Maps and plans
Working sketches of Charles’s family’s home, Johansinge, Greenland
The geothermal plant at Krisgaarde. Working notes, and a more formal schematic to show the complexity of the plumbing.
Where much of the action ends up – New Boston, in Nunavut, and the New Boston university building.
Post apocalyptic?
The backstory of Tiamat’s Nest includes severe climate change, and the annihilation of two-thirds of the world population in famine, floods, and conflicts.
In many ways, the story world is dystopian and post-apocalyptic but I don’t see it that way. I believe I’ve actually painted an optimistic picture of life after that kind of catastrophe. In truth, the survivors decades on are living well and coping with a greatly-altered world.
My biggest fear is that I’ve been too optimistic…
The effects of climate change
Whether or not you believe humans are affecting the world’s climate, honest scientists will readily acknowledge that the science is complex and poorly understood. This honesty is gleefully abused by skeptics to deny that anything is happening. I liken that to holding a deck of cards in the air and asking what will happen if they are dropped. “They’ll fall to the ground and scatter on the floor,” a reasonable person might say. “Hah!” says the skeptic. “So you say! Tell me exactly where will the ace of diamonds land? What? You can’t say? Well, so much for your theory then, you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The truth is, we don’t know what the effects would be of global temperatures rising by an average of, say, 5 degrees. All models point to more extreme weather events, but there are too many unknown factors to hazard any realistic guess as to the details. For story purposes, I’ve gone with zones of extreme atmospheric violence, and much of the present-day populated areas becoming uninhabitable.
An ice-free Greenland
Arctic sea ice sets new record minimums, and there are signs that it wouldn’t take much to trigger a collapse of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Once ice sheets start melting, melt water runs down crevices and can form a lubricating layer between the ice and underlying rock leading to a vastly accelerated flow.
In Charles’s world, the ice sheets have vanished, leaving a navigable Arctic sea, and a Greenland that has only seasonal snow cover like much of North America today. One notable feature of this world is the likelihood of a sizeable inland sea at the heart of Greenland.
Snowmobiles on water
When Charles is on the run, Christian takes them across country on a ski-doo, or snowmobile. Along the way, they use it to cross a river a hundred meters wide. I remember first seeing this trick years ago on a Top Gear program set in Iceland (before Jeremy Clarkson started getting into trouble with the BBC) and the memory returned when I was looking for obstacles to throw in Charles’s path.
I thought maybe that this would be rare anomaly, but when I researched the possibilities in earnest I discovered that the feat is very well known and has even been turned into a sport! So I am confident that what I wrote is a manageable, if rather dangerous, stunt.
Ian S. Bott, Writer and artist 