In July Michael Burnett becomes our latest author with his climate fiction thriller The Undercurrent. We talked to him about his new book:
The Undercurrent centres on a teenage girl fighting a corporate 'climate villain'. Is the character of Yulia Sokolova inspired in any way by Greta Thunberg?
I hadn’t really thought about the similarities between Greta and Yulia before, to be honest. But now that you’ve brought it up, I certainly see them! I actually wrote the Prologue for The Undercurrent, which was originally written as a standalone short story, in April 2018, which was before anyone had heard of Greta Thunberg yet. Perhaps it is less of a pure coincidence, and more that the character of Yulia came out of my own perception of an increasingly climate-aware younger generation, of which Greta is a part.
Are you an optimist or a pessimist when it comes to the climate emergency? Will we succeed in staying below 2C?
I wouldn’t describe myself as an optimist or a pessimist when it comes to the climate crisis. I don’t think it’s pessimistic to say that we’re in for a very rough ride, and the scientific consensus seems to be that keeping warming below 2C is pretty unlikely. When you look at what some of the world’s most powerful people are doing and planning to do, it’s hard to be optimistic, and in any case misplaced optimism can be a barrier to action. My approach to the climate crisis is to accept the scale of the issue rather than deny it, to limit my own impact as much as possible, and to cherish the natural world every day and not take it for granted. I think that’s the most that the average person can do.
Your descriptions of arctic Russia and the Amazonian rainforest seem very convincing. How did you make them feel so real? Have you visited?
Thank you! I’ve heard it said that realistic descriptions of places are impossible unless you’ve been there, but I disagree. With the technology we have available to us now, it is possible to learn enough about a place – its geography, its sights, sounds and smells – to write about it vividly without having visited. I developed my own technique for writing about exotic locations that seems to work quite well. For example, during the section where Curtis Knight is trekking through the Amazon Rainforest, I heavily researched the area and its flora and fauna and watched a few video diaries where people were doing a similar trek. Something that really helped was listening to an audio track of rainforest sounds whilst I was writing – that really helps to get you in the right headspace! I recommend that technique to anyone writing about exotic places.
Is there actually such a thing as a Saccoglossans pyasinskii, the psychoactive sea slug in your story?
Sadly, no – the Saccoglossans pyasinskii is entirely fictional! Although there’s a really interesting, quite creepy coincidence behind it. I’ve mentioned that the prologue was originally a short story, and this story was inspired by a dream I had where some teenagers were using a sea slug to have psychoactive experiences whilst at a party. I have a lot of strange dreams! The coincidence is that a month later, I saw a Science News article about an experiment where memories had been transferred from one sea slug to another via an RNA injection. I honestly could not believe my eyes when I saw that story. Sea slugs are pretty strange creatures though, and if any creature were able to share memories with humans, my bet would be on sea slugs. There’s even a sea slug that can photosynthesise.
In your story the Saccoglossans represents the Earth reacting against man-made destruction of the planet. Do you think this might actually happen, and if so how?
I’ve had a pretty strong hunch for a while now that humans will only clean up their act when they’re forced to by circumstance. I wrote The Undercurrent before the COVID-19 outbreak, which scientists tell us was made much more likely by human encroachment into wildlife habitats. We’ve known for decades that we can’t keep despoiling the Earth without consequences, and COVID-19 is one such consequence. Extreme weather is another consequence, so we’re already experiencing ‘nature fighting back,’ although of course not in quite such a literal way as I portray in The Undercurrent.
Your villain plans to drill for oil in the Russian Arctic Ocean. Please tell us this isn't actually happening!
As Dmitry Sokolov points out in chapter four, there’s an estimated 35 trillion dollars’ worth of oil under the Arctic Ocean, north of Siberia. Obviously this is a lot of wealth, so there has been a fair amount of interest in it from oil companies over the years. When I began writing the novel, Gazprom (Russia’s biggest fossil fuel company) had already conducted a small drilling operation in the Pechora Sea, which is at the extreme south of the Arctic Ocean, but the technical difficulty of drilling further north had thus far prevented any major extraction.
Since completing the novel, the Russian government has – right on cue, I think – enacted huge plans to drill for Arctic oil. A combination of improved infrastructure, technology and a warming Arctic has finally made it a realistic proposition. Perhaps one of the scariest things about writing cli-fi is how quickly your fictions can become reality. It’s certainly something that people need to be aware of, now more than ever. I hope that in some small way, The Undercurrent helps to spread that message.
Any plans for further adventures for your heroes, Curtis Knight and Yulia Solokov?
I do plan to write at least one sequel to The Undercurrent, but I haven’t yet decided whether I want to keep Curtis and Yulia as main characters. There are many other places in the world that I want to explore through my writing, so I may find myself with a new cast of characters in a totally different part of the world. Perhaps Curtis and Yulia can make a cameo as world-renowned climate activists? It’s completely open at the moment, but I’m very excited to write the sequel. Hopefully I’ll be able to make a start before the end of the year. Watch this space!
The Undercurrent centres on a teenage girl fighting a corporate 'climate villain'. Is the character of Yulia Sokolova inspired in any way by Greta Thunberg?
I hadn’t really thought about the similarities between Greta and Yulia before, to be honest. But now that you’ve brought it up, I certainly see them! I actually wrote the Prologue for The Undercurrent, which was originally written as a standalone short story, in April 2018, which was before anyone had heard of Greta Thunberg yet. Perhaps it is less of a pure coincidence, and more that the character of Yulia came out of my own perception of an increasingly climate-aware younger generation, of which Greta is a part.
Are you an optimist or a pessimist when it comes to the climate emergency? Will we succeed in staying below 2C?
I wouldn’t describe myself as an optimist or a pessimist when it comes to the climate crisis. I don’t think it’s pessimistic to say that we’re in for a very rough ride, and the scientific consensus seems to be that keeping warming below 2C is pretty unlikely. When you look at what some of the world’s most powerful people are doing and planning to do, it’s hard to be optimistic, and in any case misplaced optimism can be a barrier to action. My approach to the climate crisis is to accept the scale of the issue rather than deny it, to limit my own impact as much as possible, and to cherish the natural world every day and not take it for granted. I think that’s the most that the average person can do.
Your descriptions of arctic Russia and the Amazonian rainforest seem very convincing. How did you make them feel so real? Have you visited?
Thank you! I’ve heard it said that realistic descriptions of places are impossible unless you’ve been there, but I disagree. With the technology we have available to us now, it is possible to learn enough about a place – its geography, its sights, sounds and smells – to write about it vividly without having visited. I developed my own technique for writing about exotic locations that seems to work quite well. For example, during the section where Curtis Knight is trekking through the Amazon Rainforest, I heavily researched the area and its flora and fauna and watched a few video diaries where people were doing a similar trek. Something that really helped was listening to an audio track of rainforest sounds whilst I was writing – that really helps to get you in the right headspace! I recommend that technique to anyone writing about exotic places.
Is there actually such a thing as a Saccoglossans pyasinskii, the psychoactive sea slug in your story?
Sadly, no – the Saccoglossans pyasinskii is entirely fictional! Although there’s a really interesting, quite creepy coincidence behind it. I’ve mentioned that the prologue was originally a short story, and this story was inspired by a dream I had where some teenagers were using a sea slug to have psychoactive experiences whilst at a party. I have a lot of strange dreams! The coincidence is that a month later, I saw a Science News article about an experiment where memories had been transferred from one sea slug to another via an RNA injection. I honestly could not believe my eyes when I saw that story. Sea slugs are pretty strange creatures though, and if any creature were able to share memories with humans, my bet would be on sea slugs. There’s even a sea slug that can photosynthesise.
In your story the Saccoglossans represents the Earth reacting against man-made destruction of the planet. Do you think this might actually happen, and if so how?
I’ve had a pretty strong hunch for a while now that humans will only clean up their act when they’re forced to by circumstance. I wrote The Undercurrent before the COVID-19 outbreak, which scientists tell us was made much more likely by human encroachment into wildlife habitats. We’ve known for decades that we can’t keep despoiling the Earth without consequences, and COVID-19 is one such consequence. Extreme weather is another consequence, so we’re already experiencing ‘nature fighting back,’ although of course not in quite such a literal way as I portray in The Undercurrent.
Your villain plans to drill for oil in the Russian Arctic Ocean. Please tell us this isn't actually happening!
As Dmitry Sokolov points out in chapter four, there’s an estimated 35 trillion dollars’ worth of oil under the Arctic Ocean, north of Siberia. Obviously this is a lot of wealth, so there has been a fair amount of interest in it from oil companies over the years. When I began writing the novel, Gazprom (Russia’s biggest fossil fuel company) had already conducted a small drilling operation in the Pechora Sea, which is at the extreme south of the Arctic Ocean, but the technical difficulty of drilling further north had thus far prevented any major extraction.
Since completing the novel, the Russian government has – right on cue, I think – enacted huge plans to drill for Arctic oil. A combination of improved infrastructure, technology and a warming Arctic has finally made it a realistic proposition. Perhaps one of the scariest things about writing cli-fi is how quickly your fictions can become reality. It’s certainly something that people need to be aware of, now more than ever. I hope that in some small way, The Undercurrent helps to spread that message.
Any plans for further adventures for your heroes, Curtis Knight and Yulia Solokov?
I do plan to write at least one sequel to The Undercurrent, but I haven’t yet decided whether I want to keep Curtis and Yulia as main characters. There are many other places in the world that I want to explore through my writing, so I may find myself with a new cast of characters in a totally different part of the world. Perhaps Curtis and Yulia can make a cameo as world-renowned climate activists? It’s completely open at the moment, but I’m very excited to write the sequel. Hopefully I’ll be able to make a start before the end of the year. Watch this space!