Jamie Russell has not only always known he wanted to be a writer, he has had an obsession with videogames for as long as he can remember. After working as a film critic, a magazine contributor and having written several non-fiction books for grown-ups, Russell turned his pen to children’s books. SkyWake: Invasion is the first of a sci-fi adventure trilogy in which the hero is a videogame playing girl – Russell’s daughters made sure he used a female protagonist as they didn’t think it was fair that the boys got to have all the fun (and rightly so).
Have you always wanted to be a writer?
Always! As a kid I saw Roald Dahl, the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, on TV. He used to walk to his shed at the bottom of the garden every morning with a flask of hot tea and sit in there until lunch time writing in longhand. I thought it sounded so much fun to just disappear into made up world.
After writing lots of adult non-fiction books, what made you start writing fiction books for kids?
My children…! They complained that everything I wrote was for grown-ups and they asked me to come up with a story they could read. On the walk to school one morning I told them the idea for SkyWake: Invasion about a girl called Casey who discovers her favourite videogame is more than a game and they got so excited about it. At first I thought they were humouring me – they’re nice like that – but they even covered my desk in Post It notes telling me to write the book. I realised I had an idea that resonated. Without them as an in-house audience and cheerleading team I wouldn’t have written it.
You’ve just published the first book in the series, have you already got the others mapped out?
I was thrilled when Walker Books commissioned a trilogy, because I was desperate to give this story an epic sweep. SkyWake: Battlefield is written and we’re just sorting out the cover artwork. It’s due out in May 2022 and it takes Casey and the boys into space for an epic adventure involving a war on a distant planet, telepathic aliens, spaceships and an AI-bomb. SkyWake: Resistance follows in 2023. I’ve just started writing it.
We love the fact your video-game playing protagonist is a girl.
I have two daughters aged ten and 13 and they always complain that there aren’t enough female leads. ‘Why is it always boys? Why is it Percy Jackson, Harry Potter or Alex Rider who get to do all the cool action stuff?’ They loved SkyWake because Casey is such an inspirational character. The whole trilogy is about what it means to be a leader and given the current state of the world it’s something that resonates with young readers, I think. As for videogames, the stereotype about gaming being gendered is ready for retirement. Almost half of gamers are female nowadays.
Who was your favourite childhood author?
There was an author I loved who no one really remembers anymore called Nicholas Fisk. He was a hugely prolific science fiction writer for what today we’d call ‘middle grade’ readers. He wrote books including Grinny and A Rag, A Bone and a Hank of Hair and a series called Starstormers that I absolutely adored. It was about a group of kids who escape from their boarding school on Earth and head into space in a converted asteroid spaceship to look for their parents. They encounter a strange alien race and an ‘Octopus Emperor’ and have all kinds of adventures. With hindsight, I wonder if that lay the seeds for SkyWake.
What is your favourite book from your childhood?
There were so many. I remember my dad reading The Hobbit to me. I loved the chapter with the spiders. I used to borrow his wedding ring and pretend to be Bilbo and insist that no one was allowed to see me.
What book are you reading now?
I tend to read several books at once. I’ve just finished Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert about the techno solutions to the climate crisis. It’s very sobering. For light relief, I’m rereading You Died: The Dark Souls Companion, which is a series of essays about the most incredible videogame ever made. I’m replaying the game as I read and thinking a lot about its design and mechanics. It really is a masterpiece.
What’s next?
Finishing the SkyWake series with a bang. The fantastic thing about writing a trilogy rather than an ongoing series is that you the third book is Act Three of the arc. It’s going to be epic.
