Justin Cronin on building strange new worlds where nothing is as it seems in 'The Ferryman'

Good Reading Podcast

The islands of Prospera lies in a vast ocean in splendid isolation from the rest of humanity, or whatever remains of it. Citizens enjoy privileged lives dedicated to the highest creative ideals. When their life time is up they are despatched to the mysterious island, The Nursery, to be 'reiterated' as a fresh-faced teenagers. Proctor Bennett is a Ferryman, a specialist enforcer whose job it is to shepherd the soon-to-be 'reiterated' into their next life cycle. But Proctor is experiencing strange dreams and puzzling connections to people he has never met before and an unshakeable feeling that something is wrong with this world: something important, something greater than anyone could possibly imagine, something which could change the fate of humanity itself. In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Justin Cronin about crossing genre borders, what it takes to build a science fiction-fuelled dystopian world and the bureaucracy required to run it, and his exploration of the physical and psychological limitations of the increasing life span of the human race.