Rereading it during the editing process made me realise how horribly pertinent it is. I did a lot of research into environmental issues, climate change, politics and revolutionaries such as the Baader Meinhof group and then pulled my visual prompts together into this Pinterest board.Īll of this combined in my head and built up into the world I’ve portrayed. I was also interested in what human beings are capable of if there’s no checks and measures – something which it could be argued technological advances have enabled us to do as a society as a whole. This is one of the reasons I started playing with the idea of enforced restrictions and having a set of characters in the novel who seemingly have no-one to be responsible to. I really wanted to explore this idea of the individual impact on a larger whole. We live in a throwaway culture and the thought that we have a ticking clock in which to undo the damage we’ve caused is a key theme in the book. As an industry we are in many ways directly responsible for consumerism one of the biggest causes of damage to the world we share. I work in advertising and it is something that I struggle with from a moral standpoint in relation to my concerns about the environment. I think this one originally stemmed from the concept of personal culpability. Jamie: All my stories brew over a period of time from things that are bubbling under in my head. I was wondering what inspiration and resources you drew on when creating this world, for it was frighteningly vivid, and in light of current events worryingly convincing. Kate: Kings of a Dead World gives a very powerful depiction of a world falling apart, both environmentally and sociologically. Around them both, dissatisfaction is growing.

Outside, lonely Janitor Peruzzi craves the family he never knew. In the sleeping city, elderly Ben struggles with his limited waking time and the disease which is stealing his wife from him. The solution is The Sleep: periods of hibernation imposed on those who remain with only a Janitor to watch over the sleepers.

League members Kate Kelly and Jamie Mollart discuss his new book, Kings of a Dead World, out now with Sandstone Books.

Kings of a Dead World by Jamie Mollart