A lightning fast and scorchingly observant novel of the moment, Version Zero is a thrilling, humorous adult debut from the brilliant mind of New York Times bestselling author David Yoon.
We chat with author David Yoon about Version Zero, writing, book recommendations, and more!
Hi, David! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Sure! I’m the New York Times bestselling author of Frankly In Love and Super Fake Love Song. Those two books are Young Adult; my latest book, Version Zero, is an adult thriller about the internet. Before I switched to writing full time, I worked for over a dozen years in the tech industry as a user experience expert.
How is your 2021 going in comparison to that other year?
SO MUCH BETTER. There’s a president in office who’s so competent he’s refreshingly boring, I’m fully vaccinated, and the city of Los Angeles seems to be coming back to life all around me. The other day we went out to eat at a restaurant, and the thrill of simply walking away from dirty dishes was indescribable. I hope your 2021 is going better too.
Writing-wise, so many dreams are coming true, with a book coming out (Version Zero), another just sold (City of Orange), and exciting things happening at me and my wife’s Random House publishing imprint, Joy Revolution, which is focused on love stories featuring people of color written by people of color. Also did you see that new purple iPhone?
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
Has to be The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury. The mood and epic drama of boys journeying across all the death holidays of the world, ultimately sacrificing a part of themselves to save their sick friend, was unforgettable. So was Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud, a prototypical (and much creepier) Jack Skellington. I became a huge Bradbury fanboy after that; I even drew a geographically correct map of the Martian Chronicles as fan art for no one but myself. I had to re-read the book a few times to get every detail right.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
When I was in 3rd grade, I wrote a super silly short story that the teacher made me read out loud to the class. They loved it! They laughed like crazy. Just euphoric, that feeling of connecting with an audience. My next story, however, bombed. It was mean-spirited, and it got the reception it deserved. I wasn’t discouraged, though—I just knew I had to do better and write from the heart. I wanted to get those laughs back. And I still do!
Your new novel, Version Zero, is out May 25th 2021! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Is the internet worth it?
What can readers expect?
The story is about a brilliant tech manager (Max) who blows the whistle after he discovers the social media giant he works for is doing shady things with user data—only to be fired and blackballed by his own beloved industry. He forms a secret activist collective called Version Zero and embarks on a mission to take down the big five tech companies through an escalating series of audacious hacks designed to expose their evil inner workings.
Anyway that’s the pitch—we also have Max’s hopeless pining after his best friend’s girlfriend, and Pilot, the reclusive, psychotic Mark Zuckerberg-type who shares Max’s cynicism about tech and emerges from hiding to give him all the resources he needs on his righteous crusade. It’s a dark, tense story, but it’s also funny, because I really believe most of life can be funny even when it’s sad—even when you don’t want it to be.
Where did the inspiration for Version Zero come from?
I worked in tech for over a dozen years in my previous career, for all kinds of companies in social media, ad tech, cyber security, and so on. I was a user experience (UX) guy—I had to bridge the gaps among the money people, the designers, and the coders. So I got to see a lot of how the internet sausage is made, and a lot of it isn’t pretty. For instance, I worked at an ad tech company where almost every single co-worker of mine had ad blockers installed. Like non-smokers stuck working at Phillip Morris, we spent all day building something we fundamentally disagreed with. My career made me realize there are lots of paradoxes in our tech lives that remain unresolved. Why are we okay with mass surveillance and tracking? Why do we give so much leeway to shady, irresponsible behavior by tech leaders? And why don’t we question more the design motives behind the very interfaces we spend every day of our lives scrolling through?
Can you tell us about any challenges you faced while writing and how you were able to overcome them?
Writing about tech is especially tough, because the moment you hit SAVE on your document it’s already out of date. TikTok only became popular a few years ago; Facebook only a few years more than that. Hell, it wasn’t that long ago when people were freaking out about scrollbars disappearing. There’s no way to keep up. A big challenge for me was to write about tech in a way that focused less on specific apps and more on universal themes like privacy, identity, and desire. The answer I came up with was to write the book as if it were a historical period piece, set all the way back in the year 2018 CE. The world of tech already has an exaggerated sense of history (wearable tech, once the stuff of sci-fi, is already “old”), so I wrote my story to match.
Were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I have to say I loved writing Pilot Markham, who is the reclusive “JD Salinger of tech” mogul who comes out of hiding to help Max. He’s a reformed tech bro douchenozzle; he is a man filled with regret for pursuing the empty, VC-funded goals at the expense of society’s well-being and his own. He’s almost like an apocalypse survivor, marveling at the debris of his unethical creations, wondering what it was all for. He becomes Max’s mentor out of a desire for redemption; that desire soon spirals out of control and takes Max & co. to unexpected heights—and lows.
You’ve had two YA novels published over the last year and Version Zero is your adult debut. Was the writing process different for you at all between the two genres?
Not really! I’ve also written stories starring middle-grade children, and I sincerely believe there’s something to learn from any age at any age. Kids can learn from adults; adults can learn from kids; seniors can learn from babies. For instance, tons of YA readers are actually adults. I do sometimes hypothesize that YA generally deals more in what’s known (and therefore teachable, since many YA books are taught in classes and libraries) and adult books deal with what’s less known. The internet is as yet very unknown, I think—I think of it as a massive social experiment that started only very recently and has quickly outpaced all efforts to measure its results.
What’s the best and the worst writing advice you have received?
Best advice came from the great Margaret Atwood, who I saw at the Canadian embassy in Tokyo once. She said: read, read, read, and write, write, write. She meant, read everything you can get your hands on, even if you don’t think it’s your kind of book, because you never know where inspiration lies. And write as much as you can, because writing is a muscle that gets stronger and more supple with proper exercise. She’s life goals for me.
Worst advice came from an established poet whose writing class I took in college. He basically said, “I got published at age 21, so you better hurry it up.” Not only did he make writing feel competitive, he made it seem like any writer published after their twenties was already too late, washed up on arrival. I’m glad I got published when I did—without all that life experience behind Frankly In Love, for instance, I don’t think I’d be confident enough to take as many chances as I did with that book. And I’m glad I did!
What’s next for you?
Version Zero comes out on May 25, which I’m thrilled about since it’s my adult debut. You can also expect City of Orange sometime in the near future. And we’re slowly building our inaugural lineup for my imprint Joy Revolution, set to launch in 2022. Plus other secret stuff I can’t talk about! Like my wife and I might be writing a book together! I’ve said too much!
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
I read the first three pages of Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro and I’m already hooked. Matched by Ally Condie had me transfixed. Caste by Isabel Wilkerson should be required reading, The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa gave me a weird-good kind of solace during the pandemic, and my wife’s new book, Instructions for Dancing, gave me happy tears and a bad case of writer’s envy all at once.
