A lonely, echoing lake at the end of a long dirt road. The unscaleable peaks of a dark mountain, where a crashed commuter plane and the bones of its passengers rest in cold solitude. Memories of tumbleweed rolling through abandoned farms and settlements, the buildings quietly returning to earth. Then there's the vastness of my homeland, Canada with its plains and mountains, rivers and lakes.
Westerns, epics, swashbucklers, 50s sci fi, boys' own adventures, three-hanky weepies, romances, comedies, The Wizard of Oz over and over and books of all descriptions every story, every word, every image went into the dark quiet of my psyche to brew. When I didn't have my nose in a book, I was watching old movies on TV. I've loved Westerns since my early childhood, also classic epics like Gone With the Wind, Dr Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia. Right away, I realised we were in a Western movie. But the moment I heard the distinctive voice of my protagonist, Saba, her world – a lawless place of wild weather, hardship and danger – rushed into focus. I planned and began to write a book set in a new ice age in the Peak District. I didn't decide on a vast harsh landscape or imagine the scattered remains of a lost civilisation known as The Wreckers.
I'd call the Dustlands an epic Western set in the future. What was your inspiration for the Dustlands in which Saba lives? The setting for Blood Red Road and Rebel Heart is in a type of waste land, littered with items from Wrecker times.
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