An Interview with Yahtzee Croshaw about JAM

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An Interview with Yahtzee Croshaw about JAM

09/27/2012 3:31pm

Yahtzee Croshaw is probably best known for his Zero Punctuation game reviews and his incredibly successful novel MogWorld. Hitting bookshelves this October is a new novel written by Mr. Croshaw about the kind of apocalypse no one would be prepare for. JAM will be available Oct. 10th.

DHC: A jam apocalypse sounds delightfully ridiculous and seems to poke a little bit of fun at the apocalyptic tales we see time and again. What about this concept and story intrigued you?

Yahtzee Croshaw: I guess the whole idea for Jam started with a sentence that got into my head, and I honestly can’t remember how. It’s the sentence that is now the first sentence of the book, as well as the elevator pitch. “I woke up one morning to find that the entire city had been covered in a three-foot layer of man-eating jam.”

But what I liked about the idea, as I played around with characters and events in this setting, is how it became this sort of counterargument to the kind of apocalypse thinking common to the Internet. You know how people obsess over zombies these days, talking about the plans they have for the postapocalypse and how their life will be so much more meaningful then? I guess I wanted to take characters with that kind of attitude and throw an apocalypse at them they couldn’t possibly be prepared for. There’s always the chance, if things get completely shaken up, that you’ll end up even less suited to the world around you than you are now.

DHC: Jam is not really a sequel to Mogworld, but I’ve heard a rumor that something in each ties them together. Any hints at that?

YC: There is indeed something that ties the two stories together, or should I say, someone. There is one character common to both books. I won’t say who, but since Mogworld took place inside a fictional realm and had a very short list of actual real-world human characters, I would think that would narrow the possibilities down.

I hasten to add that it’s not a vital part of the plot. Mogworld is not required reading for Jam. I just like the idea of throwing out little links, building a shared universe. Like how that one character in Silent Hill 4 was the dad of James Sunderland from SH2 for no actual reason besides to give me a little giggle.

DHC: You’ve written two novels thus far for Dark Horse Comics. How has the experience changed from the first book to the next?

YC: Besides the fact that I didn’t have to pitch as hard for the second one? I guess it’s always a learning experience. When I started writing Mogworld I had no understanding that it would eventually be published, and after the experience of editing it with Rachel, I was hearing more and more of the internal editor’s voice throughout the writing of Jam.

Overall it’s gotten easier, and that’s very exciting for me. Up until recently, in my attempts to write books I always stuck to Mogworld’s kind of fantasy-adventure format because I was paranoid I’d run out of interesting things to describe, and that’s the kind of setting where everything is new. But now that I know I can actually complete an entire book, the process seems less and less daunting, and I feel more confident that I can explore fringe ideas. Having wanted to write novels since early childhood, it’s energizing to know that my foot is finally in the door.

DHC: What’s the most important thing to remember when your city is covered in jam?

YC: Stay up high. Secure food and water. And don’t try the peanut butter thing—it just doesn’t work.

DHC: We often end with this question: If you had a superpower, what would it be?

YC: I’d like the power to make things die with the power of my mind. Not because I have any specific use in mind for it; I just think it’d be useful to have for difficult social situations. Like, if you’re trying to sleep on a plane and a bloke three seats down is laughing really loudly at a film. Or if someone’s trying to make me say something nice about their hideous baby, it would be a good way to change the subject. But then again, that’s really just replacing one awkward social situation with another.

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An Interview with Yahtzee Croshaw about JAM

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