Welcome again to the many worlds of science fiction and fantasy. This month, we will discuss a novel called SHUT UP, a story as strange as its name. It takes place in familiar space, on our own Earth and in orbit around the gas giant we know as Saturn. It is a blend of many genres, not just science fiction, which makes it a difficult book to classify. But it is an interesting tale. Let's look at it, and then visit with its creator, James J. Marry.

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The Nuts and Bolts: A Creator's View Interview with James J. Marry By Jo Rogers October 2001

Now, let's have a visit with Mr. Marry, and ask him some questions about his work.

Jo Rogers: Mr. Marry, you say that this story was taken from many of your own experiences. What actually triggered the idea for this series? Was it one thing or a combination of things?

James J. Marry: I have been writing fiction in many different guises since I was quite young as a form of escape from some rather dire conditions in my life. The "trigger" that set "Shut Up" to be fired off was that a very close and dear friend of mine was killed in a traffic accident. On that night, I lost three friends because I had introduced he and his girlfriend to the man who actually ran him over on that very night that he died. The girlfriend and the man who was responsible drifted away from me very quickly.

I was running a night club in Tarpon Springs very similar to Club A Go Go from the book, so a lot of my pain from the incident circled around alcohol and the bar. It became very difficult to not see my best friend around every corner or to take another drink in his name. I needed to vent some of that frustration in a positive way and writing the Casey Kowalski part of "Shut Up" gave me the avenue that I needed for that relief.

JR: You tell the story of Casey Kowalski in the first person. How much of the character is based on yourself, and how much on other people you know?

JJM: (a smile and a chuckle) I guess that I will never be able to get away with telling people that Casey is entirely fictional. I lived Casey's life pretty close to a "tee" for a good eight years and building the character with the martial arts and the honor that Casey exhibited, I can only say came quite simply. The friend who died in the accident was also named Danny, but he didn't ever employ me as a bar owner. He was the life of the party most of the time though.

Since writing "Shut Up" the two characters that I get asked about the most regarding that setting are Ramon and Jennifer. Ramon is definitely based on a real person- right down to the Puerto Rican Samoan look. He's watched my back for longer than anyone I ever knew. Jennifer, though modeled after one that got away, was more fictional in character.

J.R. What about the rest of your characters? Are they based on one person, or are they a conglomerate of people as most fictional characters are?

JJM: Many of my characters for "Shut Up" were created from the ground up. I realize that this means that there were some conglomerations to be be worked in, but I knew that to increase the mystery and suspense of the piece, it would be necessary to character base most of the fiction. I think this was a strong point for describing the novel as "a comic book written by Elmore Leonard and Arthur Clarke" since both authors elevated the level of their novels' intensity with a similar modus operandi. I wanted more caricature to my villains and I'm sure that they paint vivid images in the reader's imagination. I hope so anyway.

J.R. Now, please tell us about the location in Florida, where Casey Kowalski lived. Is it an area where you grew up? How did you become acquainted with it?

JJM: I grew up a Dead End kid from NYC. Really - no joke intended. You know - Chief, Satch, Whitey, Louie. I was pretty much on my own most of my adolescence. When I was out of High School, I intended to make it to college as easy as possible so I followed my parents to Holiday, Florida. That was 1977. Tarpon Springs is the largest city to the south (if you call it a city), New Port Richey to the north. Though I did spend a lot of the next twenty or so years traveling about with Air Force Special Operations, then some Naval reserve, plus a career in Daytona Beach - my home has always been in the West Florida area.

J.R. I noticed that the explosive used in the story was the same as the one used in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. This interested me, since I live in Oklahoma and had a friend who survived that blast. Why did you choose this particular explosive, other than its simplicity?

JJM: For reasons of simplicity almost entirely. I admit that many people are likely to correlate the two devices, but I needed to make Daniel's death a believable accident. I also don't think that most people realize the danger that might be in their very own sheds. If just one person reads my book and moves the diesel fuel from above the fertilizer, I think I'll feel mighty good about that. I needed the accident look anyway to allow a non-cop like Kowalski to get his butt into a lot more trouble anyhow.

J.R. The descriptions of Saturn and Titan evoked some strong images. Are you as well acquainted with the NASA website as it seems? How did you do your research on these heavenly bodies?

JJM: First, I must say "Thank You". I really did a lot of brain pickling when I went to Saturn with my story. Not only did I fall into good repute with the NASA site but I easily dogged six other support sites to the current Cassini Probe and astrophysicist pages. I never divulged my reasoning along side the questions though. They would have thought that I was nuts. Really - a larger part of my research intake revolved around the cataclysm in the earlier phase of the future story. I had very expressed limitations to operate within there and even more possible scenarios.

J.R. Why, particularly, did you choose Titan to play a role in this story? Why did you select Saturn?

JJM: The Saturn twist was fairly elementary in my thinking. I needed a reason for the station to be there and to be so large. I was attacking the story with a very broad brush regarding the vision I wanted my readers to take. But, I had to have a reason to take them to Saturn. I don't think that there is an American who can say they are not familiar with our energy crisis. We have all seen the results - rolling blackouts and line up rationing. Hydrogen would be a very good answer to rid us of this problem with exhaust and waste coming down to another necessary natural resource - water. I think most of the sci-fi guys out there might think Jupiter could serve the same goal and I wasn't really running from that possibility, but the Ringed Queen of the Solar System attracted me more - plus she didn't offer that nasty gravitational problem that Jupiter throws in the way.

Titan on the other hand served two purposes for me. I wanted some familiarity with the locale and Arthur C. Clarke already led the way with the 2001 sequel. Also, I needed to be able to set aside my secondary villain somewhere so that I could use the bad guy later. The Titan Exploratory station answered that as well as a staging ground for the other nefarious deeds that my bad guys needed to be up to.

J.R. What about the business operations around Saturn in the story? Where did that idea come from?

JJM: Well, to be honest - the idea comes from a strong seeded love of history. I was always fascinated at all of the things that I didn't realize about the Civil War and Napoleon's Russian Campaign and Hannibal's elephants. I liked the idea of dressing up something that most people didn't know about a commonly taught historical event. But, I thought that might be a touch too boring for me to write, so I turned the concept upside down. What if something happening today could be affecting the future 250 years in advance - like we know it damned well is - without any of us recognizing it? I mean, we know that Monica Lewinsky may actually affect history for maybe another week or two - but what about Joe Blow tripping over a curbside on Sunday at 2:00 in the afternoon? Isn't that just as likely to change history?

The cataclysm and man's survival begin the second part of the story. The business operation is a BIG development of that incident. The exposition comes from the journal of a nobody who saw the whole thing get touched off like a fuse to a powder keg.

J.R. You have five novels planned for the series. Will we see more of Casey Kowalski, or will we just go forward into the future from here on? How far into outer space and the future will you take us?

JJM: It may seem like a mission of unproportionate challenge, but I write a very socially aware story, I think, for a fairly vast audience. Many of the readers who have contacted me expected me to drop Casey off as the beginning to a story based in the future. I think that would cheapen the experience - at least for me it would. I insist that Casey learns more and develops as a character and that means that Marie HAS TO find a way to get her tough mitts on another journal by the guy. Luckily that was easy to work out since I planned out five separate stories before I finished the first one.

J.R. What is your opinion of space exploration? Do you envision space colonies and mining operations as useful or not worth the expense?

JJM: I truly hope that we can all see that we are using the Earth's reservoirs of natural resources at an alarming rate. Conservation is a must. But it won't do. Extreme right activists are always going to be able to make arguments that are sensible enough to demote Zero Population Growth - they may be right, they may be wrong. Regardless, we will need to find ways to support mankind. If the planet is getting short on supply and we can't create the resources we need then we have to get the stuff from somewhere. Where else but from up above? The fundamentalist view might even be that God put it all there so that we could use it.

J.R. When do you expect GO FIGURE to be finished?

JJM: GO FIGURE is being finished right now in fact. The rough version gets about 20-30 rewrites. I have to since I try to squeeze so much in to so few pages in layman's language. It should be a little longer though. Possibly 340 pages and I will be sending it around the blocks by the last week in October.

J.R. Will all of your novels explore a social issue, as did SHUT UP? I'll not divulge the name of the issue so as not to give away too much of the story.

JJM: There will inevitably be some social condition exposed by the GO FIGURE novel - possibly an even uglier one or two on a micro basis. The sensitivity that some have said comes with my work (not me, mind you) can only be explained by trained observation. Sure, some of that was from college and some of that was from everyday living. But I hope that a greater part of that comes from my experience writing things down and describing them.

The issues that a reader will see in my writing are much more internal to the reader than they are to me generally. Yes, I do try desperately to invoke those reader honed emotions, but if they were never there - I think they might slip by. Yes, I will definitely subscript the social issues again though. I have to.

Thank you so much, Mr. Marry, for taking the time to answer our questions. We look forward to reading your next novel, GO FIGURE.