Tag: Kill Zone

By Doug Beason

opens in a new windowAs a physicist, I’ve written far more non-fiction than novels and short stories. They’ve ranged from over 70 scientific and technical articles published in cutting-edge physics journals such as Physical Review Letters and Physics of Fluids to opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal. I started writing fiction when I was finishing my Ph.D. as a way to relax and have a creative outlet.

My background as a scientist and military officer led me to science fiction, military fiction, and science-based thrillers. It was a natural fit based on my experience forecasting futuristic scenarios and technologies, as well as my work at national laboratories, military organizations, and as White House staff.

I found I enjoyed working with a collaborator, and when Kevin J. Anderson and I first started writing, we tackled some pretty far-out, but scientifically realistic science fiction. Eventually we gravitated to thrillers, and we continued to make the novels as realistic as possible without wallowing in technical details.

I’ve found most scientists and virtually all physicists are creative, as advances in the field require looking at problems from a new perspective, and coming up with different ways to solve them. That’s how breakthroughs are accomplished; in fact, when I taught physics at the USAF Academy, I told my students as long as I could follow their logic in solving a problem, I didn’t care if they used a “textbook procedure” or not!

But the problem with that approach is that…details matter. And in fiction, too many details can bog down the story.

As a scientist, I have a tendency to delve into technical detail and describe too much, like the old westerns that spent more time talking about the horse rather than focusing on the plot. There’s a saying that if you ask a physicist what time it is, she’ll give a lecture on how to build an atomic clock. So for me, coming up with a plot, building interesting characters, making plausible scenarios and nailing down motivation is easy; I just have to watch myself when writing that I don’t spend too much time looking at the trees when I’m passing through the forest.

Although I was a physics-mathematics double major when I attended the USAF Academy, in addition to mandatory science and engineering courses, every graduate had to take 2 to 4 semesters each of Behavioral Science, English, Economics, Foreign Language, History, Law, Philosophy, Political Science, Military Studies and Officership/Leadership. So appreciating the liberal arts was not a foreign concept to me, and though I hadn’t been classically trained in writing fiction, the leap from writing about new concepts in physics to penning stories and novels was, and is, not as great as it seems.

Writing Kill Zone with Kevin J. Anderson allowed us to add his immense experience of creating alien worlds, fantastic characters and epic high fantasy to a realistic, civilization-threatening scenario. And as a result, Kill Zone’s fast-paced plot is not only full of unexpected twists and turns, but is truly based on one of the largest safety and security problems the world may be facing. 

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By Kevin J. Anderson

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When you get right down to it, every story is a thriller—otherwise who would want to read it? Yes, genre labels and expectations are different. Readers who pick up a fantasy novel don’t want the same thing as readers of mysteries or westerns, but if there’s nothing exciting, or at least interesting, in the story, who would want to read it? 

Though I’m primarily known for my science fiction and fantasy novels, my reading and writing has always ranged widely. Two months ago Tor Books released my epic fantasy novel opens in a new windowSpine of the Dragon, a sprawling story with dozens of point-of-view characters, two continents at war, lots of worldbuilding, history, and complex magic systems. It might seem strange that so soon afterward, Doug Beason and I would release a modern-day mainstream high-tech thriller, Kill Zone.

But to me, a story is a story, and Doug and I had a thrilling idea that demanded to be written. The core concept behind Kill Zone is extremely topical—you don’t see many sleeping dragons or ancient magic wielders in today’s headlines!

Doug and I have known each other for over thirty years. Our first short story together, “If I Fell, Would I Fall?” was published in 1988 in Amazing Stories. We have the same sensibility of plot and characters, in outlining and pacing. 

In writing a high-tech thriller, I use all the same skills I developed in my other novels, but Doug brings a wealth of experience and expertise that lets us give Kill Zone the cutting-edge veracity that high-tech thriller readers want. With his background as a PhD Physicist, a retired colonel form the US Air Force, and his Washington, DC experience as a former member of the President’s Science Office and Chief Scientist of Air Force Space Command, as well as Associate Director at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Doug has an unparalleled background for writing a book like this, set amidst the politics and technical challenges of a nuclear waste storage complex.

I could never have written this book myself, but the fast-paced writing, the intricate plotting, and the complex characters are still my forte. The worldbuilding inside a nuclear storage complex or a nuclear power plant is just as rigorous as developing a fantasy world or a galactic empire.

Doug and I have written nine novels together, ranging from the futuristic hard science fiction of Lifeline or the Nebula-nominated Assemblers of Infinity, to the World War II time-travel thriller The Trinity Paradox, to the ecological disaster of Ill Wind, and the modern high-tech thrillers of Ignition and the Craig Kreident mysteries.

We hope they’re all thrilling in their own way. In Kill Zone we brought together the best of our skills to create a fast-paced and thought-provoking adventure. We hope you enjoy it.

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