Interview with A.D. Kissam
A.D. Kissam, author of Ed's Head was kind enough to answer a few questions regarding his new novel. Find his book on Amazon here.
1. When did you first conceive of "Ed's Head?"
It was about 2009 and I read that some night shift workers had used a dead famous person's frozen head for floor bowling at a cryogenic storage organization. I was reminded of the 1982 movie where night shift workers at a city morgue turn it into a brothel for extra money and entertainment. This got me thinking about how people expect to be revived in the future to enjoy a new life. What if it is just some goofy guys, maybe finding your head tossed in the trash, having fun and teasing you when awakened? The future owes us nothing, after all.
Having this bug in my brain, I began to write the outline and it morphed over time into the final plot of Ed being revived, Arthur a lab worker that is a pervert on the side, and other characters involved to transition the story into one of artificial intelligence and transhumanism. I even realized in writing that many of the most accomplished people in my other work life were women, and I have a professional career daughter, so my leading characters are women.
2. What is your favorite part of the book?
I enjoyed writing about how Arthur was dealt with by the leading woman character. She really gives him justice for all his abuse.
3. Is there a message here for humanity or are we to draw our own conclusions?
The messages for humanity is pretty clear at the beginning of the book. Samuel Butler is quoted from his 1863 work, "Darwin among the Machines". He warns about men becoming enslaved to the machines. Then, in the Ed's Head Prologue, is mentioned Mary Shelly who in 1818 published "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus". The monster in Shelly's story attains sentience after revival.
Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and PayPal, is often looked to with regard to his warnings about artificial intelligence and robots. Perhaps he read Samuel Butler, first.
Ed's Head takes new directions in the issue of transhumanism, where humans blend with machines. Humans become a new species and escape from an abusive relationship with an artificial intelligence. I thought when writing this part that no assurance is possible that humans will maintain control of our inventions, but our inventions may open new doorways for our species continuation through mutation.
