The Last of the Living (21 page)

Author Notes

I first conceived of this idea in April of 2016. I had wanted to write another post-apocalyptic novel and I had the idea of someone on a space station witnessing the destruction of life on earth through some type of pandemic that wipes everyone out, and they managed to survive due to being in space at the time. Shortly after that I read a time magazine special about astronaut Scott Kelly's year in space as one of the longest duration missions of a human being in space and what the probable medical effects of living in space that long could entail. That influenced the main setup of the novel. I thought it would be interesting to take an astronaut and to put her on the space station for longer than any other human being and speculate what the possible effects could be on her medically.

              I was then thinking what could be the cause of the pandemic as if it arose naturally there would probably be a large number of survivors. But I wanted this to be a true last person on the Earth type of story where the devastation is total. But I also wanted to give her something to have to contend with, so I thought of the idea of either vampires or zombies and decided to create some type of combination of that. Of course I owe a big debt to the novel I Am Legend, of which this is something of homage.

              I liked the idea of someone being up in space and watching the Earth slowly go silent below without any real explanation. But then I thought I needed some kind of explanation, so I decided on some type of alien biological attack would be the cause of it and that this would create these sort of mutated creatures out of every single person on earth, making her greatly outnumbered and pursued by these creatures everywhere she goes. I wanted them to be, as I described them in the novel, to be more like a force of nature, just mindless creatures designed to kill as a way of wiping out the human race and whoever survived the initial attack.

              I am also a big fan of road trip type of novels. I feel that this technically can qualify as a road trip novel. I really liked the idea of someone basically just journeying across the entire country after it has been devastated by some type of apocalyptic disaster and being completely devoid of people, much like on history channel programs such as Life after People. The idea of someone walking through a desolate landscape that is slowly collapsing due to neglect is an apocalyptic image that I just can't get out of my head. Freed from the presence of the human race most of what we have created would vanish rather swiftly and quickly fall into disrepair, which in itself would create many more obstacles for anyone who comes across such ruins.

              All the while she is traveling across the country she is also dealing with the fact that she is suffering from the effects of long-term space travel that is common for astronauts returning from Earth, but accelerated here because of her spending longer than anyone else in space. Such effects are of course speculative, but that's the whole point of a science fiction novel. I thought that by making her an astronaut it would really put things into a cosmic perspective of just how ephemeral life is in the universe and how easily all life on Earth could be wiped out easily, with her being pretty much the only witness. And by being an astronaut it also gives her a scientific perspective on the whole thing.

              I want to keep the number of characters rather minimal to emphasize the fact that she was all alone in the world. All of her contacts with other people in these apocalyptic landscapes are brief and only serve to reinforce that feeling of isolation as the only survivor in a desolate and hostile world that is entirely against her. She has to contend with a combination of these bloodthirsty monstrous creatures as well as having to deal with the elements and her own weakened body that constantly puts her in more and more vulnerable positions that she would probably otherwise get into.

              To some degree I also made it a highly agnostic novel. Throughout the novel the themes of religion constantly come up with ambiguous notions. Amy is a person of science but she clings to the cross that Maria gave her mostly out of sentiment, but also as a symbol of faith to continue on. She then later meets religious fanatics who show the more destructive side of faith, and all the while she keeps going back and forth between hope and despair, faith and doubt. But I wouldn't call it a religiously themed or spiritually themed novel in general, except insofar as the end of the world always has religious connotations to some degree.

              In contemplating the end of the novel I debated for a while whether I would ultimately show any type of follow-up as far as the alien invasion went. I thought it was better that the invaders are never seen but are the cause of everything, and the final chapter pretty much sums up the fact that in the end the invaders won and the human race is basically finished. Just when she thinks everything is going to turn out okay she realizes that everything she has done was for naught. I guess I am just not a fan of happy endings, and with a title like The Last of the Living it pretty much begs that the last surviving character doesn't survive.

              I guess that pretty much sums it up, and I hope that you enjoyed sharing this post-apocalyptic journey with me and that you will spread the word to all of your friends.

              Stephen Sipila

              8/31/2016

              PS-Don't forget to follow the latest updates on my creative projects including excerpts from upcoming works at my blog
https://stephensipila.wordpress.com/
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