Andrew Hunter Murray is a bit of an all-rounder. He is one of the QI Elves, he is the cohost of massively popular podcast No Such Thing As A Fish, in which the QI Elves present their favourite fact that they uncovered during the week of research, and he also writes for satirical magazine, Private Eye. His debut novel, The Last Day, which we reviewed, is set in a ‘not quite apocalypse’ where the Earth has stopped turning and humanity is struggling to survive in the remaining habitable part of the planet. Andrew was kind enough to answer some of our most burning questions.
Hi Andrew! Can you tell us a little about yourself?
Hello! I’m Andrew. I’m a writer on the comedy TV show QI, a light-entertainment juggernaut from the UK which covers the most interesting facts ever discovered (and, crucially, in alphabetical order). I’m one of the four hosts of the podcast No Such Thing As A Fish, a leviathan comedy podcast which also covers interesting and amazing facts from around the world (the difference is that the podcast is NOT in alphabetical order). I write for the satirical magazine Private Eye, writing jokes and journalism. I like long walks in the countryside, craft cider, and…hang on, sorry, I’m getting confused with a dating profile.
Your novel, The Last Day, is out now! What can readers expect?
It’s a thriller set a few decades from now in a world where – due to a catastrophe in the heavens – the rotation of the Earth has ground to a halt. For thirty years, half the planet has faced constant sunlight; the other half has been in frozen darkness. Life survives in a slim, and narrowing, ring on the sunlit side, between two inhospitable climates. It’s a thriller set in that world, with a young scientist slowly uncovering a truth that a lot of people would rather she didn’t…
The premise for The Last Day is pretty specific; why was that the specific setting for your post-apocalyptic world?
As soon as the idea occurred to me – of a planet hanging in space like that, locked with the sun – it seemed relevant to the world we’re in. It’s fundamentally a book about a warming world, a world where people are beginning to move around in order to survive, and one where countries are erecting new barriers to protect what they have from outsiders. But the idea of a planet locked in place like that also appealed to the sci-fi and adventure geek in me. My first thought was – wait, what would happen, to the oceans and the soil and plants and animals? So I started the whole process by exploring that and going from there.
Writers are so divergent in their routines and habits, can you run through your writing routine and outline on which end of the planner/pantser dichotomy you fall?
Complete planner. I did actually write 30,000 words of The Last Day before realising I hadn’t worked out what happens, and ended up truly stuck with no idea how to go forwards. So I had to chuck everything away and start again. In terms of ‘writing routine’, it’s normally first thing in the morning – I find it easier to get words out of my fingers if I haven’t already absorbed lots of news and other people’s creativity. But the main thing is to spend enough time with the seat of the pants applied to the writing chair. Everything else is superstition.
You wear a lot of hats, how do your various roles interact? Do you get inspiration for writing from the QI work, or your writing for Private Eye?
Yes – from both, I think. I think QI helps a lot in that we’re looking at the most unusual things on the planet – the work can’t help but inspire you. We probably come across three or four book premises ideas each week without realising it. The novel actually opens with a version of a fact I found in my research for the podcast. And Private Eye is useful because it provides continuing, bountiful examples of human nature at its worst.
The Last Day paints a pretty negative portrait of what would happen if things turned nasty, and does suggest the worst kind of person will rise to power (or take advantage of the situation for their own benefit). Do you think that’s always likely to happen in those kind of circumstances?
I don’t know about ‘always’. It’s possible that some national crises in history have been handled by really nice people. But in general I do think times of scarcity do tend to lead to ruthlessness in the political class – and in democracies, I think people themselves are willing to make unpleasant choices about who they want in charge if they feel they’re in a time of crisis.
The idea of Britain falling into this xenophobic state of dictatorship and turning back refugees under the claim that there aren’t sufficient resources to sustain them feels as though there are definite links to the rhetoric being espoused by pro-Brexit figures. Was there any specific influence there?
Subconsciously, yes. I didn’t want to write a simplistic allegory for the Brexit process. But I think it’s obvious that Britain’s had an incredibly bruising few years politically, and that a lot of the rhetoric being thrown around about migrants and migration has been incredibly depressing and negative. So that was definitely in the mix as I wrote. Ursula K Le Guin, the great science fiction writer, had a line to the effect that science fiction doesn’t tell us about the world of the future, it tells us about the world now, and I think that does apply a bit to The Last Day.
What are you currently reading, and what genres/styles of books do you normally read?
I’ve just started re-reading The Remains of The Day, which is impossibly good. I’ve also just finished reading Treasure Island (I think for the first time), and next up is Iain Reid’s Foe, which looks like a short, sharp chiller. In terms of genres, I read an absolute mishmash of everything. I feel quite strongly that people should demolish their own internal genre barriers; there’s so much good stuff to read it feels like a waste to stay inside your own walled garden.
Obviously The Last Day is set in a not-quite apocalypse, but such settings always raise for me questions about the zombie apocalypse; it would be remiss of me to not ask if you had a plan for the zombie apocalypse. If the answer is yes, would you mind outlining it in broad brush strokes?
OK, point one – you’re absolutely right it’s not quite apocalypse, and while I love reading a good spot of apocalypto (The Girl With All The Gifts and Station Eleven are two brilliant examples of ending the world in different ways) I think I prefer writing about systems that are teetering on the edge of falling apart. That’s where I think you get really interesting human behaviour as people make choices about which direction to move in – to preserve the status quo or grab a shotgun.
In answer to the actual question, I intend to get the hell out of South-West London as soon as possible, because it’s obviously a deathtrap. I’ll make my way slowly to the coast (need to fill in those details later), steal a boat, and try to scootch my way up to a lovely uninhabited island off the Scottish coast, where I’ll ride out the apocalypse making small batches of whisky and selling the zombies lucky heather charms.
Lastly, what’s next for you?
I’m working on a second novel now, set in slightly different territory, and thoroughly enjoying the wrestle with the details of the plot. There are a few other little writing projects that are at such a larval stage I don’t even want to say what they are yet. And, of course, No Such Thing As A Fish and QI and Private Eye are all carrying on as usual. Busy times are looming on the horizon with large, menacing sails…
You can find Andrew on Twitter.
