Interview: Best of All Worlds by Kenneth Oppel

Could you introduce us to your new novel – Best of All Worlds?

It’s a survival thriller in which Xavier, my teenaged hero, wakes one morning to find that his family’s lakeside cottage has been moved somewhere completely different. When he, his father, and heavily pregnant stepmother go to explore, they find themselves on a farm – hens, two Nubian goats, thriving crops! When they wander further, they realize they’re trapped inside a dome.

I wondered how people would react to finding themselves in an inexplicable situation – what kind of story you’d need to tell yourself to make sense of it…

The book beautifully blends dystopia/science fiction with social commentary and touches on a range of topics that are relevant in the world today – can you talk a little about the inspiration behind the story (without spoilers)?

I wondered how people would react to finding themselves in an inexplicable situation – what kind of story you’d need to tell yourself to make sense of it, what your plan of action would be. I also wrote the novel because I was fed up with conspiracy theorists, science deniers (especially deniers of climate change), and people who mangled the concept of freedom to justify hate, racism, and blatant self-interest. The world is hard enough for adults to navigate; for kids it must be even more bewildering, being deluged with misinformation.

We absolutely loved the worldbuilding in Best of All Worlds. Xavier and his family have almost everything they need to survive in the dome. Did you have to research anything when creating this world?

Oh yes! I learned a lot about sustainable farming, the best kind of milk goats to get (also how to breed, castrate and butcher them). I read about the best time to plant certain crops and harvest them. I went down way to manner research rabbit holes. I also, sadly, had to research various conspiracy theories and the people who perpetrated them.

Without any spoilers, this book keeps you guessing to the end, and we thought the characters and the different ways they reacted to situations were really well crafted. Did you always know the direction this novel was going in? Would you say you are a big plotter? Or did the story develop as you wrote it?

I am a big plotter and planner, and spend a lot of time “daydreaming” the world of the story before I start chapter one. But during the writing there are always delightful surprises. The biggest was probably the decision to introduce another family into the dome, one that had vastly different values than the first.

What came first for you – the concept, the characters, the setting, something else…? And is this different for each book you write?

Usually the concept or setting. Best of All Worlds was definitely concept; books like Airborn and The Boundless were the settings.

What would be your top three writing tips for any aspiring writers out there?

Don’t expect it to be perfect the first time. If you get stuck somewhere in the story, jump to another place. Get as much feedback as possible from trusted readers.

You’ve been writing since you were very young, and you’ve written so many books; has there been a career highlight during this time?

Having a book in outer space. Airborn went to the ISS for six months with Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk, and I got to meet him afterwards, and see my space book – though sadly they didn’t let me keep it!

Can you tell us about anything else you’re working on?

I have a couple novels vying for attention at the moment. One involves U-Boats, the other a young rock band behaving badly.

Kenneth Oppel

Kenneth Oppel is the bestselling author of many books, including Airborn, which won the Governor General’s Award for children’s literature and a Michael L Printz Honor Book Award, and the Silverwing trilogy, which has sold over a million copies worldwide. Some of his other books include Ghostlight, The Boundless, Every Hidden Thing, and Inkling. The Nest and Half Brother both won the Canadian Library Association’s Book of the Year for Children Award. Kenneth lives in Toronto with his family.