tolkien. But I'd like to think I'm approaching things from a different and less cynical angle. As for Wall Street, I actually never even saw the movie until a few years ago. I do enjoy Oliver Stone's films, but I have to admit that Wall Street seems a bit dated.

PWT - What is approximately the time period between today and YOR in Infoquake?

DLE - I never specifically mention the year when the books take place. All I divulge is that it's been at least three hundred and fifty years since the current epoch of history began. Part of that is just your typical science fiction hocus-pocus to make things seem less implausible. (If you leave the specific timeframe vague, then there's plenty of room for fudging it.) But behind the scenes, I did pick a specific year, and I've been very careful to make sure the dates fall on the right day of the week. I won't say exactly what year that is, but I will say that it's a little shy of a millennium in the future.

PWT - The glossary and the appendixes are a very nice, considerate touch to improve the experience of the readers, and they reminded me of another novel who seems to share some of the characteristics of Infoquake: Dune. Would you agree with that? Do you like Frank Herbert´s Dune universe, and did it influence you in any way?

DLE - I am a huge fan of the Dune books. (Frank Herbert's Dune books, that is. I think the Brian Herbert/Kevin Anderson books leave something to be desired, to say the least.) Herbert was combining so many different ideas in those books -- Arab nationalism, sustainable ecology, the Campbellian mythological hero, feudalism in space -- that it's amazing they hang together at all. But they do. The sheer weirdness of Herbert's vision of the deep future goes pretty far beyond anything else I've ever read. Herbert has definitely inspired me to aim high, and not to compromise my vision for some misplaced concept of commercial success.

PWT - Speaking of books, what are your top five all-time favorite novels (they may be SF or not)?

DLE - Top five all-time favorite novels, in no particular order: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien; Giles Goat-Boy by John Barth; Neuromancer by William Gibson; and perhaps The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. Although ask me tomorrow and I might give you an entirely different five.

PWT - What made of you a writer in the first place? What (or who) did influence you?
DLE - I've always wanted to be a writer, ever since I was a kid. I'd have to say that my earliest influence was Stan Lee and the Marvel comics universe. I went from there into the classics of science fiction and fantasy -- Tolkien, Herbert, Le Guin, Asimov, Heinlein, etc. In my teenage years, I discovered Kurt Vonnegut. I moved on to a postmodern phase in college where I idolized writers like John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, Paul Auster and Philip Roth. Then in my late twenties I went (almost) full circle back to science fiction and fantasy; my favorite authors from this period are probably William Gibson and Neal Stephenson.

PWT - What can we expect of Geosynchron, the next novel of the Infoquake series? (BTW, it will really be a trilogy or there will be other stories in that universe?)
DLE - Geosynchron will definitely be the last novel of the trilogy. (I'm not precluding the possibility of writing additional novels in this universe down the road, but this particular story will come to an end at the conclusion of book 3.) As for what's in store in the final book... You're going to see the characters go off to places we haven't been before, like the Pacific Islands and the orbital colony of 49th Heaven. You're going to meet some of the Pharisees. You're going to see a lot more of Quell and delve into his relationship with Margaret Surina. And you're going to see a big ending that involves military strikes, philosophical debate, and (of course) creative marketing techniques. I think I can promise that it's going to be a very, very unique conclusion. Currently the schedule is for the book to hit the stores in early 2010.

PWT - What are your next projects?
DLE - I haven't decided what I'm doing after Geosynchron is done. I've been toying around with a dark fantasy novel, though I really don't have anything more than a fabulous idea and a few chapters at this point. There are a few other non-SF projects that I've had sitting on the back burner for over a decade at this point. One's a contemporary novel set in Washington, D.C. and Southern California, and the other's set in imperial Rome. We'll have to see how things play out.