Which?
What justifies the action. Do you actually care about it or don’t you? In much forgettable fantasy a lot is going on without anything substantial really happening. It might as well be the one or the other. That is not enough for me.
What you are doing is more like science fiction?
In any event, according to the fact that it is something improbable made possible where fantasy is something impossible made probable. I even think my design structure is plausible, but of course also based on the countless irrefutable stories about ghosts and rebirth.
We let the assumption rest there. Why Taurus X?
I had an interesting reference in 'Amelia and Guardian Spirit', which I didn’t develop. Then I felt I had to have a larger collection camp for souls kept before the long trip to a distant nebula. It might as well be on the prison planet having a wing to spare after the release of some non-military combatants.
Why the freedom fighters?
They are the naive old entrance to the ideal society. In the past, everything was fine, if you just toppled dictatorships and evil empires. Now we know better. Democracies are not a guarantee of a secure future, for they are subject to financial decisions from a capitalist agenda, which require growth and ever increasing profits. We know that you should strive for sustainability in our consumption and a responsible climate policy, but the quest for short-term profits always win, and it inhibits research and transition to renewable solutions. The latest example is the abominable traffic with the extraction of oil and gas through 'fracking' transferring fossil fuel by pumping toxic chemicals into the ground. Finally, we sit back with a nose longer than Pinocchio's. This is where tragedy shows its naughty face.
That is your real agenda?
No, it is the Earth's agenda, but it cannot speak up. I got a strengthened inspiration from my youngest daughter, Maria, who had to write a New Year’s speech in school. She ended up letting Earth hold a New Year's speech, in which it noted its New Year’s wishes. It was actually quite original and successful. She may have inherited her father's writing itch.
I come to think of ‘Fort Europe’.
I can understand that. It has a similar theme with a civilization that ends up succumbing in civil war. The funny thing is that I wrote this Paragon book before the ‘Fort Europe’ title, with the idea of a planet's demise well thought out by me on a cosmic fantasy level before I let it hit our own planet.
Do you have other loose speculations about soul handling that you will come back to later?
Actually, I don’t know, but it can show up. In any case, I’m not writing a new book in the series until I have a new original and sustainable idea, which contributes with something new, I have not previously used. I see this as an important motive for me. That way I hope to surprise the reader along the way, so I don’t deliver something predictable but something I experience as conceptually innovative. Such ideas justify the work.
What if you run out of that kind of new and promising ideas?
Then I stop writing, but every time I have written a new book, I have thought that I probably won’t get more good ideas, and that this title is probably the last. Then later there has emerged a new idea. On the other hand, my entire career has confirmed that. I have told stories for forty years now, so I wonder when the well of inspiration runs dry.
At some time, Carl Barks felt that.
He also had to stay within certain limitations. I don’t need that. I have often wondered whether Carl Barks could have written letter literature.
You have an opening quotation from Carl Barks...
Yes, and it sums up the reason of it all in a single sentence. I must admit I had to concentrate text from more panels. We humans are like children. We would rather have our needs met right now than wait to get a greater reward later. Therefore, we choose the politicians who put us the immediate fulfillment of needs in view. People are and will continue to be greedy and excessive creatures who only think of themselves. We don’t deserve to be godlike administrators of our planet. We cannot possibly live up to that enormous responsibility.
Maybe it will be better when a greater collective responsibility spread worldwide?
It’s a sweet but unfortunately naive hope. People as a species are only concerned with the immediate survival. Pure Darwinism. We as a thinking species have been able to make inventions so that we have made it possible for us to ruthlessly exploit our planet. That opportunity other species are left without. We’ll happily be running towards the abyss in full speed at first class and only start thinking about the consequences when everyone can see where this is going, but then it's too late. By that time, we fight for the past few resources. The survivors become exasperated and seek refuge in oblivion through drugs.
What will it look like, here on Earth in a hundred years?
I dare hardly think of that, but the survivors of the distribution policy wars will probably be offended by seeing worn copies of American films from our time, which present a luxurious life style with excessive overuse and the fact that because of fads we replace things that work. They will hardly believe the factories inserted consumption lock in smart phones and printer devices only used for a certain time in order to increase demand and therefore production. We are in a downward spiral of inflated consumption, supported by the requirement for growth and maintenance of jobs. Our late capitalist system is rotten and at some point, we have to realize it and change things, with the crisis we have now being followed by more until we change things.
It is a depressing perspective.
Yes, but my story about it on the cosmic level I made sure to make exciting, just as the disaster course here on Earth. However, I am a people-friendly writer, so I keep one trap door open in my story. I will not reveal it here.
Is there any other inspiration?
Overall, confirmed in the entire background of my thought out construction with souls through a long series of TV broadcasts, I was week after week reminded that even people who start to be skeptical about spirits must admit that there are 'more things between Heaven and Earth' when they must have cleaned their houses for ghosts. The extra exciting bit is that they often succeed in finding out who the ghosts are. It is incredible that so many opponents can continue to deny evidence because they just do not understand. It must be because there is not yet tangible scientific evidence of the phenomenon. At the same time, plenty of people believe in something religious not proved, either. This is weird but I am happy to have created a series based on something that has a value of truth or probability to many people.
Paragon- Ghost Hunters Page 28
