John McNally
About Author
John McNally found himself in a series of dead-end jobs until, ten years ago, he found himself in screen writing and has since worked with Aardman, Sony and the BBC. INFINITY DRAKE is his first novel and was written for his children (who, of course, knew nothing about it). Once it sold to a publisher he finally showed it to his kids. Luckily, they liked it, and now millions of others will too....
Interview
INFINITY DRAKE: THE FORBIDDEN CITY
HARPERCOLLINS CHILDREN'S BOOKS
JUNE 2015
The Forbidden City is the second book in the Infinity Drake series and, like the first, has an edge-of-the-seat storyline in which our 9mm hero, Infinity (Finn for short), is once again up against the Bond-esque villain Kaparis.
In this story, Finn has just days to help prevent power-hungry Kaparis from taking control of global communications by setting loose a swarm of self-generating nano-bots.
The plot takes Finn into the beating heart of global technologies - the fictional high tech 'Forbidden City' in Hong Kong - where he battles mosquitoes and cockroaches although his greatest challenges are posed by the thousands of nano-bots that are also out to get him!
We asked author John McNally to tell us more about Infinity Drake: The Forbidden City.
Q: When did you decide to shrink your hero to 9mm?
A: I only got the idea when my son, who was six at the time, was flying this toy plane while we were on a walk and he was whizzing it down rabbit holes and shooting down butterflies and I just thought, wow, what if you could actually do that for real?
That was the moment when I had the idea for creating a hero who was only 9mm tall. At that height, everything is dangerous so for writers, it's a dramatic given that the next thing around the corner could kill you. In Sons of Scarlatti, he was the perfect height for battling insects and bugs.
Q: In book two, The Forbidden City, you move on from insects to technology. Why did you decide this was a good setting for your next adventure?
A: In the first book, Finn's confrontation with insects was all based on fact but in this story I wanted to explore the science of nano technology. I wanted to work with science that is 'nearly now', so my starting point was the kinds of science that they are working with today, and to take it a little into the future.
Apart from the 'shrinking machine', all the other things I mention in the book are possible. Graphene, for example, was only discovered five years ago and in theory you can make a cushion or a computer from the substance. It's more than two steps away, but the technology is heading there.
I thought that with Kaparis and the shrinking machine, I could just kickstart the revolution and see where nano technology could take us!
Q: Where did you go to update yourself on the science you use in the story?
A: My research was mainly online but nano technology is such a vast subject, and there are so many people working on it, that it takes time to explore it all. It's a fascinating area and I went into far more detail in my research than I needed for the book.
I don't have a science background, I just came to the subject as someone who was interested in finding out what was just around the corner.
Q: What sparked your own interest in science?
A: I discovered a love of science quite late in life and thanks to my children, because they were watching things like the Brian Cox programmes and it seemed like such an interesting way to explore the subject, opening up the magic of physics.
For me, when I discovered physics and science, it was like discovering a different kind of music or food and I think it will be a lifelong interest for me.
I realised that, when you look back at the history of science, a lot of the big break throughs were made by outsiders, men and women who weren't part of an institution. Even today, if you're working on a very complex idea, you just need a computer to model it for you and you can check out your theory mathematically.
These self-starters in the scientific world provided the inspiration for Kaparis, the mad scientist in Infinity Drake.
Q: What do you feel is the best way to get young people interested in science?
A: I think it's about the 'how to'. If you open up a hoover and show them how it works, it's far more interesting than just hearing about how it works. There is so much technology in our lives that we don't understand but it is not mysterious stuff.
I also like the sense that the barriers to science are coming down. The sense that boys are meant to be interested in scientific ideas rather than girls is fading as we use more technology and science is taught better in schools.
Q: The Infinity Drake stories are full of adventure and action, a bit like a computer game. Were you thinking of that medium as you wrote the book?
A: As I wrote the story, I was constantly thinking, what if this was in a computer game, what might happen next? So the story was planned and written to have an escalating threat and to have lots of different environments that the main character has to move through. So yes, I did use a gaming element to vary the themes of the books.
Q: A lot of the action in your latest Infinity Drake book is set in a fictional 'Forbidden City' in Hong Kong, which is a high tech centre. What gave you the idea for that?
A: It stemmed from the time my laptop froze. All my work was in there and of course I hadn't backed it up for ages so it was a disaster for me, but everyone else just carried on working without any problem.
Then the idea struck me, what if I could switch off every computer in the world at the same time? I wondered where I'd go to do that and since every gadget in my house is made in China and they are so specialised and advanced in technology production, I thought it would make sense to go there. I decided to create this exciting, top secret place in the centre of Hong Kong's technological area, and that it would be a city that looks a bit like the inside of a computer.
Q: Can you tell us a bit more about the quantum computer you create for the story, and where a 'thinking' computer might take us?
A: Well, no one really knows where a quantum computer could take us. At the moment, computers can think about one thing, very quickly. A quantum computer can think of many things, many times and make different choices of answers depending on the values given. Theoretically, they will be able to test out their answers and develop a form of intelligence from their experiences. But it's all still to play for and no one really knows where the technology is going.
That's where I got the idea for a computer that develops its own personality in the story. Through that, the stakes double for Kaparis as well as the good guys, because no one knows what the computer will do next.
Q: Kaparis is great, a very Bond-esque villain. What made you decide to make him disabled and so dependent on others to carry out his plans?
A: You will find out in the third book why he had his accident, but it comes down to vanity. He caused his own disability through an accident he had. He has a view of himself as a super-human being but his choices led him to being trapped, both physically and metaphorically.
Q: Finn's grandmother seems to terrify or annoy everyone around her. How did she develop?
A: I do have a mother in law who is very 'Grandma' like, and she was lots of fun to write. When I first had the idea for her I was worried it might be a bit unlikely but as I wrote the scenes with her, she worked really well.
Q: Are there any gadgets from the book that you'd like to come out of the pages of the story and into reality?
A: Yes, the raft that Stubbs makes out of bits and pieces. I would love to have one of those, it's almost like a magic flying carpet. I also love the way Stubbs can knock together anything from bits and pieces and I really enjoyed writing the scene where they fly through the super-computer. A lot of the technology he uses on the raft is based on real technology, so perhaps I could build it myself....
Q: Is there one gadget in your life (not your mobile 'phone!) that you couldn't live without?
A: I have a bike computer that tells me how far I've cycled and I love it, it keeps me cycling. I cycle 3.14 miles a day to the London Library in St James', where I go to write. It's used by a lot of writers every day.
Q: What next for Infinity Drake?
A: I want Infinity Drake to be a series of ten books but we are starting with three titles and in the third book, which I'm writing now, lots of threads will be tied up - and new paths opened. The third book starts with an avalanche and a fight with a bear! It is set in Kaparis' seminary, his training centre, which is in a monastery in the mountains. It's very anti-Hogwarts!
INFINITY DRAKE: THE SONS OF SCARLATTI
HARPERCOLLINS CHILDREN'S BOOKS
MARCH 2014
John McNally's debut story for children aged eight to 12 years pits heroes who are just millimetres high against deadly wasps, teenaged thugs and an assortment of hungry bugs. The adventure begins when Infinity Drake is accidentally shrunk by his scientist uncle and finds himself part of a tiny crew sent to destroy the Scarlatti wasp, whose progeny could destroy mankind. The team is up against an evil megalomaniac, a platoon of thugs he has generated, and time - they have just 24 hours to complete their mission or risk a nuclear attack. The clock is ticking....
John McNally began working as a screen writer ten years ago, but has found his latest job - writing his first novel, Infinity Drake - hugely more rewarding. Yet both his work as a screenwriter and a novelist have come as a surprise to him, given his record during his school days.
McNally says, "I was rubbish at English at school, I found it difficult writing and had terrible handwriting, I never even got my GCSE in English, but when I saw how a script works, that it is just a lot of talking, I found I could do that."
Although he has worked as a screen writer for a number of years, writing what he calls "proper prose" still seemed beyond him even when his agent suggested he should give it a try. It wasn't until the idea for Infinity Drake came along that he decided to see if he could do it.
He explains, "We were on a walk with my youngest son who had a tiny model helicopter. He was flying it through the grass and shooting dandelions and I thought wow, imagine being in that helicopter! That's when the whole idea came out and it's so rare for that to happen. I sat on the idea for a while but eventually started putting it together and I kept going.
"For me to be a writer, I had to find a style that was quite direct and not about people revealing their innermost thoughts or flowery language." It took a "year or two" to complete the story as he was doing other screenwriting projects while writing this book. He also realised he wouldn't be able to tell the whole story in a single book and that the story leant itself to serialization - so there will be several more adventures about Infinity Drake to follow.
There is much he has enjoyed about writing a novel compared to a screen play. "When you're writing a novel, you can write from the heart and you can feel your way through the plot. When you're writing a screen play, you sell it from a one-line idea so you don't have the luxury of that kind of development process. In screen writing, you're always working with other people but with a book, you're on your own. You're the actor, producer, director; you're everything, rather than simply a cog in the process."
While the screen plays he has written are character-driven, slower-paced and comedic, Infinity Drake is a very different concept, very fast-paced with constant cliff-hangers and a focus on action rather than character - although there is also plenty of humour, driven largely by the relationship between Finn's Uncle Al and his gran. The story is told from multiple perspectives which also helps keep up the pace of the action.
McNally believes his work is influenced by the adventure stories he read as a child; although he had problems writing, he never found reading difficult and he read huge amounts as a child including favourites such as The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier and Rogue Male by Jeffry Household, as well as the Flashman books by George MacDonald Fraser.
Together with an elite crack team, Finn has to find and kill the Scarlatti 'beast' - an enhanced, deadly wasp with killer instincts. McNally says, "The creature was always going to be a wasp, it's what would freak out my own children the most so they were the inspiration for that. There's nothing quite like a picnic ruined by a wasp; you do wonder, what are they for?"
McNally drew on his inspiration for the Scarlatti from reality. "The idea of bio development isn't new. At Porton Down, they were developing things like pox-carrying insects, while the Japanese dropped infected flies onto populations during the Sino-Japanese war and killed half a million people. These are 'six-legged soldiers' created by humans, although the Biological Weapons Agreement means they should no longer exist."
Adding to Infinity Drake's appeal to readers are the scientific concepts he explores in the story, which even touch on sub-atomic physics. In the story, Infinity's uncle Al builds a 'shrinking machine'. "I made sure that all the atomic ideas in the book, the information about the space between the atoms which is how the uncle shrinks things, is all theoretically possible," McNally comments. "What children have now are all these programmes showing the magic of reality - people like Brian Cox and Richard Dawking have popularised science. We didn't have that kind of access to popular science until recently and thanks to it, my 11 year old has a grasp of sub-atomic physics."
As well as researching the scientific ideas he would use in the book, McNally has been studying insects indepth as his small heroes encounter a range of bugs during their adventures and have to decide whether they are friend or foe. He says, "Together with my children we built a lamp trap, like Finn does in the book, and caught a load of bugs and it made me realize how many insects are out there during the summer. I feel I have learned so much through writing this book!"
The advantage in having very small characters is that it takes the familiar into a completely new world that is threatening and dangerous "house, field and garden become this magical new world", says McNally, without him having to invent it all. On the downside, he adds, "The characters are so completely vulnerable and it becomes so easy to kill these people." That presented a number of problems and while the characters largely get themselves out of trouble, McNally says, "You always have to remember that the audience will be ahead of you, they will be thinking 'come on that's impossible' if you do something that isn't grounded in reality, so I tried to think three or four steps ahead of those questions."
Much of the plot is driven by the behind-the-scenes evil scientist, Kaparis, who has his own plans that are not revealed by the end of the story; that will have to wait for the sequels. McNally says, "It was terrific fun to write about the Kaparis. He stems from some of the 'classical snobs' I've come across through listening to classical music, which I discovered in my thirties. From that snobbishness I build the whole character and his ranting about wine and music." Through his 'Tyro' programme, Kaparis creates new 'bad guys', "so I get a new set of baddies for each book".
Kaparis plans continue to unfold in the next book, which moves on to ideas around nano technology - again drawn from what we know about it today - and a hardware virus that becomes a threat to computers, taking us into a 'battle of the micro bots', says McNally.
Meanwhile Infinity Drake will be released to film studios in the coming weeks - so we'll wait to find out who will be writing the film script!
