Interview with Dan Wells

Title: Partials
Partials #1
Author: Dan Wells
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Release Date: February 28, 2012
Pages: 468

Blurb:
Humanity is all but extinguished after a war with partials—engineered organic beings identical to humans—has decimated the world’s population. Reduced to only tens of thousands by a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island. The threat of the partials is still imminent, but, worse, no baby has been born immune to the disease in over a decade. Humanity’s time is running out.

When sixteen-year-old Kira learns of her best friend’s pregnancy, she’s determined to find a solution. Then one rash decision forces Kira to flee her community with the unlikeliest of allies. As she tries desperately to save what is left of her race, she discovers that the survival of both humans and partials rests in her attempts to answer questions of the war’s origin that she never knew to ask.

Combining the fast-paced action of The Hunger Games with the provocative themes of Battlestar Galactica, Partials is a pulse-pounding journey into a world where the very concept of what it means to be human is in question—one where our sense of humanity is both our greatest liability, and our only hope for survival.

Interview

Kayla: Everyone that I know who has read Partials LOVES it, how does it feel to have Partials on the shelf's?

Dan: PARTIALS isn't actually my debut novel, but it's my first foray into real YA and it's a completely new experience. I really love the book, and seeing other people love it too is incredibly gratifying.

Kayla: How did you come up with the idea of Partials (really awesome idea by the way)?

Dan: It was a combination of a lot of things, all sort of percolating inside my head and then coming together in weird little combos I'd never expected. The short version is that I've always been a fan of post-apocalypse stories, and when I combined that with the idea of genetic engineering--both for the plague and the Partials themselves--I realized I was on to something exciting. It grew pretty rapidly from there.

Kayla: Are you working any upcoming projects? If so, could you tell us a little about it/them?

Dan: I have a cool supernatural thriller coming out this summer, in July, called THE HOLLOW CITY. It's about a man with schizophrenia who realizes that some of the monsters he sees are real. It's kind of like my Philip K. Dick novel, if I can say that without sounding arrogant; my chance to play around with reality and identity and a constant redefining of what means what.

Kayla: Did anything in "Partials" take you by surprise?

Dan: I was not expecting Kira's group of friends to be as interesting as they became. I knew I needed some of them, like Marcus and Madison, for plot reasons, but the others kind of grew from these utilitarian little bits of set dressing into some of my favorite parts of the book. Xochi and Isolde and Haru, and especially Jayden, all started mostly because the other characters needed someon to talk to, and they had such interesting things to say that I kept talking to them, and listening to them, until they practically took over some parts of the story.

Kayla: What do you think of the whole social networking community (twitter, facebook, and bloggers)?

Dan: I love it, though the 'rules' of the online YA community are a little different than I'm used to, and I'm still figuring them out. It's a fantastic community, and I love the way they've embraced PARTIALS, and in the process they've introduced me to so many other books.

Kayla: What does your daily schedule usually consist of?

Dan: Wake up, send the kids to school, check my email, get dressed, go somewhere to write (usually my friend's house, because mine is full of kids), and work as long as I can. After dinner and putting kids to bed, I watch Netflix and play board games and read.

Kayla: Do you have to have a consistent place where and when you write or do you write anytime and anywhere?

Dan: I like having big blocks of time, but I can take them pretty much everywhere I am. I wrote a chapter of PARTIALS 2 while on the plane touring with PARTIALS.

Kayla: If you could say anything to your readers/fans, what would you say?

Dan: Get out of your comfort zone. Read a book outside your normal genre; watch a documentary about something you know nothing about; order something in a restaurant you've never eaten before. The world is so big and so full of amazing stuff, statistically speaking your favorite things are things you haven't even tried yet.

Kayla: Who is your writing inspiration?

Dan: AA Milne, Frank Herbert, and Victor Hugo. That's a weird combination of influences, I know, but here you go.

Kayla: Which do you like better, physical books or digital books and why?

Dan: I still give the edge to physical books, though I love ebooks, mostly because I try to set the example for my kids. If they see me on the iPad, half the time they assume I'm playing a video game, but when they see me with a book they know I'm reading. So far I've successfully passed on my love of reading to two of my five children; when the younger ones are old enough to read they'll already know that reading is cool and important because they see Dad doing it all the time.

Dan was born at a young age, killed a man in Reno just to watch him die, and ate the last mango in paris. Then he wrote this book.

Find Dan Here:
Goodreads
Website
Twitter

-Thanks so much Dan for taking the time to answer my questions, and for Chersti Nieveen for getting back to me so fast!