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Fanboy Comics Interviews Samit Basu (‘Turbulence’) on His Latest Book, ‘Resistance’

The following is an interview with Samit Basu, writer of the superhero novel, Turbulence, and its recent sequel, Resistance. In this interview, Fanboy Comics Managing Editor Barbra Dillon chats with Basu about where readers will pick up in the sequel following the events of Turbulence, his inspiration for continuing the story, and the multitude of upcoming projects on his to-do list.

This interview was conducted on July 15, 2014.

Barbra Dillon, Fanboy Comics Managing Editor: Congratulations on the upcoming release of your new novel, Resistance! As the sequel to your book, Turbulence, does the story begin immediately following the events of the last book?

Samit Basu: Thank you! It’s a pleasure to be back on your lovely site. Resistance doesn’t begin immediately after Turbulence. It’s set 11 years after the events of Turbulence, in 2020, in a world where supers are in charge of pretty much everything.

BD: What was your motivation for writing the sequel, and did you have Resistance in mind while you were writing Turbulence?

SB: Turbulence was written as a standalone book, and I wanted to make Resistance one, as well – but I don’t really know if it is, since a lot of the characters from Turbulence are in it, and it’s been great fun for me to track their lives over the years in between the books. But, one of the reviews of Resistance says it works standalone, so maybe it does – impossible for me to tell, really.

There’s always motivation to write a sequel to a book you enjoyed writing, and I had a brilliant time writing Turbulence – as a writer, there’s nothing as fun as sinking back into a familiar world, poking around, and finding new ways to look at it. Also, I wanted to write something that was the opposite of Turbulence in many ways – in Turbulence, the new supers are mostly on the run, the hunted minority, so to speak, but in Resistance it’s the supers in charge, and normal humans who have to figure out what their role in the world is. So, to oversimplify greatly, Turbulence was the X-Men book and Resistance is the Authority book.

BD: Was there a sense of familiarity in returning to the same world of your creation, and did that prove to be more beneficial or challenging in your writing process?

SB: Absolutely, and that familiarity is both a challenge and an opportunity. I tried to set Turbulence in places I had physically visited – I think every scene, except the one set in the sky above the nuclear lab in Pakistan, is set in place I have been to, and it was very interesting to write something where you essentially add a layer over real places – Augmented Reality, let’s say. Resistance is set in a world I’ve made up, our world, but in a future that’s ruled by superheroes, so it’s set all over the place, and it was fantastic to create new cities, to imagine the great cities of the world in a superhero-filled future, so it was a very different writing experience from Turbulence, yet at the same time more familiar because all my other books before Turbulence were set in created worlds – that’s more Virtual Reality, right? As you can see, I’m getting as much enjoyment as I possibly can in the telling of this story.

BD: Do you feel that it would be possible for readers new to the series to begin with Resistance, or would you suggest starting with Turbulence?

SB: I would suggest starting with Turbulence, but I’m very curious about the experience of reading Resistance first, so I hope readers who do that write to me.

BD: When we last spoke, you were working on a few comic book series in India, namely UnHoli and Local Monsters. Have these become ongoing series, and do you have plans to work on comic books in the US?

SB: Both of those are done and out in India. I would really love to work on comics in the US, and I will do so as soon as the first opportunity arises. I’ve got a bunch of ideas for comics series, but I haven’t done anything with them. I’ve been trying to do more writing in TV, film, and video games over the last year, as well as more non-writing video work. There are so many amazing ways to tell stories now, and that makes me greedy. But, comics – yes, I need to do more comics.

BD: Are there any upcoming projects on which you are currently working that you are able to share with our readers?

SB: I think I have writer’s ADD. I’m doing a children’s book series, school adventures in the Wimpy Kid vein, set in India. There’s a Bollywood adaptation of Turbulence in the works. Lots of other TV/film projects in various levels of development hell. What I’m really looking forward to, though, is sinking my teeth into a huge trilogy of historical fantasy books I’ve been trying to get started for a while now. And, having said all that, as I read the reviews for Resistance, and I’ve been lucky with them so far, I wonder if I’m done with this story . . .

BD: What is the best way for readers to learn more information about Resistance and your body of work?

SB: I’m at samitbasu.com and @samitbasu on Twitter. The site is in permanent need of updates, but everything is more or less there.

Barbra Dillon, Fanbase Press Editor-in-Chief

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