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JOHN
J. NANCE
INTERVIEWS
Interview conducted by Richard Rennicks, Borders.com
Fiction Editor
Over the course of seven books, including the hugely
successful PANDORA'S CLOCK, John J. Nance has become the
master of the airline thriller. His latest is BLACKOUT,
which explores the consequences of a new weapon that blinds
pilots, ensuring their inability to fly their aircraft.
Nance again uses Kat Bronsky, the FBI agent first introduced
in THE LAST HOSTAGE, to track the shadowy group behind this
deadly new weapon. John Nance chatted with our Fiction Editor
by email recently, and they discussed BLACKOUT, recent airline
disasters, and his fondness for fireplaces.
John Nance: Several things, actually. First, the desire
to break out of the aluminum tube and tell a galvanizing
story on a very broad geographical scale (as opposed to
having the entire story occur in the same aircraft), and
the determination to bring back a young woman I've fallen
in love with (psychological implications to the contrary
notwithstanding): Special Agent Katherine Bronsky of the
FBI. I created Kat for THE LAST HOSTAGE in the image of
the women I most respect: strong-minded professionals adept
at excelling in a male-dominated world, but women who never
surrender or demean their femininity -- in other words,
women who enjoy being female and competent. Kat is that
and more, and I was looking forward to developing her personality
to a much greater extent, as well as giving her a chance
to show what a good FBI agent she'd become. Bringing the
hijack to a safe end in THE LAST HOSTAGE was a singular
achievement for Kat, but BLACKOUT presents her with a much
thornier challenge, even for a psychologist. FBI agents
are trained to find bad guys and arrest them. It's that
black and white. They're not equipped to navigate through
a house of mirrors with physical and mental challenges more
suited to the CIA, but this is precisely what I wanted Kat
to face -- and conquer -- and she didn't let me down.
I also wanted to create some other unforgettable characters,
and Dallas Nielsen stepped up to the plate at precisely
the right moment. Dallas is brash and direct, but a smart
woman whose intellect and common sense provide the critical
push to save the others on several occasions. I loved her
self-assurance. She knows precisely who she is, and what
she can and cannot do, and the people I've met in life who
fit that description are rare and wonderful characters.
It's been fun since the release of BLACKOUT to hear the
names of the various actresses my audience would like to
hire to play Dallas in the film. No less a pair of world-class
women than Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey have been mentioned.
Finally, I wanted to continue to prove something to my
audience and to the critics: that just because a thriller
is paced at high-speed (one critic called BLACKOUT an exercise
in aerobic page-turning, which I like), that does not mean
the author must, or should, fail to fully develop the characters.
My technique is to do the extensive character development
in a rather subtle (and, I guess, sneaky) fashion: on the
move, using the shifting background of scenery and circumstance
to keep you chronologically galvanized while I'm showing
you the intricate details of who Kat Bronsky or Dallas Nielsen
or Robert MacCabe really are. Conversations, for instance,
that build your knowledge of these folks and let you really
care about them and understand them, cannot take place in
a static environment. Instead, insights come from exchanges
uttered while racing down a hallway or climbing into an
airplane or running from the bad guys, rather than from
sitting over coffee or cocktails and chatting amidst long
sighs. Not that there's anything wrong with long sighs and
cocktails as a stage for learning more intimate things about
these folks, it's just that a thriller needs to stay in
motion. I'm having fun, in other words, pioneering some
new ways of fitting richness of characterization and detail
into a lightning-fast framework without showing you any
of the seams. And judging from the overwhelmingly good reviews
so far, I think it's working.
A word about the airplanes in BLACKOUT. All my fans know
I do not write techno-thrillers, as such. But they also
know that there will always be a background of aircraft
and aviation [that] they can rely on to be technically accurate.
In other words, I don't ever want to be accused of writing
some huge tome to try and teach you how to build an airplane,
but the airplanes you see as the background of my stories
are presented with faithful detail and accuracy. To put
it more succinctly, aviation is always my stage, never my
subject, but what you see of it will be technically right.
There was one additional motivation to this plot, by the
way (and there's always a message somewhere in my books):
We've got to think about tomorrow's battlefield, both in
military terms, and in terrorist terms, because anti-vision,
anti-personnel lasers are already being developed. Having
one fall into the wrong hands at the wrong moment is just
a matter of time. In fact, having something like this used
on a civilian airliner is tomorrow's headline, and it's
time we began thinking of banning such weapons worldwide.
Actually, we've had the ability to "autoland" big aircraft
for over 30 years! When I received my wings as an Air Force
pilot I took an assignment to the Lockheed C-141 transport,
a huge four-engine jet transport designed and built in the
mid-'60s. Even the earliest 141s had an autoland system
that enabled us as pilots to set up the computers and the
autopilot, hook them together electronically, and simply
monitor the jet as it flew itself to touchdown on the runway
(we still had to pull the throttles into reverse and step
on the brakes). That, again, was designed in 1965! Here
in the new century, we have extremely sophisticated versions
on almost all modern jetliners, along with autothrottle
systems and autobraking systems. [In BLACKOUT] that's the
heart of [copilot] Dan Wade's desperate plan out of Hong
Kong -- when he realizes he has been blinded. Provided he
can get the help he needs in reading the instruments he
can find but can't see, he knows he can set up the huge
Boeing 747-400 to literally land itself, and stop itself.
The challenge is to set the right speeds and altitudes for
the autopilot to fly until it can "capture" the instrument
landing system "beams" that will guide it to the runway.
So, absolutely, this is possible. And everything that happens
to Dan and the ill-fated passengers is right out of the
manuals and the realities of commercial flight. Remember
I've flown a 747, although, thank heavens, not in these
terrible circumstances. But it helps to write what you know.
There's more, however, to both your question and my answer.
We have several younger generations very adept at computers
and computer games these days, and I specifically wanted
to mine this area in BLACKOUT. That's why Dallas (who's
spent years as a bored broadcast engineer with the habit
of passing otherwise mind-numbing hours flying Microsoft's
Flight Simulator program), and Steve Delaney (who, on the
sly, has mastered the flying of his father's terribly expensive,
full-motion flight simulators for various jetliners), both
have extensive technical knowledge of how a 747 operates
and how it's flight instruments work.
So why not let them take over? Because mating technical
familiarity with the actual motion and feel of a real airplane
can be a terrifying experience. Dallas knows this, and isn't
about to get in the pilot's seat only to freeze up or mess
up. She knows she's most helpful reading the instruments,
and that's the kind of self-assurance I love about her.
Steve, on the other hand, has experienced the accurately
simulated motion of every simulator he's flown, but it's
lack of self-confidence that will make him marginal at critical
moments, not a lack of technical prowess. In fact, Steve's
as good a stick and rudder pilot as any of us veterans,
but what he lacks is confidence, maturity, and judgment
-- the attributes the blinded copilot possesses and must
use through a veil of pain. It was these juxtapositions
between technological knowledge and physical capability
I wanted to explore, all, of course, at high speed.
Well, it's not as simple as either. First, I lay out
some basics of what I want the next plot to be. Should the
story take place in one airplane? Should it have two or
three interwoven cross plots? And what kind of ending can
I think up that no one has ever used before? In other words,
I back into the plot ideas by arranging on the table of
my thinking the various elements I know I want to use, and
then adding elements that can make those ingredients rich
and fascinating. A successful plot today cannot be either
predictable or mundane. It has to encompass tomorrow's headlines
and it has to encompass issues and concerns and fears and
hopes that we'll be dealing with one or two years later.
In other words, I have to be a bit of a futurist, as well
as a good mystery-builder. Once I have the basics, though
(and once I can explain them inside of 30 seconds and get
a wide-eyed, excited reaction from my editors and friends
alike), I then turn to creating the characters. You have
to care about them. You have to want to know more about
them and be anxious for them when they get into desperate
straits. You've got to like them enough to give up sleeping
to race to the last page to see what happens. I don't stop
writing the characters' dossiers until I've achieved those
goals.
But how do I think up such things as an airborne virus
(PANDORA'S CLOCK), a nuclear-based,
electromagnetic pulse weapon (MEDUSA'S
CHILD), or an airline captain hijacking his own airplane
(THE LAST HOSTAGE)? By sorting
through aviation as it really exists to look for those aspects
no one has effectively used before. I call it "fireplace
time." I've built seven of them into my home and office
in Washington, (fireplaces, that is) and I spend a lot of
evenings just sitting and trying to keep the mental wheels
turning to conceive of things no one else has brainstormed.
The process gets easier and more exhilarating each time,
especially when I've received good feedback from my audience
from the previous book and know what turns them on about
the characters and the circumstances. (I love feedback.
That's half the reason for www.johnjnance.com and the associated
e-mail address, talktojohnnance.
Unfortunately, it is true that there have been a very
worrisome spate of crashes the past 12 months (American
Airlines [in] Little Rock, Swissair 111 in Nova Scotia,
EgyptAir south of Nantucket, and my own Alaska Airlines
Flight 261 near Santa Barbara, California). Why? Well, EgyptAir
is a pure fluke of human frailty. Although the final report
isn't in, there are no other rational explanations besides
that of one of the pilots deciding to commit suicide and
take the entire passenger list with him -- something totally
contrary to the strictures of Islam and deeply disturbing
to both the Egyptians and all of aviation.
But why the others? Does it mean that aviation safety is
deteriorating? The answer is no. The previous year, 1998,
was the fluke, a year in which no passengers died in commercial
aviation in North America. Try as we might (and by and large
we are very successful), commercial aviation still comes
up a tiny bit short of perfect. While 99.9999 percent of
all flights make it to destination without incident, the
sheer volume of air traffic is so great that even a tiny
percentage of failure will create a few accidents each year.
In 1998, we simply lucked out, and some of the accidents
that statistically would have occurred within that year
spilled over to 1999, and early 2000. In fact, commercial
aviation is the safest form of transportation on this planet.
That's why you can buy a life insurance policy at the airport
to cover you for a commercial flight dirt cheap -- the chances
of the insurance company having to pay off your loved ones
is almost zero. But until we can achieve absolute perfection,
some accidents will slip through and our job is to double
and redouble our efforts to make sure that none of the causal
factors ever happen again. Bit by bit, accident by incident,
we're closing in on that 100 percent safe goal.
And the media coverage? Well, don't forget that I'm the
media, too, so you have to understand I'm a bit prejudiced.
But I think we're doing a better job with each incident
in simply reporting the facts and eliminating the hysteria
of years past. Yes, the scrutiny is intense, and that's
because climbing aboard an airliner requires a complete
surrender of control to those you have to trust to be fully
professional and careful. When something goes very wrong
in the airline business, the failure galvanizes and shocks
us all specifically because passengers have no control.
You simply can't yank on an emergency brake or tell a driver
to pull over in the airline business. You're literally along
for the ride, and it's a matter of blind trust.
Absolutely! I'm just beginning what I consider my Hollywood
career, which will later on include doing the screenplay
adaptations myself. Right now I'm gaining experience as
an executive producer of several pending movies and am working
on finding the right cinematic fit for THE LAST HOSTAGE
and BLACKOUT. Ultimately, I expect that every one of my
novels will be produced, and in that department, I'm two
down and five to go, with one under option currently. And
hey, if any readers out there think your favorite actor
or actress should play one of my characters, email the dickens
out of his or her web site and tell them so. Believe it
or not, it's very often the most casual and unlikely of
suggestions that steer a good cast and a good book to the
screen. Will I stay in TV? Of course, but I want to move
into features as well (despite the small inconvenience of
a form of suspended animation known as "development hell,"
which can eat up years while a production slowly works its
way toward release).
I would be thrilled and honored if Dick Estelle picked
BLACKOUT for his show, and I think it would make a good
fit. But that's his call. I will say (and I wrote this to
him after he completed reading Pandora several years ago),
his style is galvanizing. Here I was, the author of Pandora
and I'd lunge for the radio each night mouthing a plaintive
"No!" as he wrapped up that night's episode. I mean, I wrote
the darn story and I couldn't wait to tune in the next night
to hear more of it. Talk about a spooky experience! Yet
it's one I'd like to repeat.
Anyway, the answer is, not yet, but if I'm not talking
out of school, I'm sure he'd be glad to get the reader's
emailed suggestions that BLACKOUT would make a good addition.
In a phrase, I don't. I've been on personal leave from
my airline for the last few years because the schedule for
ABC, writing one thriller per year, and doing 32 major speaking
dates per year was getting to be too much. I stay current
as a professional pilot, however, captaining my own corporate
twin engine turboprop (a Beach King Air E-90) over 250 hours
per year, and can go back to the Boeing 737-400 cockpit
anytime I like.
Interview with John J. Nance copyright © 2000 by Borders
Online, Inc. All rights reserved.
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