136 | Charles Soule (Anyone)
My Summer Lair Chapter #136: Did You Hear About The Sci-Fi Novel Inspired by Pretty Woman?
Yeah the Julia Roberts prostitute movie. Weird right but indirectly that’s what Charles Soule said during our conversation.
Initially I thought Anyone was going to be some sort of Freaky Friday sci-fi novel. You know like those classic body switching movies. Instead it fits squarely in the Blade Runner and the Netflix show Altered Carbon sci-fi genre. So that was a pleasant surprise.
The basic premise of Anyone: “Set in a realistic future about a brilliant female scientist who creates a technology that allows for the transfer of human consciousness between bodies, and the transformations this process wreaks upon the world.”
The description goes on to add:
“Anyone: masterfully interweaves the present-day story of the discovery and development of the flash with the gritty tale of one woman’s crusade to put an end to the darkness it has brought to the world twenty-five years after its creation.”
That’s what I really dug about the novel: it’s not only switching back and forth between bodies but also the past and the present.
Anyone is also the second novel from writer Charles Soule. You may know him from his Marvel Comics work on books like Daredevil and Darth Vader; from his indie comics work on Curse Words, (the highly recommended) Letter 44 and currently Undiscovered Country with Scott Snyder.
I interviewed him when is first novel Oracle Year was coming out just over a year ago and that was an interesting adventure for him. He’d become proficient at writing comics he’s good at that gig. Now he’s branching out picking up how to write novels and determining how to exist in this new medium and most importantly how to contribute quality ideas. He did a great job with Oracle Year; Anyone continues to build them on that success: making it look easy. Don’t believe that for a moment.
