What’s in a Name?

Banner Lyme was named after Orson Welles’ mysterious character Harry Lime in The Third Man (1949).  The spelling was changed for aesthetics.  His first name came from a suspect’s first name in a police blotter.

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“Libby”

The only futuristic conceit to survive the adaptation to alternate history was the Liberty’s command computer program Libby.  While Arthur could have performed all Libby’s assigned duties manually, her verbal interplay with Arthur was deemed essential.  She was re-written as being a one-of-a-kind creation of the computer genius Corny McMillian.

 

The Andean Drug War

With the cocaine epidemic in the 1980s, a future interventionist “War on Drugs”, with American troops invading drug-producing nations in South America seemed plausible.  Indeed, the actual “War on Terror”, with American troops invading terror-sponsoring nations in the Middle East after 9/11 unfolded ten years later with eerie similarity

 

If Getting a Girlfriend was Only This Easy

In the first draft, there was a non-descript throwaway character named Nikolai who served as Natalie’s chauffer who disappeared immediately after the rescue at Shilshole Marina.  The character’s role was quickly reworked and expanded, now as a young woman named Nikolia (Nikki), to serve as a love interest for Lyme so as to avoid a romantic triangle.  It had become obvious during the writing process that Natalie was gravitating towards Arthur.

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Dialing It Back a Notch

The first draft included a scene where Arthur, Lyme and Natalie are ambushed by the Japanese Syndicate in the underground tramway system that runs in loops between the terminal islands of Seattle’s Sea-Tac airport, complete with a shootout between Lyme and Syndicate henchmen on the rooftop of a moving tramcar.  The scene was replaced in the second draft with the somewhat less hyperbolic ambush at the Elliot Bay waterfront instead.

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Location, Location, Location

The Capitol Hill speak-easy called Freddy’s was named for a Fred Myers department store that occupied the location at the time of writing.

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I Didn’t Catch the Name

Syndicate Chief Watanabe’s mysterious In-House assassin appears early in the book but is only identified cryptically as a “The Blonde”.  She becomes a main antagonist in the later chapters, on separate occasions physically fighting with (and trying to kill) Lyme, Natalie and Nikki.  Yet at no time is she ever addressed by name.

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Life Imitating Art

When the character of President Tubwell was originally created in 1988, his first name was Donald.  In 2018 the re-imagined story was introduced to beta-readers, several of whom thought we were purposely mocking then-President Donald Trump.  But Trump was never the model for this character.  Tubwell is not based on any particular person, he is just a conglomeration of a televangelist’s darker stereotypes.   However, the authors simply changed his first name to Thaddeus, an Old Testament name that alludes more to his religious background and steers away from any unintentional presidential comparisons.

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President Who?

Although not discussed in the book, the authors imaged the alternate-history’s presidential succession starting from 1990 as; George H.W. Bush (1988-1996), Jerry Brown (1996-2000), Newt Gingrich (2000-2008), William “Billy Ray” Podeyn (2008-2009) and Thaddeus Tubwell (2009-      ).

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Kickin’ It Old School

The climactic scene that alternates between Arthur’s ballroom confrontation with Tubwell and Lyme’s dogfight with Watanabe was actually written as two complete and separate scenes.  Since the scenes were written on non-compatible word processors, the pages were printed out then sliced up with scissors and the pieces pushed around on the floor to create the paragraph order for the simultaneous action.

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Just Call Me

In the first draft there was a scene on a hilltop overlooking Sitka where two of the antagonists meet.  It had been written solely to establish a conspiracy between them with very little other information revealed.  In later drafts, the conspiracy and the revealed information changed to a simple phone call in a later chapter as the authors realized it was totally illogical and unnecessary to have these characters actually meet in person.

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Ah, the Old “Died in an Explosion” Trick

Shortly after On The Rocks was completed in 1990, the idea of a sequel was formed in which Nikki survived the explosion on Shangri-La and was used as bait by Tubwell to exact revenge on Toynbee, Lyme and the Siblaskans. The impetuous for the resurrection was the authors’ regret over killing off the character, even though they knew it was necessary to the plot.

 

Heron Today, Gone Tomorrow

In Straight Up, Arthur’s yacht Liberty is front and center in the story, whereas Lyme’s signature combat-modified Heron seaplane is only briefly mentioned and is not part of the story at all.

 

Taking the Show on the Road

The setting for On the Rocks consisted mostly of Seattle and the Puget Sound, with several scenes around Sitka, Siblaska.  The sequel Straight Up has scenes taking place again in Seattle, the Puget Sound and Sitka, but with other scenes in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Nome, The Lena River area of Siberia, Washington DC, Denver, Aspen, Salt Lake City and northern Idaho.

 

You All Are Driving Me Crazy

To help create the brainwashing technique used on Nikki, the authors researched Stockholm syndrome, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, social media’s manipulation and propagation of “Fake News” stories, Orwell’s novel 1984, Richard Condon’s novel The Manchurian Candidate (and their film adaptations), the 1944 film Gaslight (and its stage source Angel Street) with unnamed “various drugs” to cover the feasibility gaps.

 

Finding a Character’s Feminine Side

In the original treatment for the sequel as conceived in the early 90s, one of Nikki’s brainwashing tormentors was written as a man, Viktor Novotny.  He was just your typical, RBG (Russian Bad Guy).  As those scenes got fleshed out in the first draft, it made more sense that the character should actually be a woman to help explain why Nikki would bond with her and trust her word over that of her friends as well as seeming way less creepy when Novotny acted so protective of Nikki during the cross-country escape.

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Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

In addition to the immediate sequel Straight Up, the authors had originally conceived of an untitled third book in which the characters got caught up in a struggle against a fascist government in a futuristic Australia.  Numerous notes, characters and even a few short scenes were written for it in the early 90s.  When the Siblaskan trilogy was reimagined as a present-day alternate reality and launched in 2018, the story arc was changed so as to remain a struggle against Tubwell’s theocracy in America.  However, several of those ‘Australia book’ characters and scenes were transplanted into Straight Up with the intent of expanding them in the third book of the trilogy, No Chaser.

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Wedding Day Blues

As originally conceived, Lyme and Nikki were to get married at the end of Straight Up, then in the third book No Chaser, they would behave like Nick and Nora (of Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man) with a reluctant Lyme dragged into taking on another mission accompanied by the eager and adventurous Nikki.  In the revival trilogy, if there is still to be a wedding (if, mind you) it would be moved back to the end of the third book because Nikki would be in no condition to have so happy an ending immediately following the physical, mental and emotional beating she took in Straight Up.

 

Waste Not, Want Not

The scene in Straight Up where Arthur and Natalie watch the film Casablanca was originally written for the third book as an exchange between newlyweds Lyme and Nikki.