We chat with author Brian Nelson about his latest release Five Tribes, which releases on March 23rd 2021, along with writing, book recommendations, and more!
Hi, Brian! Tell us a bit about yourself!
Hi, thanks for having me. Probably the most important things about me: I sported a mean mullet in high school. I can code in C++. I was an Australian Rules Football umpire in Adelaide. I have a talent for cursing in Spanish thanks to living in Venezuela for three years. I’m now a dad with two young boys. I learned the hard way that I’m no good at Brazilian Jujitsu.
After the chaos that was 2020, have you set any goals for this year? If so, how are they going so far?
Wow, after all that I think I’ll be content if I can just accomplish all the things I was supposed to do last year. I had a trip planned to the Grand Canyon with four friends, but that was canceled. I also had plans to see relatives and friends that also had to be postponed. So right now I’m just trying to get back to even.
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!
Hmmm, let’s see.
The first book I remember reading was Katy and the Big Snow (still a favorite).
The book most responsible for me wanting to become a writer was probably HG Wells’s The War of the Worlds because of the epic scope and apocalyptic feel. There was also a musical version of this that I listened to as a kid that really sparked my imagination.
Super nerdy!
A book that I can’t stop thinking about: Thorstein Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class. I know, also super nerdy. But I’m fascinated by what motivates people to behave the way they do, and this book, now over 120 years old, is one of the best analysis of human behavior I’ve ever read. It also had a huge influence on my understanding of my own motivations and has helped me get “out” of the confines of the system.
In fact, it helped me quit my corporate job (remember that C++ coding) and become a writer.
Then did you first discover your love for writing?
Seventh grade, when I wrote a sci-fi fantasy story. I remember my English teacher, Mrs. Hogan, telling me she thought it was pretty amazing. That stuck with me, and I think it fostered my sense of identity as a writer.
Your new novel, Five Tribes, is out March 23rd 2021! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Be careful what you wish.
[I sort of need another word there, but I think you get the point.]
What can readers expect?
This is a fun and fast-paced adventure with a lot of cool technology and interesting characters. It’s one of those stories that is very entertaining, but you’ll also learn some fascinating things at the same time. The story begins with a secret military mission to Africa to rescue a man from a prison camp. The military decides to use the mission as a test-run for some of its newest weapons, like body armor, stealth technology and bio-hacking. There’s a lot of action. But I’m also playing with more profound ideas about where our advanced technology is taking us.
Where did the inspiration for Five Tribes come from?
The entire series is a cautionary tale about how our technology is changing our world in ways we can’t foresee or control. This book looks closer at the relationship between technology and the natural world.
As a result, the big inspiration for me was studying Khoe-san cultures in Africa, which really blew my mind. These cultures have been living in harmony with nature for 200,000 years, which is an amazing number when you consider that what we typically call “civilization” is only 6,000 years old. So I dropped my protagonist, Eric Hill, into the middle of the Kalahari desert. He’s a military scientist and all his life he’s believed in the power of technology and its ability to improve the world.
But through his experiences in Africa, that belief gets turned on its head and he begins to see that the opposite is true: the evolution of technology is what is destroying the natural world and he has to face the truth that—as a scientist—he’s complicit in that destruction. As a result he begins to question whether working for the military is the right thing to do.
Can you tell us about any challenges you faced while writing and how you overcome them?
Five Tribes has a lot of interesting story lines, so the biggest challenge was weaving those different narratives together. For example, there’s the character of Riona Finley who is an eco-terrorist. She wants to steal the military’s new technology, but no one is sure what for. Does she want to use it to reverse climate change or does she want to make a weapon of mass destruction? Then there is General Walden who wants to make an ultra-smart AI system so he can track just about anyone on the planet in the name of “keeping us safe.”
To weave all the perspectives together I approached the book as if it were a film. I found that if I put the pacing of the “film” as a top priority, I could feel how long I could remain in one character’s perspective before I needed to switch to a new one. It also helped edit the book, because I found I could make stronger (or weaker) connections in the reader’s mind simply by where I placed those different points of view. For example, if you have a character struggling to find a solution to a problem, then you cut to a different character, you are establishing that the solution will be linked to the new character.
If it’s not too spoilery, were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
Yes, in the first book, The Last Sword Maker, I had a soldier named Nathan Sawyer who was a very minor character. He appeared in a few scenes and only had a couple of lines of dialogue. In Five Tribes he leads the rescue mission to Africa so I had to really figure out who he was and what made him tick. He’s an older SEAL and the more I thought about what he must have lived through, the more interesting he became. I realized that if you’re a SEAL in your 40s today and you entered the military in your 20s, then you’d have been rotating in and out of different combat zones since 9/11. That’s pretty intense to think about, and I don’t know of any other time in American history where soldiers have had to fight for such a long time. So Sawyer—not surprisingly—has some issues because of all the stuff he’s seen and he has developed an interesting philosophy about the world and warfare.
What’s the best and the worst writing advice you have received?
Worst: “Write what you know.” That’s a surefire way to write things that are super boring and self-indulgent. My philosophy is the exact opposite. Write about what you don’t know. That will force you to learn and think and try to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. It will also produce writing that feels much more original and engaging.
Best: Here is a quote I have written on the wall above my desk:
“The fact that I myself, at the moment of painting, do not understand my own pictures, does not mean that these pictures have no meaning.” -Salvador Dali
I’ve always loved that quote because it gives me license to explore things that may at first glance sound illogical or silly or stupid…or whatever. To me it says, if you feel that something is important and meaningful, go ahead and give your energy and thoughts to it. Figure it out. I think it’s very empowering and helps keep those critical (negative) voices out of your head.
What’s next for you?
I’m working on the last installment in this series, The Course of Empire. Not to give too much away, but I’m developing a very interesting twist on the world coming to an end—with satellites being sucked back to earth, roads and buildings disintegrating, the climate going haywire, etc. But it’s going to be very fresh and cool. Who said the end of the world wouldn’t be any fun?
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
Even though I have an MFA in fiction and I write fiction, I must admit (rather sheepishly), I read very little of it.
But the best nonfiction book I read last year was Tolkien and the Great War by John Garth. Learning about Tolkien’s study of languages stirred up my own etymological inner geek and I began looking up words in the dictionary, learning their roots, and experimenting with combinations from different languages. I even tried my hand at writing an epic poem (which I’m sure—at this point anyway—is at least good for a few laughs).
