And if you go back in time, you can see what people could do with just a lot of free time and their thoughts. So, I have a lot of respect for human curiosity. And this was just proven recently by researchers who sailed around the world on a traditionally built craft using just the wayfinding techniques. They were expert navigators and expert sailors. The idea that they floated downstream and they settled islands because they got lost is so ridiculous. I named my boat Wayfinder because I have a lot of respect for the Polynesian explorers who settled all the Pacific islands with very primitive technology, but very advanced wisdom and technique. One of the things that's so enthralling in Silo is what technologies you include, some we have and some more advanced, and what technologies you don’t allow your characters to have. I'm interested in your other life as a sailor, relying on tradition, even ancient systems of navigation. You're an English major.” And I switched my major. And eventually, he said, “You're not a physics major. I was like, “I want to impress this guy.” I took every class that he taught. You're not going to get an A on any paper unless I put your paper down and I walk to my window and shed a tear.” And he was dead serious. He was a very difficult teacher, and he told everyone on the first day, “If you're here to get an A, you should go ahead and leave. Dennis Goldsberry, and he changed my life. I went to college in Charleston, South Carolina, to study physics, and in my first English class, I had professor Dr. And later, I was able to turn some of those experiences into two novels.ĭid you have a teacher who particularly inspired you? And I just went from being a bookworm to traveling and sailing around a lot, and having a lot of life experiences. But I fell in love with Ender's Game when I was really young, and when I found out Orson Scott Card was from North Carolina, I was like, “Wow, maybe this is something I could do.” I was 12 years old, dreaming about this. I didn't think I could be a writer because I thought it required some special seal of approval. I grew up in the woods, exploring creeks with my dog, and I read voraciously. That sounds very quaint, but that's all I've known. My dad was a small grain farmer, so he had hundreds of acres of land that we farmed. I have a hard time being objective about it. Man, I probably need my sister, my mom here to answer what I was like. Where did you grow up? What were you like as a kid? That's what makes Allison and George and Juliet and Holston eventually become troublemakers to the people in charge and heroes to everyone else. That's the heart of the heroes of this story. And there's really nothing you can do to stop people from wanting to know what you don't want them to know. Two of the defining characteristics of humans that separate us from other animals are a sense of humor and curiosity. And I don't think you can get away with that. The characters are a response to an attempt to change their humanity or ignore it. The stairs are a reminder that what we are is immutable. And the people behind the silo, whoever they are, as that mystery unfolds, they think that they can understand and control humans. It literally is central, but it's something that the book really depends on, and the show as an extension depends on getting that right, having the space around the stairs, and having the stairs be big enough for events to take place on it. But the stairwell is such a, I hate to say, central feature of the story. If you get that DNA, then you can fudge a lot of other things. You’ve got to make sure you nail casting and their motivations are true to the source material. When you sat down to talk about how this series should look, was there some particular detail that was very important to you that they get right? But it's certainly true that this story is coming out at a great time for us to talk about truth and trust and believing what we see on screens. So, these issues are universal, and they, unfortunately, will probably always be relevant. I grew up in the Cold War, and my dad was a staunch Republican. You can't just tell them the next day, and they're going to change their minds.” I remember reading George Orwell in 1984 and thinking, “That's so silly people are going to remember who their enemies are. But I think a lot of these things, they've been written about for a long time. When you're a dystopian writer, you hope that the near future will look back and say, “That was quaint.” So, it's definitely not my hope. You know, it's wild it's so much more relevant than when I wrote it. Did you know how vitally relevant the issues of this series would be to the headlines we see every day about what we allow people to know and what we want to keep away from them?
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