Frequently Asked Questions
Because I made a terrible mistake when writing the book: I focused on writing the best book that I could, rather than on writing a book that would be easy to sell.
Rookie mistake, really.
The result was Flight of Fools, a topical political satire that reads like a fantasy novel.
The first problem is that Flight of Fools does not fit easily into a specific genre. Publishers and literary agents don’t like that.
The second problem is that there is often a period of at least a year between when a publisher buys a book and the book hits the shelves – a year that only began when a publisher agreed to buy it. I had raced to finish Flight of Fools, terrified that current events would alter a premise of the satire. While I thought that real-world developments ended up making the satire hit harder, I felt that I couldn’t take that risk for another year.
It would be arrogant of me to compare my own book to arguably the greatest satire ever written, but it can be helpful to think of Flight of Fools as a satire and a fantasy novel in the same way that Gulliver’s Travels is a satire and an adventure story.
It is my hope that readers who want to read a fantasy novel will not be distracted by the satirical elements, and that the fantasy storyline stands up on its own.
It is also my hope that readers who want the satire will not be overwhelmed by the fantasy tropes – tropes that are themselves subjected to some ridicule and used to deliver the satire.