What was the initial idea behind this story? It’s a very visceral tale full of distinct imagery. Do you consider yourself a “visual” writer?
That’s very kind of you to say! As a historical fiction writer I definitely strive to impart as much of a sensory experience as I can. Imagery, smells, sounds, etc. Usually I do this in service of trying to transport the reader to that other time—I love the idea of the past as a foreign country—but this story definitely took on a life of its own as I teased the central zombification idea out to its extremes. In writing this I definitely learned how these powers can be used for evil!
As for the initial idea: As with the origins of many of my story ideas, I fell down a Wikipedia rabbit hole. (Who can relate? Whoo!) I was absolutely fascinated by the concept of culture-bound diseases, kuru being one of them—but couldn’t the imperial urge to conquer and explore in a domineering way be another? Wrapping those questions in some good old-fashioned anticolonial revenge fantasy packaging turned out to be a ton of fun.
Scientists often make for the best characters in horror fiction. What was your inclination to go with a scientist character for this macabre tale?
Aside from the plot considerations of our protagonist needing a big technical skillset, I found the history and worldview of science/scientists in the West in that time period so fascinating! I wanted to play with the idea of the hero-explorer who really came to the fore as a kind of imperial, colonial archetype in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century, as expeditions to places like Mount Everest and the Northwest Passage captured the popular imagination—but those expeditions also served to undergird the colonial mentality in unexpected ways.
On one hand, the feats of people like polar explorers and summiteers were undoubtedly admirable. But many polar explorers depended on Inuit sled and hunting technology, and Hillary’s expedition would have foundered without the Sherpas. The idea of “explorer-scientists” who are held up as bastions of white Western civilization due to their feats and character—but whose careers are actually built on exploiting indigenous traditions and people—was a jarring contradiction that I wanted to explore, and overturn, here.
You get into some dark stuff here, some of which roils the stomach a little. When you wrote this story, did you try challenging yourself to ramp up the intensity where you could? We as the reader descend into madness alongside the narrator, it feels like.
(I was getting rejected from quite a lot of jobs at the time of writing; the author was also descending into madness!)
I’m not sure how much I was thinking about “intensity” as a metric—on the other hand I was definitely trying to impart that the narrator was losing his grip on his sanity as his urges intensified.
It was a real treat discovering how our stiff-upper-lip narrator would try and fail to contend with his urges as the disease worsened—that definitely heightened the contrast between him in full control at the beginning and his reduced state at the end! Anyone looking for similar vibes would do well to check out “Survivor Type” by Stephen King, a story which haunts me on a regular basis.
What’s next for you? Do you have anything you’re working on you can tell us about?
Yes! I am currently querying a historical fantasy novel set in a Filipino fishing village in 1890s Louisiana—widely considered the first Chinatown-esque settlement of Asians in America. (This is my third time in the query trenches. It’s fine. Everything is fine.) Elsewhere, I have a few more short stories in the pipeline, and for the first time somebody is making an audio version of a short story of mine which I’m very excited about!! Follow along at ferdwrites.com or on Twitter/Bluesky @ferdwrites.
