From: Jasper
Date: 15 May 2000
Time: 20:42:23
Jean,
I don't want anyone to think that I opened this forum to get people to read my novel. I just wanted everyone who has read any of my books or Brian's book, or anyone who has thought about the main themes that the books represent to have a place to post their ideas.
One of the hardest things about writing a novel set in the near future (apart from creating a new universe that can coexist with the one we know) is staying ahead of the curve on "new" developments. By the time I finished my first nonfiction book, The Invisible Warriors, in 1990 most of the things I predicted would happen already had happened. By 1991 I realized I had to rewrite it in a way that would stand up to future developments. I didn't think I would have that much trouble with a novel so I started the Random Factor, figuring I could say things about image warfare in fiction that I couldn't say with "facts." But the future caught up with me there, too, in much of the technology and in events like the image assassination of people like O.J. Simpson who symbolize everything that people like Mark Fuhrman hate..
The trouble is, you can't just say whatever you want to. Your characters are prisoners of their characters, their abilities, their limitations, their histories, their ambitions and their circumstances. You have to work out timelines, physical, professional, social and philosophical characteristics, affinities and relationships. All of that has to mesh from cover to cover or the whole thing turns to doo-doo.
I finished The Random Factor in '93, then rewrote half of The Invisible Warriors and finised it in '94. I was about half-way into Doing Without when Ron and Nicole were murdered. I was about a third of the way into Messiah, the third book of the trilogy, when I started to smell a rat in the prosecution's case against O.J. Before I could finish the book I had to know whether O.J. was guilty or innocent. Iago grew out of that investigation.
Not everybody gets everything in The Random Factor but you will no doubt see that the street gangs in the book are not the only gangs. So are the cops and the guys it the boardrooms. They have their own language, their own rituals, modes of dress and codes of conduct. The only real difference is in the scope of their vision, their reach and their illusions of power. Given that mix of considerations some things are ineluctable. One of my top bad guys is a former DEA agent with ties to illegal weapons, drugs and street gang leaders. One of them is the head of a multi-national media, technologies and cosmetics concern. Two are national media commentators, one is a Supreme Court Justice and another is the head of the FBI. They all have their own connections and you can see how others in similar occupations with the right connections up and down the social and political order could effect the same kinds of malicious (they would call it "responsible") social engineering.
For the Gates connection to higher authority I would look for a well-placed (not necessarily high ranking) career officer in the BATF, the DIA or the DEA. By the way, I think that most of them are the good guys and as eager as we are to nail the bad guys. I think that they are trapped in a bureaucracy that won't allow it.
I know that many of the things that you, Kari and Charlie have come up with are true because there is no way in hell they could not be true. That's why I'm not terribly surprised that we are so close on the broad shape of things and more than a few of the details. I admit that some things like the Aspen deal are kinda freaky no matter how you try to give it a logical explanation. I also know that my best ideas are not mine. I don't know where they come from but sometimes you know you have to pay attention and write down what you see or hear in your head. When I have done that I haven't missed.
Usually the source of inspiration isn't that exotic. There is a lot of Kari, a lot of Charlie, a lot of Paula, a lot of Kate and a little bit of Sidney and Pat in The Smoking Gun. The Random Factor is loaded with people I knew in the Army, a couple of neighborhoods I've lived in and some places I've worked. Pat is a HUGE part of Iago and you have given me some leads on what I have to do to make The Smoking Gun more accessible.
There have been only two posters on any of the boards who haven't said something I admired. One of them attacked Brian without reading what he wrote. The other just parroted popular ideas about people who think O.J. was framed without research, insight or thought.
Don't worry about the typos. Mine are so bad that I try to write in Word and paste on the board to avoid leaving most of them in. But when I can't I don't get bent out of shape because I know the typos force the reader to slow down and think. --Jasper