The Girl who Fell to Earth: A Thriller With a Pinch of Philosophy
The Girl Who Fell To Earth had been in my head for a long time. It’s the story of Aria a young girl who grows up on Planet Terros in a galaxy far from here. Earth is a sophisticated laboratory that her people created one thousand years ago. They gave us our history, our archaeology, even some of our memories.
The people on Terros despise humans because of the way they have abused their planet. They also believe that human do not form attachments because their lives are so short.
Aria is sent with her father to release a virus to end the human experiment – a virus that will annihilate all of mankind.
My inspiration for writing something usually comes to me in an image, and this was no different. We were driving through mountains on our way to Donegal when I imagined another planet watching us. It was eerie enough in the mountains on a dark wet day and the atmosphere leant itself to imagining subterfuge!
When I’m writing I’m not conscious of the type of book it will be, nor am I thinking about the audience. I am however, always thinking about the idea – in this case the idea that we are not who we think we are. The idea that we are not autonomous. The idea that there is life out there somewhere and we are little more than their laboratory.
Unknowingly, I was writing a thriller but with a pinch of philosophy! One of the ideas in the book is that the people on Terros live forever. That got me thinking about eternal life and the advantages and disadvantages of not ever dying.
In the course of my research, (I love doing research. It’s a great excuse not to write.) I met a scientist in University of Galway.
I wanted to talk to him about futuristic things – what was being invented now, what would we marvel at in the future? These inventions, I imagined, would be commonplace on Terros.
He told me that in his opinion the next frontier for science was death itself. He explained that death could be seen as a disease, like any other disease, and could possibly be cured. He, himself, was working with some microscopic worm that lived forever. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t kill it. Each time, it rejuvenated itself and carried on. The worm’s DNA and our DNA were almost identical.
He told me that when he worked out how to kill it, he would know what had been keeping it alive, and discovered the secret of eternal life.
If he had taught me science for Leaving Cert, I wouldn’t have got a D.
It’s when the book is written that I start to plan. I could see when I read it that it could be a thriller. I tightened the suspense and upped the pace. I kept the chapters short, and the word count tight. But I could see also that there were bits of philosophy in it. I slowed the pace at those points to give Aria time and space to ruminate about what it is to be human, and I thought about my young audience.
I can’t imagine there will ever be a section in a library or bookshop called:
Thrillers With a Pinch of Philosophy
But then again, you never know! Meanwhile, I’m going to encourage the scientist in University of Galway to work faster – for all our sakes.
(c) Patricia Forde
Patricia Forde is the 2023-2026 Laureate na nÓg (Ireland’s Children’s Literature Laureate). See here for further details.
About The Girl who Fell to Earth:
Aria lives on a well-ordered planet whose people have eradicated illness and even death. Earth is their ‘shadow planet’ which they populated with humans centuries ago so they could study them and learn from their experiences.
Now the experiment is coming to an end and Aria must go to Earth with her scientist father to set off a train of events which will destroy its people. Brought up to believe that humans are inferior, Aria is shocked to discover that she is herself half human, and amazed to find that Earth-dwellers live life to the full and feel love for each other, even though they are mortal.
But once she understands this, how can she save them, and herself, from destruction?
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