Empire State (49 page)

There's definitely an alternate version of me somewhere in Manhattan, but he's always one step ahead. One day, we'll have our showdown. Maybe on top of the Empire State Building, rocket boots and powered armour and all.

  Adam Christopher in the Pocket universe is a mean sumbitch, of that I have no doubt. He's cold, calculating, a total misanthrope. But not necessarily a villain. If Carson owns half a block of the Upper East Side, perhaps my alter ego has a similar complex a little further uptown, in the Pocket Harlem, which holds another set of secrets and impossibilities all of its own…

 

The classic question: let's say EMPIRE STATE gets made into a television show or a film. Cast your leads…

 

This question makes me nervous because I immediately think of
Brown Betty
, the episode of
Fringe
set in the 1940s which is pretty much how I see
Empire State
in my own mind. I should say I didn't start watching
Fringe
until long after
Empire State
was done and dusted, but now it's about my favourite TV show. More parallel universes, see?

  Chi McBride is my Rad/Rex, although with slightly less knitwear and colourful shirts than in
Pushing Daisies
. Kane Fortuna was – I tell no lie – based on a ballroom dancer, but I'd be very happy with Leonardo DiCaprio or Timothy Olyphant. Throw in Cate Blanchett as Katherine Kopek, Michael Shannon from
Boardwalk Empire
as the Pastor/Commissioner/Crater, Seamus Dever (from
Castle
) as Grieves, Joseph Lyle Taylor (from
Justified
) as Jones, and Gillian Jacobs (from
Community)
as Sam/Lisa Saturn and I'd be pretty happy. Captain Carson/Nimrod for me really is the late, great TP McKenna, who was so good in British series like
The Avengers
and
Doctor Who,
but Richard Griffiths would do nicely. The enigmatic Byron just has to be Kevin Spacey. I'm sure he wouldn't mind being stuck inside a big helmet for the whole thing.

 

Chi McBride. Yes. Loved him all the way back in
The Frighteners
. Though I admittedly had Rad as a Ving Rhames-ian character, but these days Ving might be getting a little long in the tooth.

 

Oh, Ving Rhames! He'd be great! I think he could still play it, too. See, this is the danger when you ask this kind of question. I most definitely "cast" my characters when I write, and I'm sure most readers do the same. But the beauty of fiction is that what I saw in my head while writing is completely and totally different to what you saw when reading. Every single person picking the book up will have a different experience and will conjure their own images (and cast) in their minds. But, hey, that's how it works… and it sure is fun to compare notes. If any casting director is reading this *cough*…

 

So. The big question. The corker. Any chance of a sequel? Might there be other Pocket cities? Care to share what you feel might've happened to Rex and Kane there in the Fissure?

 

Empire State
has a definitive end, but that's not to say the story is over. Carson is now in charge and Rad appears to have come to terms with the rather small universe he inhabits, but how long will that last? Carson wants to explore the edges of his little world in his airship… will he be able to resist attempting a journey beyond the fog, to the lands of the Enemy? And what else is out there? Rex and Kane didn't appear back in New York, and they're not in the Empire State… so where are they? There's a story waiting to be told, I think!

  The Empire State is a reflection of New York created by a very specific, single event, so I don't think there are any more discrete pocket universes. However, the Empire State is an imperfect copy, a degraded, second-generation clone of the original. Beyond the Empire State is the lands of the Enemy, which is itself an even more damaged, degenerated reflection of the Empire State. And so on, and so forth – I think there are endless further reflections, each more broken and dangerous than the last, until finally you probably get nothing but realms of white noise as the signal from the Origin – New York – is finally worn out.

  But if the Enemy is out there, beyond the fog, what lies beyond the Enemy? And further, and further? How far does Carson want to take a look? And if Rex and Kane didn't make it back to either the Pocket or the Origin, did the unstable fissure throw them somewhere further away?

  And if the Pocket is a protrusion of sorts of our universe into another dimension, what was there before? Is there something outside the Pocket? Maybe something that resents the intrusion…

  I like the idea that the Enemy, while being this chaotic, discarnate force, itself a corrupted reflection of data from the Empire State, may develop some kind of intelligence of its own. Perhaps a distillation of the Chairman, the Pastor, the Skyguard, etc, further distorted, further
reduced
and compressed into something totally evil which leads to the birth of Enemy as a single, sentient figure. A Satanic supervillain in a Sauron-meets-Darth Vader sort of way. And what if the Enemy managed to escape and get out of the Pocket altogether, into New York?

  Huh. Ask me about that sequel again…

 

Thanks, Adam, for submitting to this interview! You will, ahem, notice that I've holstered the photon cannon.

 

Always a pleasure, Chuck! Now, if you could just untie my hands, there's a good fellow…

 

Chuck Wendig is the author of BLACKBIRDS (Angry Robot, May 2012) and its sequel MOCKINGBIRD, as well as the "vampire-in-zombieland" book, DOUBLE DEAD, from Abaddon. You can find his thoughts on the writing life, including interviews with other writers (and another interview with Adam Christopher!) at
terribleminds.com.

 

 

 

 
 

THE FOLLOWING PLAYLIST is a selection of tracks that were constant companions for me during the writing and editing of
Empire State.

 

1-2.
HANS ZIMMER
– We Built Our Own World/Dream is Collapsing
 

I suspect the
Inception
soundtrack is a popular choice for writers, as it goes so well with so many different genres. But if you need to ratchet the tension up, you can't go past the opening two tracks, which I'm going to cheat with and treat as a single piece of music.

 

The Cure are my favourite band and their contribution to 1996's
The Crow
soundtrack is perfect for
Empire State
. It's dark, and terribly atmospheric, and is all about standing around in the dark waiting for the world to end.

 

I had Ladytron's album
Gravity the Seducer
on almost constant loop while doing the copyedits. Like the Cure's track,
Mirage
fits perfectly, both musically and lyrically.

 

5.
PIXIES
– Crackity Jones
 

The first of three Pixies tracks. As with the Cure, I've been listening to these indie legends for more than 20 years now. One of Nimrod's agents takes his name from this song.

 

There's an element of chaos to
Empire State
, with the corruption of data from the Origin to the Pocket, not to mention what must be going through Rad's mind as he learns about the nature of his home and of himself.
Golden-Frost
represents that well, being loose, urgent, with lyrics you can't even understand.

 

My favourite track off the 1989
Batman
soundtrack – how could I resist? A song about crime and punishment and internal struggle.

 

The second Pixies track, from which you will recognise Agent Grieves.

 

9.
BRITISH SEA POWER
– No Lucifer
 

Ah, the beauty of misheard lyrics. Captain Carson does not appear in this song. A Carlton Corsair bicycle does. I'll get me coat.

 

10.
THE DANDY WARHOL
S
– Good Morning

Empire State
happens mostly at night, in the rain – the brief moments of daylight that do appear seem to be a blessed relief for poor Rad. If the book was to be made into a film, this track from the Dandy's 1997 album
Come Down
would play over Rad climbing the hill behind Carson's house to enjoy the early morning view.

 

11.
PIXIES
– Nimrod's Son
 

The last Pixies song – this one has explicit lyrics, so have a care, as Captain Carson would say. Or should that be Captain Nimrod?

 

The Pastor of Lost Souls may be a villain, driven to insanity by… well, I'll have to make sure you've read the book before I tell you the answer to that one! But that doesn't necessarily make him
evil
. There are a lot of people in the Empire State looking for answers… perhaps they just fell in with the wrong man in their search.

 

You can find links to the
Empire State
playlist on
Spotify
and
iTunes
at
adamchristopher.co.uk

 

 

 

 
 

EMPIRE STATE IS A story of private detectives, of superheroics, of fringe science, of Prohibition, of two worlds' fight for survival. Are you a fan writer, or fan artist? Do you write prose, poetry, songs, plays or comic books? Do you sculpt, paint, draw, whittle or build? Do you create? We're inviting you to delve into the world of Empire State and create your own works to expand the universe of the book.

  Welcome to
WorldBuilder.

 
 
THE WORLDS OF EMPIRE STATE

 

Empire State
features four separate, but connected, "realms": Prohibition-era New York around 1930; the Empire State, a twisted reflection of the same that exists within a pocket universe; New York circa 1950; and the lands beyond the fog, the domain of the Enemy.

 

The Great Depression has hit, and Prohibition still has another three years left to run. The world is pretty much as we know it, with all the gang warfare, corruption and bootlegging that existed in our own history. An age of pulp fiction, where private detectives creep the shadows in fedoras and trenchcoats. An age of jazz music and Art Deco.

  Except this New York is home to two superheroes, the Skyguard and the Science Pirate. Former independent – if officially sanctioned – protectors of New York, by the beginning of the new decade they had turned on each other, abandoning their duties as they fought their own personal battle.

  This is the end of the so-called "Golden Age" of superheroes, as the last two left slug it out in the skies over Manhattan. Back in the day there were many like them, working individually and in teams all over the United States. Some, like the Skyguard and Science Pirate, were powered by science and technology. Some had strange powers gifted to them by magic and the occult. Some were just born different. Some were friends… and some enemies.

 

The Empire State is a twisted, degraded copy of Manhattan, projected into a pocket dimension through a hole in our universe torn open during the final great showdown between the Skyguard and the Science Pirate. The Empire State corresponds geographically to the island of Manhattan, and is filled with the same buildings, chief of which is the Empire State Building. This is the Empire State's seat of government, where the Chairman and his City Commissioners rule the city from their boardroom on the 101st floor.