“Shadows of the Past” follows a disillusioned soldier and a radio engineer as they uncover dangerous secrets in an alternate WWI shaped by humanity’s survival of a Martian invasion and its dependence on alien technology. What inspired you to explore the aftermath of H.G. Wells’s Martian invasion?

Back in 2019, I was researching my grandfather’s story. The short version is that he was a reluctant hero on the German side of World War I, clashed with proto-Nazis during the turbulent Weimar period after the war, and eventually fled to the U.S. after an attempt on his life. He even had a couple of violent encounters with the Bund in New York City. His story turned out to be way too important and just plain much for a first book.

But I spent a lot of time thinking about World War I while I was doing my research.  We generally think of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand as “starting” the war, but that event was a more like a match carelessly tossed into a powder keg than an inciting event. If Gavrilo Princip hadn’t killed the Archduke, something else would have set it off.

At some point while I was reading about the Somme, I came across a worn copy of the War of the Worlds. What would you get if you crossed the Martian Walkers with the trenches of World War I? 

Suddenly I had to answer that question.

I reread the original story and doing that raised another question. The story ends with the Martians dying on the battlefield because of Earth’s microbes. What happened to all that alien hardware? How did the invasion, combined with a windfall of new technology, change history?

How did you approach blending authentic World War I military history with salvaged Martian technology while keeping the altered world believable?​

I have a background in technology, and that came in handy. I enlisted in the Army after high school and served as a radar repairman for two enlistments in the 1980s. When I started training in 1982, the radars still used technology from the 1950s, like vacuum tubes, analog spectrum analyzers, ferrite core memory. Then, after I was deployed to Germany the Army deployed newer versions that introduced microprocessors, solid state power supplies, and a host of other improvements. I was lucky enough to learn about technology from two very different eras. 

The trick was to show how access to martian technology would have changed the past without info dumping or boring the average reader. My initial draft had a lot more detail on the tech, especially in the chapters with James. I ended up cutting a bit after receiving feedback from people less interested in tech than I am.

Emil becomes increasingly frustrated by humanity’s use of alien weapons; how does his experience with the original invasion shape his understanding of war and loyalty?​

As much as I am a tech and science fiction fan, it was always apparent to me that the emotional impact of the invasion was the most important part of the story. Emil lost a lot during the first invasion, and it colors how he sees the world. But, he was also a draft age man when the war broke out, so he had to either go to war or face prison or execution. This led to an inevitable conflict between his beliefs and his duties.

The German Army’s war crimes in Belgium during World War I are very well-documented. So, having them use the Black Smoke on the battlefield with no regard for who it kills was hardly a stretch. Emil experiences this firsthand and his response gets him in big trouble with his military leadership, and he comes very close to being executed anyway.

James’s work with Thomas Edison places him at the intersection of scientific discovery and political intrigue; what did you want his storyline to reveal about technological progress and responsibility?​

Scientist and engineers want to view their work as this isolated, morally neutral thing. But it never is, not when political and economic forces inevitably end up in charge. James is shocked and resentful when he sees what the Marines did with “his” radio station. But it never was his. It was Edison’s, until the government decided it was theirs. Neither of them had any input into how the government decided to use it. 

And of course, the government didn’t have much control over it either.

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