Inspiration & Homage

Creative people are necessarily influenced by those that precede them. Groundbreaking art, literature, architecture, and technology have at their core a truly original idea. But these ideas sprout from exposure to, and are enhanced by, what has been conceived before. There would be no automobile without the horse and buggy, and no horse and buggy without the wheel.

Although my inspiration for the Venerable Series was personal and not based on any particular existing story, many of the details that make it work were drawn from some of my favorite science fiction books and films.

(SPOILER ALERT! The remainder of this blog discusses elements of the first two books of Venerable Series. Hopefully, you have read them both by now!)

Two iconic (to me) science fiction stories that influenced important elements of the Venerable reality were the original “Planet of the Apes” film, released in 1968 when I was twelve years old, and “The Matrix,” which impacted my brain as an adult, in 1999.

Both of these stories were truly original. They also bore no resemblance to each other, except for the setting of a future post-apocalyptic society. And unlike much science fiction, both stories occurred here on earth, although this fact was brilliantly concealed in “Planet of the Apes” until the final shocking Statue of Liberty scene.

The Venerable Series shares these basic concepts. Beyond that, a few specific elements were inspired by ideas presented in these stories that resonated with me over the years. For example, one of the more memorable scenes in “Venerable: The Price of Paradise,” Abraham’s awakening in the Factory, is clearly an homage to Neo’s similar experience in “The Matrix.”

The third book in the Venerable Series, “Vault: The Rise of Serenity,” will answer many questions about the origin of the Venerable world four centuries from now. That world is profoundly different from the one we live in today (perhaps not quite as different as that presented in “Planet of the Apes”). How did humanity get from here to there?

I asked myself the same question after first experiencing “Planet of the Apes” 53 years ago. And I had to wait 43 years until the release of “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” in 2011 to begin to know the answer. Venerable Series readers fortunately won’t have to wait that long. “Vault” is set for release in October, 2021.