If you aren't familiar with Will McIntosh, he isn't surprised.  Like many authors, Will is happy just to have a writing career and thankful for the opportunities his readers provide, even if his name isn't well known. But given the quality of his previous work and a new young adult science fiction series in development (The first novel, Burning Midnight, is scheduled for 2016), don't be surprised if you start hearing his name more often. 

Dr. McIntosh has a PhD in social psychology and teaches part-time at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. He has four novels in print, with his latest, Defenders, hitting shelves this past May. Between these and the 48 short stories listed on his web page (six of which are available via the Six by Six anthology on Kickstarter), several translated and reprinted for Europe and Russia, you shouldn't run out of options if you decide to give his work a try.

But you should know his short story "Bridesicle" won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story and also the Asimov's Reader Poll in 2010. It was also a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Short Story that same year. His short version of "Soft Apocalypse" was a finalist in 2005 for both the British Science Fiction and British Fantasy Awards. 

Both stories have been developed into novels. Soft Apocalypse, his first novel, shares the same name as the short story. “Bridesicle” has been developed into the dystopian love story (filled with corpses, as one friend told him) that is Love Minus Eighty. Both are excellent novels and Soft Apocalypse quickly moved into my top ten favorites, even if it is an uncomfortable read when considering the current climate debate raging in America (but not the rest of the world, it would seem).

Discovering he lives just an hour away from my home in Richmond, Virginia, I asked for an opportunity to interview Dr. McIntosh and, after a summer of email exchanges, we set a date. As my first author interview, I was very interested in getting his perspective on current and future events.

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Hooks and influences
Our conversation started with Dr. McIntosh’s interest in science fiction. It turns out this interest started with a giant ape at a time when he was very impressionable. "I started young, around 4." He was on an errand to the cleaners with his grandfather when he saw the original King Kong on TV and wanted to go home to finish the film. He's been a fan of the genre ever since, telling me "Around 60% of what I read today falls into that genre, with some fantasy as well."

Naturally, I wanted to know his favorite authors and influences and he gave me three names we don’t associate with science fiction: Richard Russo, the Pulitzer Prize winner of Empire Falls; Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity; and Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides. An interesting selection, considering so many genre authors often name the greats of their genre, and a good practice to step outside for different influences.

From there, we moved onto his influences, which are also very mainstream - "I'm not into hard science fiction" being the explanation. Instead, articles from The New York Times and The Atlantic offer current events with hints at details of tomorrow. Dr. McIntosh even provided a sample of the types of articles that catch his interest, like the recent discovery that a transfusion of blood from a young mouse in an old mouse can reverse aging. His take? "Look at all of these educated, unemployed youth and these wealthy older people. It just seems like a situation that could be abused."

Finally, Dr. McIntosh mentioned James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century, which helped him develop an understanding of the issues central to Soft Apocalypse. With some knowledge of his background and influences, we moved onto his views of the future.

Fear and dystopia
All three of Dr. McIntosh's science fiction novels are clearly dystopian. In his three science fiction novels we have the broken society of Love Minus Eighty, the broken everything of Soft Apocalypse, and the alien dominated landscape of Defenders all representing humanity under stress.

As good dystopian literature should, these tales connect with our negative bias to serve as a warning, sometimes shining a light onto current issues and events such as those leading up to Soft Apocalypse or something subtler, such as where massive inequality can lead to the abuse of a life-saving advancement in "Bridesicle". So I had to ask where they come from: Is there a fear that brings out the dystopian landscape? Does he have a specific warning?

"I suppose that has to be the case, although I don't see myself as a pessimist, but as a realist. I just don't see good things coming. Not an apocalypse, but not good. Looking around the world, we have whole groups of people already living in a dystopia." Is there a specific message in these futures? "Not a statement, I want to tell a story." But it felt like there was a statement there, and it came out a bit later. "I have hope for the individual. Great respect for many. Not a lot of hope for the larger society." 

This opinion seemed to bleed over into a broader view of the trend in science fiction to represent technology as a solution. "I don't care for technological utopias. We don't live in an egalitarian society today, so why would that be our future? Some people are living in the 1950's." All good points, especially in light of the recent Ebola epidemic, with how different countries either struggled or quickly dealt with the outbreak – all based on their modern infrastructure. But if utopias tend to be unbelievable, how should we view dystopias? How would we envision them? That answer was simple and also reflected our current times - "When people ask my favorite dystopia, I tell them its North Korea."

Looking ahead
More and more, I see articles describing how early we are in the exponential change from ongoing advancements. It appears to be accepted the next 25 years will herald much more change than the past 100 have provided. And the 25 after that will dwarf the changes we will experience in the near future.

I wondered if working as a science fiction writer is a benefit to responding to change. "They (events) won't surprise me. They're lightning fast, but it doesn't feel that way to people. People seem to adjust. It wasn't that long ago we didn't have smartphones and now everyone just uses them." 

Knowing we are both parents and Dr. McIntosh has written successfully both before and after his children were born, I also wondered if being a parent changed his viewpoints and made him more engaged. "Yes. It (being a parent) hasn't changed my guesses, but I am more concerned about it. I might live to 2050 or 2060 if I'm lucky. My children should see 2100."

I asked how clearly he believes we can imagine the world our children will experience at the end of this century. Dr. McIntosh had two thoughts.  "There will be so much change in the next 25 years I don't think we can really understand what the future will be like." Then how do we forecast? “Because we (humans) don’t change that much.”

For me, this part of the interview was the most enlightening. It’s true, we can’t forecast a complete view of the future. Most of the best work from the most noted science fiction authors hold, at best, bits and pieces we later discover were extremely accurate. But when we forecast new ideas, whether to develop a plot or to problem solve, it is our humanity that remains static.

Preparing for tomorrow
Given my interests, I asked Dr. McIntosh if he had any advice for young futurists – specifically on how they might prepare for change. "I don't know if they need advice. Science fiction, fiction and non-fiction is converging. Growing up, science fiction was niche. Today, it's near future. Not the ridiculous H.G. Wells or Steampunk stuff, the near future is predicting in a well-informed way."

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With our hour up, I took the thoughts he shared to historic Williamsburg and walked around contrasting the future with the past. Over a traditional colonial lunch (a chicken pot pie), I watched the serving staff perform their job in period clothing and a British violin player work the tavern, and spent my time considering Dr. McIntosh’s view that we humans don't change very much. We adapt quite well to extraordinary circumstances, but our internal processes don't shift that far away from our evolutionary heritage. Our choices reflect the strengths and weaknesses we brought with us from the forests and deserts and grasslands. That, I felt, was my lesson on the future for the day and one we might all consider.

I would like to thank Dr. McIntosh for his time and providing an opportunity for a first time interviewer. Please check out our reviews of his novels Love Minus Eighty and Soft Apocalypse. Both are excellent reads and I cannot recommend Soft Apocalypse enough. It is an outstanding look at our day-to-day lives in the future if climate change begins the downward spiral many experts project.

Through the end of December, Will is part of a Kickstarter anthology featuring six short stories by six different authors. For $13 ($15 when those deals run out), you receive digital copies of all 36 stories. There are also special rewards at various levels.