Raq follows a loyal soldier of the Hlad race as he faces a crashed alien ship, a lone human survivor, and a truth so shattering it threatens everything he believes about his people and the universe itself. What inspired you to create the Hlad and their unique biology and culture?

Inspiration came from those stories you hear of “lost civilisations” being discovered, people who live in remote and secluded places, and their culture, customs, language, and entire lifestyle so utterly different from the “civilised” world. And vice versa. We always see the point of view from the so-called civilised, and rarely the other way around. Exploring that avenue, begged to be told. How does one communicate? Understand their ways? Those were questions I had. What would humans look like to aliens? When it came to their social structure, I decided to use animals and reptiles for behaviour and how the whole status hierarchy works. In most, the females are more dominant, and well, honestly, that was fun to exploit and expand on. Why not, right? And then developing a social structure where the females have more power and knowledge, well now, great fun to write! Creating an entirely new physiology for the Hlad required some wild imaginings. Using a replitilan base, mainly for the hardiness and adaptability to their harsh environment the story is set in, meant slapping together some wild mutations, but making sure each part of their crazy anatomy had a purpose, or not, through evolution.

Raq’s journey from certainty to doubt is so compelling. Was his arc fully mapped out from the beginning, or did it evolve as you wrote?

Yes. You get a glimpse of his uncertainty at the very beginning. I wanted him to be flexible enough so he would become more self-aware and open-minded. Accepting. And why not, right? It’s nice to have, with some effort, something hopeful happen. To know even the most extreme polar opposites of anything, can — with a little more knowledge, understanding, and acceptance — come to the middle ground to create something new and incredible. I mean, we only have to look at what’s happening in the world to draw more inspiration. I wanted Raq as if on one side of a coin he was one way, and on the other, a different way. But when you spin the coin, you get a whole picture…complete. The Raq that he becomes, so to speak. The same could also be said for the human, David.

The relationship between Raq and David develops slowly and believably. What challenges did you face in writing their communication barrier?

Tackling the language barrier was interesting, but doable. For one, I had my own experiences to draw from. My parents, being Japanese and living in an English-speaking country (in the late 1960s and onwards), encountered numerous difficulties navigating the language and customs, not to mention enduring some interesting issues by simply being different. Then, years later, as a young girl, we moved to Brazil, and the language barrier for me was overwhelming. As a 12-year-old, you pick up languages easily (maybe for me, as I was bilingual at the time, and you get an ear for it), but in the beginning, we might as well have been speaking an alien language. But in both cases, sign language was an almost universal first-choice method of communication. Using all of this, Raq took shape, with sign language as the initial way of communicating, and then the repetitive use of words until the meaning is clear, and then, the written language. The other examples I was able to draw from are actual animal behaviours. Just watching how, for example, dogs communicate with us. It’s all about observing the little things. The big and small body language and behaviours dogs make, the noises they make or don’t. Even how dogs communicate with other dogs. Of course, by the by, I also have lizards to observe — they’re regular visitors to my patio. The way they interact with their own, the fights they have, the turf wars to show their dominance, and then how they can remain so still for so long, just to catch a fly. So, yes. I simply observed all the creatures around me and went from there. I also tried to have some things that are universal, something both had in common. Even with animals and humans, emotional responses are the same: happiness, sadness, hunger, and terror. I used these core emotions so Raq and David could discover their likenesses as well as their differences.

David’s journal entries add depth to Earth’s past. What research or influences shaped the history you created?

Picturing a future Earth is exciting, with unlimited possibilities. At the rate humanity and technology are going, deep space exploration is fast approaching. For David’s history, we’re in an Earth timeline that is thousands of centuries away. Deep-space travel is the norm, and Earth, for now, has survived and endured unimaginable turmoils and mistakes, with disasters and wars, famines and diseases — the works! So in the 29th century, upon the discovery of a habitable planet, the Harbinger generation ship embarks, in search of a better place to live. Thousands of years later, Earth has become idyllic, and this is where David’s story begins, where he joins an expedition to search for the Harbinger and the lost colony on the distant planet. As for research, you only ever have to look back in history to see the great conquests and disasters, discoveries and mysteries. Then tweak it and place it in a futuristic context and let your imagination go wild!

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