Exclusive Interview: Rob Boffard Discusses His New Book Tracer
AMANDA DYAR: You have freelanced for several publications including WIRED, THE GUARDIAN, and HUCK. What do you like most about this type of work?
ROB BOFFARD: I discovered quite early on in adult life that I didn’t get along with bosses. It’s not them it’s me. No matter how nice the boss is I always end up feeling a little bit constricted by the working conditions. I wouldn’t have made the move to freelancing if I wouldn’t have gotten fired. I was editing a London music magazine, and I had a massive fallout with the boss. It was mostly because I wasn’t prepared for the role really, and I wasn’t doing a very good job. This situation more or less pushed me into freelancing without really having much of a say in anything--fortunately I found out that I really enjoyed being a freelancer. I liked setting my own hours and working at my own pace by myself--which has worked out really well. When you transition into writing fiction then you spend a lot of time alone with just your thoughts, and I was kind of prepared for that, where I was told by other writers that had tried to do it that it was kind of hard.
As a freelancer, I will write for anybody that will cut me a check and accept my weird and crazy story ideas. I write for a huge variety of publications on and off --it’s the ones that I keep coming back to and keep writing regularly for that I try to make my name on.
AMANDA DYAR: Your short fiction is also incredible--like THE HITMAN AND THE TEA LADY. What were your inspirations for this story? Also, how many total short stories have you written to date?
ROB BOFFARD: That was the very first piece of short fiction I had written since I was a teenager and the first one that I had published. I just had the image of a severed eyeball floating in the bottom of a coffee cup, and I thought that would make a killer first line. After writing that first line down, I kind of just went from there and had that story out in the space of two days. I liked it because it was fun and ridiculous with this insane central premise.
I have published I think five short stories now and have written a bunch more. I kind of use them as palette cleansers between books. I find that when I am done with the book that I want to keep writing but don’t want to jump into another huge project straight away. Instead I sit down and knock out a short story.
AMANDA DYAR: TRACER is now available. What can you tell us about the book? ROB BOFFARD: The book is a kick-ass sci-fi thriller, and I am really proud of it at the moment. It sets on a space station called Outer Earth--which holds the last of humanity. The space station is orbiting the planets, which are wrecked by nuclear war and climate change. There are about a million people on board. Everything is broken down and nothing works--the place is falling apart. In order to get things from place to place you use couriers called Tracers, which take small messages and packages across the station. The story kicks off when one of the Tracers called Riley discovers she is transporting something pretty nasty. The situation, throws her and her friends into a big conspiracy, with the chance of Outer Earth being completely destroyed. It is a plot that has a lot of twists to it so I don’t want to give away too much. It was a fun book to write, and I think it is going to be a lot of fun to read.
AMANDA DYAR: You have stated previously that some of your inspiration for the book comes from your love of Space. When did this fondness of the outer limits start?
ROB BOFFARD: I have always been an incredibly curious kid, and I wanted to know about everything. I was the kind of kid that would sit and read an encyclopedia or a cookbook from front to back just because I wanted to know what was in there. Space is just one of those things that jumped out at me, and I like the idea of spaceships going to the other side of the universe. I like the idea that we are this tiny little planet surrounded by an infinite nothingness that we haven’t even begun to explore. Just the thought of not knowing about what is out there and wanting to know what is out there really kept me going.
As I progressed into adulthood, I enjoyed thinking about Space, and it wasn’t until I started writing fiction that I knew I wanted to write something that was set in that environment. I am not sure I wanted to tackle galactic stuff--like I wasn’t ready to write a space opera or anything like that--but I did want to write something that was in space and I could explore some of the ideas. I did a little bit of research for the book, and I got to talk with some people who actually work with orbital mechanics which was a blast.
To learn more, visit the official Rob Boffard website and check out Tracer on Amazon.
About Rob Boffard
Rob Boffard was born in Johannesburg in 1984. He grew up reading encyclopaedias for fun (he was that kind of kid). He quickly became obsessed with science fiction, action movies and speaking very loudly to anybody who would listen.
In high school, he added a new obsession to his list: hip-hop. While studying journalism at Rhodes University in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, he was an active rap artist, and became one of the presenters on the longest-running rap radio show in Africa. After graduating in 2007, he moved to the UK with his longtime girlfriend, aiming to blow every spare cent they had on travel.
This endeavour was entirely successful, leaving them both broke but very happy. Rob did numerous jobs in the UK, including being a reader at a media analysis agency, and picking cigarettes up off a pub floor. He edited a London music magazine, got himself fired, and as a result undertook a very successful freelance career. In the past five or six years, he has written for The Guardian, Wired Magazine, Huck Magazine, the BBC, and io9. He has also worked on corporate copy for Google and Microsoft.
Rob continued to rap, and released a full album in 2011, entitled African. By this time, he had a successful second career as a sound engineer. This led to him working closely with a creative agency in London, Maple Street Studios, where he worked on campaigns for companies like EA Games, 20th Century Fox and more.
About TRACER
Our planet is in ruins. Above it orbits Outer Earth: a space station with a million souls on board. They are all that remains of the human race.
Riley Hale is sprinting through the corridors and catwalks of the space station, her feet pounding the metal. The cargo is in her backpack, snuggled against her spine. Riley is a tracer – a courier. When you need something transported to another part of Outer Earth, Riley can get it there. And she’ll get it there fast.
But on a routine run, she’s ambushed by a gang looking for a quick score. And then she finds the severed eyeball, staring up out of her smashed cargo.
Soon, she and her crew are running for their lives, trying to get ahead of a conspiracy that could destroy Outer Earth. And Riley is about to discover that there are some things you can’t run from…
TRACER is a story that never stops moving. It’s a brutal, insane, gripping thrill-ride, where the hero moves like lightning and the consequences for failure are deadly.
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