James Rollins: Great author, great books, great interview. Yep, he's got the write stuff.

He’s become one of our favorite authors.
James Rollins packs scientific fact, history, weird creatures (like the piranha-frog, “a mutated cross between a flesh-eating piranha and the poisonous dart frog”) and high-octane (mis)adventures in every one of his books . . . Some titles include Sandstorm, Map of Bones, Black Order and The Judas Strain. He’s recently penned his first “kiddie” book, Jake Ransom and the Skull King's Shadow.
     And every book gets better than the last.
     We were surprised (and flattered) that he sent us an email thanking us for writing such flattering reviews (hey, we call ’em as we see  ’em) and to see that he quoted our review of The Last Oracle on the back cover of his latest tome, The Doomsday Key (HarperCollins, $27.99).
     Our quote? “Go out and buy James Rollins’ latest saga. He just keeps getting better and better.”
     We said it once and we’ll say it again: He seems to be positioning himself as the Ian Fleming of the new millennium. If the genius is in the details, this author certainly covers all the bases. And then some.
      Rollins doesn't write just what could be called sci-fi or speculative fiction; he writes adventure novels in the spirit of H. Ryder Haggard or Robert Louis Stevenson, and he writes them with a modern flare and an eye towards tomorrow’s headlines. There are any number of refreshing things about his books—their lack of pretension, the ease in which the author introduces outrageous plot complications and a large cast of very idiosyncratic characters. But perhaps the most fun and endearing part of his books, and they get better with each new one, is the obvious fun the author has writing them. There is a sense of wonder at the world, and, almost, a surprise at his ability to pull off the exciting, edge-of-your-seat scenes that is at odds with the competition. No jaded, formulaic, drugstore rack hack here, but a young author who is a great read, and, hopefully, has 80 or a 100 more books in him for us to enjoy.
      Here, Rollins, a former veterinarian (he sold his practice after selling his first two books, though he says he works monthly a at “spay-and-neuter clinic at the local animal shelter here in Sacramento”) , unlocks chats about his latest sags, The Doomsday Key.

First things first: How on earth did a vet start writing thrillers?
I blame my mother. She read while I was growing up, so I read. And that’s where all the insanity started.  Reading was like throwing gasoline on the fire of an overactive imagination. Growing up with three brothers and three sisters, I was the storyteller of the family . . .. what my mother called ‘The Liar.’
     Fiction writing was in my blood from a very young age, but I never considered writing as a real career. I thought you had to have some literary pedigree to be a successful author, the son of Hemingway or Fitzgerald. So instead, I turned to my other passion for a career in veterinary medicine. But I made one mistake---I continued to read, and that little twisted corner of my imagination never fully died away.
     Eventually I began to write. My clients would ask me all the time, 'So, Dr. Jim, why aren’t you writing something like James Herriott, something like All Creatures Great and Small?' My answer was simple: not enough people die in those novels. I wanted adventures and thrills. I was working 14 hours a day as a vet; I didn’t want to go home and write about a vet. So instead I wrote about historical mysteries, scientific intrigue and adventures set in exotic locales. I basically let that twisted corner of my imagination loose on the world. Sorry about that.

Many of your books are based on facts pulled from the news or scientific journals—what inspired The Doomsday Key?
Whenever I start a novel, I’m always looking for two things: a bit of science that makes me go “what if?” and a piece of history that ends in a question mark. In this book’s case, the bit of history involves a mystery surrounding the people who actually built Stonehenge and the hundreds of other Neolithic stone rings that dot northern Europe. I came upon an astounding new theory that is incorporated into this book, but to tell you more would ruin the surprises.
     As to the science, it cuts to the core of a hot debate, one centered on the use of genetically-modified foods and the corporate war going on to gain patents and control of the world’s food supply. To give you some hint of the power behind this, I’ll refer you to a fateful quote from Henry Kissinger. “Control oil and you control nations, but control food and you control all the people of the world.”
You open the novel with a terrifying reference to the prophecies of the popes which loosely predicts that the current pope, Benedict, is the next to the last pope and that the next pope will oversee the world’s end. Can you tell us a little bit more about these prophecies?
During the 12th-century, an Irish Catholic priest named Saint Malachy had a doomsday vision while on a pilgrimage to Rome. In that trance, he was given knowledge of all the popes who would come until the end of the world. This grand accounting—a cryptic description of 112 popes—was recorded and safeguarded in the Vatican archives.
     Over the centuries, the descriptions of each pope in that book have proved to be oddly accurate—up to and including the current head of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI. In Saint Malachy’s prophecy, the current pope is listed as De Gloria Olivae, the Glory of the Olives. And the Benedictine Order, from which the pope took his name, does indeed bear the olive branch as its symbol. But most disturbing of all, Pope Benedict XVI is the 111th pope. And according to this oddly accurate prophecy, the world ends with the very next one. Could this be true? Only time will tell.

The book mentions a very secretive and elite organization, The Club of Rome, whose major concern is human overpopulation. Does this organization really exist? And are their theories about overpopulation something we should be taking more seriously?
The Club of Rome is a real organization, a global think tank of scientists, politicians, economists and business leaders. It formed during the ’60s and continues to this day. Their mission is to offer a global perspective on current world crises, specifically those related to environmental issues. In 1972, they came out with a report titled Limits to Growth, where they proved that population growth would inevitably outstrip the world’s ability to produce food. Once that happened, their computer models predicted annihilation of 90% of the world’s population as a result of starvation, disease, war, and chaos. This model has been tested by more modern methodology with the same results.

How soon will we reach that point?
You only have to watch the recent food riots around the world to know we’re at that brink already. Can it be stopped? Or are we too late? In The Doomsday Key, I offer a solution--- if we’re brave enough to face it.

One of the major consequences of overpopulation is food shortage and mass starvation. As a solution many companies have begun to develop genetically modified food that would greatly increase the food supply. What drew your attention to this subject and how real a threat is mass starvation?
The threat is real and it’s as current as today’s headlines. The world’s population is growing exponentially, while our ability to produce food is only growing arithmetically. We’re already at that tipping point. By United Nation estimates, over one billion people are currently starving worldwide. The introduction of genetically-modified food—corn that produces its own herbicide, soybeans that can be grown with less water—has definitely helped produce greater yields. In fact, it has helped offset this impending crisis, but for how long and at what cost?
     Currently, there is very little regulation when it comes to genetically-modified crops. For example, of the forty genetically-modified crops approved last year, only eight have published safety studies. Genetically-modified crops are a billion-dollar-a-year industry, and as we’ve seen with the current banking crisis, a lack of regulation opens the way for greed to overwhelm common sense. So it raises the question: What might happen to our nation’s food supply when corporations control it? Most frightening of all, it’s already happening---presently in the United States, 75% of corn grown in America is genetically modified.      So we’re already there.

And so scientists are working to engineer perfect crops that aren’t affected by Mother Nature. Can humans really create what nature has already done so perfectly?
We’d like to think so, but there continue to be concerns about what mankind will create in the name of science, especially with the lack of regulation in this industry. For example, in 2001, a biotech company called Epicyte developed a corn seed engineered with a contraceptive agent. Consumption of the seed lessened fertility. How might that be misused? What other abuses are already being engineered in secret? And once unleashed into the environment, can it be stopped?

In one of the more eye-opening plotlines in The Doomsday Key, you explain how some genetically modified crops are invading natural crops and changing their molecular structure. What are the ramifications of this phenomenon?
It’s one of the greatest environmental risks with genetically-modified crops. Pollen migration and genetic contamination are a real threat. Pollen from genetically-modified crops blows in the winds and gets washed into neighboring fields. Some seeds have been found growing as far away as 30 miles. And as native species mix with engineered ones, new hybrids arise. One study states that 67% of U.S. farmland is currently contaminated with genetically-modified plants.
     In 2000, a genetically-modified  corn called StarLink—a corn not approved for human consumption—ended up contaminating more than 300 food products across the country. It was suspected of triggering allergic reactions and resulted in a massive recall; the Kellogg Company had to close its production line for two weeks just to clean out the contamination, requiring a government bailout of the industry. So when it comes to playing with Mother Nature, any mistakes could have dire consequences.

You’re a veterinarian and you have a pretty great sense of humor---your books tend to feature spooky critters, whether it’s a man-eating squid, toothy grendels or flesh-eating swarms of frogs . What killer creature did you mastermind for Doomsday?
I feature some sturdy ponies out of England called Fell Ponies, whose lineage goes back to before the Vikings. I also highlight a unique means of defense that protects the security of the Doomsday Vault in Norway: namely roaming bands of polar bears. This little detail, by the way, is true. The vault—more formally known as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault—is basically a Noah’s Ark for seeds. The vault is located above the Arctic Circle on a remote island of Norway, buried five hundred feet under a mountain. It houses and protects millions of seeds against a global disaster: war, pestilence, nuclear attack, earthquakes, even climate change. It was because of this reason the seed bank earned its nickname the “Doomsday Vault.”

Readers love the scientific gems you sprinkle through your books. What was the most interesting topic you cam across for this book?
That’s simple. In fact, I open the book with this fact. During the years from 2006 to 2008, one-third of all honeybees in the United States vanished. Thriving hives were suddenly found empty, as if the bees simply flew away and never returned. The condition earned the nickname Colony Collapse Disorder. This massive and mysterious loss generated sensational headlines and fears. So what truly happened to the bees? With the pages of the book lies an answer . . .  and most frightening of all, it’s true.

As a man of science with deeply-rooted spiritual beliefs, how did you grapple with the faith vs. science controversy that is woven into the very core of this novel?
Going back to the time of Galileo, science and religion seem to be at odds, drawing lines in the sand that dared not be crossed. And I think this divide has grown wider and deeper as of late. But I think it’s high time this gap be filled in with common sense, something sorely lacking in much of today’s debates.
      The hope for our nation and our world lies within our ability to innovate and move forward technologically. We’ve been losing ground, as test scores in science and math have dropped precipitously. It’s time for knowledge, exploration, and scientific inquiry to be respected and nurtured in this next generation.
      But that said, it does not mean we go blindly forward without considering consequences. The dangers of rampant technology and unregulated science are featured predominantly in my novels. But it’s not the cogs and gears that make for a great story, it’s the way these questions test our morality and our mettle as a society. There must be balance. Some of mankind’s greatest innovators and scientists have been people of deep faith. The two are not mutually exclusive. There is common ground and it’s called common sense.

The Doomsday Key is laced with information about ancient symbols; how did you research the origin of symbols—in particular the Celtic Cross, and what importance do they hold?
I explore the manner in which symbols change and transmute over time, borrowed from one civilization to another. For example, there is an intriguing and startling analysis of the history of the Celtic Cross that came from a book The Golden Thread of Time. It sets up a strong and compelling case that this unusual form of the Christian cross might actually have its roots as an ancient surveying tool, one used to build the pyramids of Egypt and to engineer the precise alignment of ancient stone rings of Britain. I love dabbling with such concepts, where the ancient and the modern blur together.

Every writer asks: How do you handle a writer’s block?
The wry answer: With two books a year to complete, I don't have time for writer's block. But more seriously, when a story begins to bog down and I feel blocked, something is intrinsically wrong with the scene or character or point of view I’m working on and I have to backtrack and search for where the story had gone astray and edit things back into proper alignment. Once I correct that error, the story flows with more vigor again and we’re off and running.
      I do have certain code that I attempt to stick to: write every day, read every day. I am fairly regimented in my writing: I get up and go immediately to the computer. I will write for two hours, then I take a two-hour break, then back again for two hours. Then I print up what I wrote and hand-edit it in the evening, giving it a polish, then enter those edits, so I can start fresh the next day. I’ll do this 5-6 days a weeks.