StanleyWheeler: Thomas Kast

Interview with Thomas Kast

Author of

The Great Convergence

Please tell me a little about your current work in progress.

My debut novel, the Great Convergence, was published a couple of months ago. It’s a thought-provoking philosophical science fiction and a social satire. Two competing academics living ten million years in the future travel back in time to 2022, wrecking reality in the course of their investigation into a mysterious event — the Great Convergence.

Currently, I’m working on the humorous and philosophical comic book series Bablah’s Odyssey, which is scheduled for release in August 2022. Bablah’s Odyssey features a mad scientist, lord Bablah as he traverses the universe, mansplaining the ‘wonders of progress and civilisation’ to his unassertive yet perceptive mutant sidekick, the Pet-Thing. It’s colourful, psychedelic and contains a lot of irony and dark humour. I’m both a writer and illustrator.

Where did you get the idea for this book or series?

I wanted to create a book that can be enjoyed, read and re-read and could give the reader a memorable experience. I’ve noticed that most contemporary sci-fi often ventures into the strictly commercial territory. Not entirely happy with this trend, I wanted to use science fiction as a vehicle to highlight many social and philosophical problems, but with a healthy dose of humour.

There are several recurring themes in my book, which result from observing and analysing the world around me. One of those inspirations would be stupidity. It’s a subject that has always fascinated me. All of my characters make inexplicably unwise and shortsighted decisions despite being exceptionally smart (some of them). Superheroes are great but, often being no more than mere archetypes, they often lack humanity. It’s the crazy ones who provide all the fun.

Do you write in more than one genre?

I don’t write genre fiction. Even though the Great Convergence contains alternate realities, time travel and depictions of the world ten million years from now, it’s a simple story about a couple of characters lost in a world they neither fit into nor understand. There’s a lot of satire to be found in my book. But also philosophy, humour and social critique.

Tell me about something that you believe makes your writing unique or worthy of attention.

I’m proud of the nameless narrator and his biased voice as he relates the story. He’s a failed researcher stuck at a dead-end university position. Unable to move on, he pigheadedly investigates a once-fashionable subject no one is interested in.

Sometimes, he tells the truth, sometimes he lies, and in most cases, he misrepresents his account only to get his point across. Seeing the world through the narrator’s eyes, the readers must discover what happened themselves. Unreliable as the narrator is, his observations are full of dry humour, and the constant feeling of being stuck in a place one doesn’t belong to is probably something many can relate to.

Is there anything about your personal history or personality that manifests strongly in your writing?

I’ve been diagnosed with Autism spectrum disorder (Asperger’s syndrome as it used to be known). This means that, on the one hand, the intricacies of social interaction remain a total mystery to me. On the other hand, thanks to having way-too-many brain connections, I’m uniquely predisposed to quickly examine the world around me in a very pragmatic and unemotional way and see things others can’t. I’ve been an outsider most of my life (which I don’t regret), and so are my characters.

Resulting from my condition is another recurring theme in my book — miscommunication. My characters are all stuck in uncomfortable situations. Constantly missing the point, they don’t understand each other’s motives, and they’re unable put themselves in someone else’s shoes. They oscillate between being inordinately overconfident or hopelessly insecure but can never think on two feet. Above and beyond, they’re blinded by their personal goals they consider of great consequence and which are insignificant and trivial. As irony would have it, they all have a profoundly important part to play on the universe’s stage — something they’re never to discover.

What else would be helpful for readers to know about you?

I’m an award-winning independent photojournalist and illustrator and have published a number of photography art books. I’ve spent a big part of my life in Israel, where I taught photography and illustration at the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design and other Israeli colleges. To find out about my illustration and photography projects, you may head to www.thomaskast.com.

Excluding your own work, what underrated author or book would you recommend that more people read? Why?

Stanislaw Lem and his novel: Eden. A group of astronauts from Earth crash on a distant planet, where they discover a highly-developed yet mysterious civilisation. Despite making contact, it turns out that despite their advancement, both civilisations are ultimately too different to offer anything one another. Eden makes the reader come face to face with extraterrestrial intelligence as something incomprehensibly unlike anything we imagine it would be like. Which probably is close to the truth.

Which of your books do you most highly recommend? Why?

Apart from the comic book series coming out in August, there’s only one I could recommend at the moment — the Great Convergence. It took me about ten years to complete until I was happy enough with it to release it into the wild. It went through several editors and iterations. It’s weird, it’s funny, it’s sometimes profound and sometimes absurd.

10.000.002 A.D. A cantankerous scholar slipping into obscurity is out for revenge. He time-travels to the year 2022 to stop his nemesis, Scott — a successful scientist at a competing university — from thwarting his research into the origin of a mysterious phenomenon, the Great Convergence. Cunning and ruthless, Scott will stop at nothing to defend his tenure track. The feud quickly spins out of control, and the damage to reality grows unchecked.

Caught in the crosshairs are three characters responsible for triggering the Great Convergence: an art-hating professional art critic who, unbeknownst to him, spontaneously switches between universes wreaking havoc as he goes; a talentless artist whose sculptures act as trans-universal portals; and a schizophrenic astrophysicist trying to avert the invasion of alternate versions of himself from different realities. As their paths converge, the apocalyptic event takes place, and the inescapable tragedy of human existence unfolds.

Which break, event, decision, or fortuitous circumstance has helped you or your writing career the most?

I can’t recall a specific circumstance that has pushed me towards writing. I always had it in me. The only thing I didn’t have was the time. I still don’t have time, the only difference being that now I make time ;)

What question do you wish you would get asked more often?

I wish there were questions about the distant future. Although large parts of the plot take place in 2022, we also experience the world 10.000.000 years in the future through the narrator’s flashbacks. Since my book is a satire, I created the future as the ’50s, only with everything turned up to 11, especially the world of the academia, run as a for-profit corporation, where science and progress are just side-effects of a cut-throat fight for personal advancement and prestige.

There’s a lab where the scientists grow universes to experiment upon. There’s an old, baroque-like fountain spewing streams of time instead of water in the university’s courtyard. There is a site with portals connecting different universes, much like the Four Corners Monument in the US. It’s frequented by tourists taking selfies with a hand in one universe and a leg in another. Everybody keeps a time machine in a garage. For the more curious readers, I relate the history of time travel in one of the appendixes.

A quick disclaimer: most of the action doesn’t take place in university halls of academia.

Do you have a catchphrase or quote that you like? What is it? And why do you choose it?

I don’t, but my characters do. For instance, Geoffrey, a failed artist, constantly repeats ‘Glory to the lizard!’ The ‘glorious lizard is a lizard-shaped gargoyle sculpture at the top of a St. Laurence University of the Arts main tower, where he studies sculpture. According to the local folk tale, the Glorious Lizard housed the heart of Albertus Ambrosianus, a thirteenth-century alchemist who attained the secret of everlasting life through the mastery of dark arts. Geoffrey’s catchphrase represents his obsession with achieving artistic immortality.

Another catchphrase by Larry, a disillusioned art critic: ‘I am the captain of the ship …’ reassures him that he’s in control of his life, which, of course, he isn’t.

There are a few more catchphrases, and all have a similar function — to tell something about the character and make their personality recognisable and memorable.

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Thanks to Thomas for participating.

Great news: I signed a contract for another short story yesterday. That means I've two stories coming out in two separate Raconteur Press Anthologies next month. I'll post links when I get them.

Note: Smoke is on sale for a limited time.

Fire and Inferno: Plight of the Dragomancer Book I, by Luna Fox -- now only 99 cents.

Here's a link to the Wyrd Warfare Anthology that contains my story "Seventh Hussar and Aide to the Mage."