Welcome to our first ScienceFiction Book of the Month!
April 22nd is Earth Day and to celebrate, we have chosen to feature a story from the little known subgenre of Earthpunk.
What is Earthpunk you ask? "What we know is that, within Earthpunk, mankind is NOT the hero! Not, either, the main character. Earth is! Earth becomes the rebel fighting against the establishment and oppression of humanity. Nature leads her troops of fauna and flora to regain control and autonomy of her territory: the planet." Angerbda
In her story, The Bones Below, humankind has long since perished. All that remains are ruined buildings, asphalt and bones, which weave their way as part of the natural environment through the story.
The heroine of this tale is Kip, a half-blind red vixen, fighting for her survival and that of her two cubs. We follow her life from the days when she was a cub herself fleeing from a forest fire, to her adventures with Fell, her mate and father of her two cubs, and their war with a harpy eagle.
Full of danger and violence, this is not a sweet or sentimental story, though there are certainly some sweet moments between Kip and her family.
It takes skill and knowledge to write successfully from an animal's point of view and K. Graves demonstrates this admirably in The Bones Below.
Shortlisted for the Open Novella Contest in 2023, this is a story worth reading!
Good morning everyone, Hal here, representing the ScienceFiction team today.
Do you want to play a game? Only kidding!
Today we have an Interview with K. Graves (author of our Book of the Month, The Bones Below. This story is the closest example we could find of our feature month sub-genre, Earthpunk, where Earth itself becomes the rebel, fighting against humanity. There are no live humans in this story.)
Hal: Firstly, can you tell us a little about your non-wattpad life?
K: Hello! I'm K. Graves. I'm 30 years old and have a BFA in graphic design. I had many design and marketing positions in different industries over the years such as hospitality, outdoor recreation, home building, and currently the tire repair industry. It's more fun than it sounds, I promise. When I'm not writing, I'm obsessively drawing my characters, reading (just started Fourth Wing), and bothering my two cats, Moki and Willow.
Hal: What drew you to Wattpad?
K: Almost five years ago, I posted my very first endeavor into creative writing (a meandering 180k-word monstrosity) to Wattpad. I was sooo proud of that mess. I've since deleted that terrible book (and no one will ever see it again!), but the feedback I got on it and the people I've met here have taught me so much as a writer. I've tried posting on other writing websites, but Wattpad's been the only one that stuck for me because of the community here. :) I love being able to interact with other writers and readers, and I think that's what makes Wattpad stand out to me.
Hal: Moving on to your writing, do you consider yourself a 'plotser' or a 'pantser'?
K: Oh, I'm 99% a plotser. I like to plan a whole story chapter by chapter before writing it. If I don't know what happens next in a story, I lose interest in writing it. Although, plot-wise, even if you plan a story beat by beat, happy little surprises can happen and you just gotta roll with them, haha.
Hal: I see your story, The Bones Below, made it to the Open Novella Contest Short List last year. How was that experience for you?
K: It was very unexpected, haha! I'd participated in ONC for the first time the year before and didn't place on any lists at all, and I was definitely not expecting to make the shortlist this time, especially not with a weird little story like "Bones" that I barely even finished before the deadline. I was happy to see a bunch of writers I admire on the shortlist, too!
Hal: What drew you to writing a story without human characters?
K: One of my previous stories, "Marvela Mystic," features a protagonist who's a tiny magical kitten, and I discovered that writing from an animal's POV was pretty fun. It was a fun challenge to retain a non-human character's animalistic nature and behavior, but also make them human enough for readers to empathize with. For "Bones," I wanted to create a story that was a lot less cutesy than "Marvela," and I was heavily inspired by "Watership Down," my favorite book since I was a kid and I always wanted to write my own story about survival. I picked foxes to write about because...foxes are cute. (The Warrior Cats series by Erin Hunter as well as the Wolf's Rain anime were other influences for Bones).
Hal: And what's next in the pipeline for you?
K: I'm currently working on a series about ghosts with cool glowy swords that fight giant spider-like monsters in the realm of the dead. It's a completely self-indulgent series that I'm having tons of fun with! The first book, "The Dark Between Dreams," is completed, with the second book being completed offline at the moment. After that? Who knows! Maybe I'll expand the Bones universe with a sequel, but with a different animal species as protagonists. An Earth absent of humans is an interesting place to explore.
Hal: - Well that wraps it up for today! Thank you for coming in and chatting to us here at ScienceFiction.
