Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Sabitha: We have one of our Night Beats family here, Rohan O’Duill. Full disclosure—I’ve read Cold Rush and I absolutely love it. So of course we have him on the blog to tell us about his science fiction novella! 

Rohan: Cold Rising is told from the point of view of two characters. The first, Olgo, is a special agent tasked with improving the working conditions in the Martian underground metropolis. Olgo sees this mission as a stepping stone in their career and has little interest in the plight of the Martian people. The second main character, Suong, is a 12-year-old girl who works in a clothing company on Mars. After the two end up on the wrong side of the local cartel, they must work as a team to escape the caverns and what lurks there. 

Sabitha: As I understand it, the Cold Rush Novellas are not a traditional series—they’re a collection of stories set in the same time and place. How does Cold Rising relate to your larger universe and will we meet these characters again?

Rohan: Some of my friends would suggest that I never make life easy for myself, and the Cold Rush Novellas may be proof of that. I initially tried to put all of Cold Rush in one book, but that many POVs and storylines didn’t fit properly. I spent a long time playing around with the format and eventually landed on the idea of telling the story through interconnecting standalone novellas. I was careful not to fall into the Marvel trap where you have to have read 30 other books to get what’s going on in each one. Hopefully, I have created something that stands on its own feet while adding depth if you have read the other stories.

The next two novellas are complete and will not feature the main characters from Cold Rising, but Olgo and Suong will appear again in later novellas.

Sabitha: Having read several works in your universe, Olgo is by far my favourite of your characters. How did you conceive of them, and what was your process to make them such a compelling personality?

Rohan: I really enjoyed writing Olgo’s character even though Olgo’s backstory is not a happy one. They use an emotional control device to block the mysterious trauma they experienced as a child. The upside of the device is that it makes them an extremely effective and driven special agent. But they have limited battery life on the device, and when shit hits the fan on Mars they have to deal with the most trying conditions of their life. Olgo is forced to go through a major transformation to survive the pits of Mars. 

I think what makes Olgo stand out as a character is their uncomplicated, straight-talking view of their surroundings. They constantly make droll observations about human shortcomings while still being aware of how they are a pawn in a bigger game.

Sabitha: Hard sci-fi and Golden Age science fiction is a clear influence on your writing. These genres often star characters who are important explorers, scientists, and military and political leaders. In Cold Rush, you focused instead on the labour conditions of ordinary workers. Why do you think these stories are so important to tell?

Rohan: I think Golden Age sci-fi had a big influence on my life, never mind my writing. I grew up in a very conservative Catholic Ireland where I felt like an outsider. Finding the science fiction section in my library opened up a whole new world to me. I had no one to discuss these books with. Nobody I knew liked anything like this. So the books themselves were my companions. My first glimpse of a bigger, more diverse world came through these novels. And while these books didn’t talk directly about real world topics, they made comparisons and used fictional scenarios to examine genuine issues.

This is what I tried to do in Cold Rising—calling out our own hypocrisy in consuming products from countries with terrible working conditions and human rights abuses. As long as we can buy a steady stream of cheap goods, we turn a blind eye. Fiction can play a powerful role in reminding people about the woes of our world. I also think that pointing out these issues while telling an entertaining story can be more effective than slapping someone in the face with the facts.

Sabitha: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?

Rohan: You can find my book here. You can find me through Night Beats and through Lower Decks Press. For now I’m still on Twitter, but I’ve also joined Blue Sky. And I’m on Instagram.