Max Kidruk: Imagining the future in a science fiction trilogy

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0:30We do the things we do and how to make better choices to help avoid costly mistakes. Each episode covers the latest research in behavioral science and dives into themes like the power of self-control, shaping your mindset for success, navigating new beginnings, and why starting over can feel so hard. Listen to choiceology at schwab.com slash podcast or wherever you listen. this is matt rogers from lost culture east that's with matt rogers and bow and yang this is bow and yang from lost culture east that's with matt rogers and bow and yang you know when people try a new food and suddenly it's like okay hold on i got a new favorite food that's the reaction a lot of people are having when they first try kewpie mayo yeah it's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle you've probably seen it at the grocery store and this mayo is different.

1:21Most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Kewpie only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper, almost buttery. Once people try it, they start putting it on everything. Egg sandwiches, fries, burgers. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. People who really care about flavor use it. Put it on just about anything. Then you'll understand. Kewpie, the original Japanese mayonnaise.

1:44Max Kidruk:Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Mark Berman, And in this edition of In the Studio, I'm taking you to 22nd Century Mars, courtesy of best-selling Ukrainian author Maxim Kidruk and his vast saga, The New Dark Ages, which began with Colony in 2019.

2:15I started writing this trilogy. with the thought that fiction should warn, that as a science fiction writer, I should depict the worst possible scenario of the future and describe it as realistically as possible, so that no one doubts that it really can become our future. But now, I don't know. I mean, now it's not about who I'm writing for, but for what after the full-scale invasion of Russians. It seems to me that all sci-fi books, which describe the moral and ethical progress of humanity, how perfect we will be, all these books should end up in trash.

2:57Max Kidruk:Max Kidruck is a big beast in a small jungle writing in the best and worst of times. He's slap-bang in the middle volume of his epic Martian trilogy, The New Dark Ages. He runs a successful publishing house along with his wife Tatiana. He's a radio host and he gets to tour Ukraine and Europe with his fiction roadshows. But dreaming of a future, even a really troubling one, can be almost unbearable when your immediate reality is being ripped apart by war, ruled by tyrants who would make for cliched fiction but wreak havoc in the real world. You have to be, like, obsessed with having plan Bs, plan Cs, plan Ds.

3:35Think anything could happen and what you will do, like, if there will be no electricity, if banking system will collapse, in case if postal system will not work, We just sit with my wife, far from frontline, saw some kind of normality. I mean, it's not normal because the Facebook feed is just constant obituaries.

3:56Max Kidruk:What did you do with the current global meltdown in terms of the past? Because that's a past for your fiction. How did you deal with that? Partly I'm trying to ignore it. I mean, ignoring not in a way that just I'm pretending it's not there. ignoring in the way that I described something even worse, which happened after. Over the course of 18 months, I've been talking to Max, exploring his working methods, labyrinthine plotting, and fiendish attention to detail for Volume 2, Collapse. The tipper she used to get to the moon was the latest model. Fully automated, and according to the flight plan, Junior was to be the only passenger on board.

4:42In fact, it was not like that. Apart from her, 300 guinea pigs, 4 orangutans, a chimpanzee and 17 rizus macaques were on board. The macaques were making help during the entire 60-hour flight from the Sky Island terminal. Junior was thinking that it couldn't get any worse. And then a screw floated in front of her eyes. What if the dumb monkeys break free? I have already, like, 60 pages.

5:19Max Kidruk:I guess one-tenth of the book. There's a gloomy prognosis for his future Earth, ravaged by pandemics, eco-crisis and terrifying biological changes caused by an unknown pathogen of alien origin. And there's plenty of strife on Mars. Did I say there were Russians on the Red Planet? Well, they haven't changed that much. What I actually wrote, it may be true. We will still can continue fighting even in the midst of 22nd century with Russia in Ukraine or on Mars. And it's really sensitive topic right now in Ukraine. People still kind of angry. Why do you bother writing about them? I'm trying to create ambivalent characters.

6:00The only exception here is the Russians. They are all kind of scoundrels in my story. However, they are scoundrels, but not monsters. I would like Russia to disappear, but no, it will not happen. And that's my way of preparing my readers, like, yeah, this war will end somehow, for sure. But the problems with Russia will continue, like, even centuries.

6:26Max Kidruk:But dealing with the Russians is just one element in this vast 900-plus page novel due for completion by late summer 25. Time to begin our descent to the Red Planet and the Simud Valles. OK, let's start, first of all, from orbit. You see not only natural moons of Mars, Hobos and Deimos, you also see several asteroids, Mars crossers, which were transported to the orbit of Mars just for mining purposes, because you don't have much good stuff on Mars. When you are getting closer, you see Newborn, the first and the biggest colony. First of all, you see the huge spaceport, Cosmodrome called Falconhurst, with more than two doses of launchpads.

7:16And near them, like hungers, where the people who just came from Earth live for two or three weeks just to get rid of all the diseases and stuff. The colonies only has like 120 ,000 inhabitants. You also see on the south here Ukrainian settlement called Kamyanka. And there you see lots of agricultural domes. I could not write that by 2140 Ukraine had become a major space power and set out to colonize Mars independently. I wouldn't believe it myself. But at the same time, I'm still a Ukrainian writer. So I thought a lot about what Ukrainians should be on Mars. How can they be useful? On Mars, we will do what we know how to do well here on Earth.

8:05We will grow food, like a lot of food, three quarters of Martian food. And food, of course, is a valuable resource on Mars. So in this way, in my novel, Ukrainians, like de facto having no access to political power, can influence those who do.

8:26When the sun sets, it's like really, really bright blue color into purple. But during the daytime, because of the Martian dust, it's more reddish, brownish to orange-red. And of course, if you have a dust storm, which can last for half a Martian year, you see really not more than 200-300 meters, only dust and dust and dust. If it's sunny day, you mostly hear like your radio communications and also the sounds from inside your space suit, some kind of crackling, whatever. If it's a dust storm, you definitely hear these small sand particles kind of scratching on your helmet. And that's what you can hear inside.

9:10That's it. The only way you can communicate without radio, and actually I used these a couple of times, when I need someone to, you know, exchange some phrases with nobody else hearing it. So you can actually press your helmet to the helmet of the other person and just shout it. And that's kind of enough to transfer this sound from one helmet to another without radio or nobody else hearing it.

9:39Max Kidruk:the trilogy is hard science fiction informed by the scientific spirit and logical extrapolation i wanted to imagine how we would actually live on mars where the settlement will be located where we will mine water ice how we will produce energy how we will grow food etc and secondly i was interested in martian society i think that the first generation of colonists will be literally perfect, like super specialists with two or three degrees, with the perfect resumes, with the best genes, no diseases, no kidney stones for the three generations before, etc. There will be no problems with them, but eventually these first colonists will have children born on Mars.

10:22They could have congenital diseases or be dyslexic or just lazy or dumb. What will happen when there are more and more such children. And moreover, those born on Mars, due to the low Mars in gravity, they're taller, skinnier, and they have bones with less density, they have weaker cardiovascular system, because of it they're not able to return to Earth. At the same time, it will be difficult for them to find their place in the science-driven economy of Mars. This is an excellent basis for a serious conflict.

10:59Max Kidruk:Kidruc's Martian society is riven by inequality, volatile politics and fragile alliances. Some of its richest inhabitants sport elegant beards, status symbols showing that they have no need of a spacesuit. And many are very long-lived, all due to a new drug, Telamid. I was thinking about the economic feasibility of Mars colonization. There is nothing on Mars that we can't mine or produce on Earth way cheaper and easier. So apart from scientific research there is literally no reason for us to go there. Why people would want to migrate en masse from Earth to Mars? And this is how Telamide appeared.

11:40This drug was developed for the very first colonists to protect them from the harmful effects of cosmic radiation during their first flights to Mars. But it also had one side effect. Telomid stopped the process of aging. And for this reason, Telomid was banned on Earth. I mean, we have enough problems here even without immortal people. On Mars, on the contrary, Telomid was a necessity. And it was distributed free of charge. And in my story, this eventually led to mass migration of colonists. Now a potential colonist chooses not Not between 100 years on non-perfect Earth and the possibility of dying gracefully on Mars, but between 100 years on non-perfect Earth and 200 or 300 or even more years on Mars.

12:32Max Kidruk:All writers have their rituals and working practices. Max recorded for me one day in the life. You wake up in the morning, you read the news, and then you have to go back to your daily routine. But the depressing feeling of complete uselessness of everything I do does not leave me the whole time. Nevertheless, my working day usually starts with reading. I just can't write in the morning. It's not that I feel sleepy or unfocused. Something just does not click. I can force myself to sit down at the laptop and start putting the words together. But the text will come out clumsy. I mostly read books necessary information for the story I'm writing now.

13:20It can be popular science books, let's say about how to use toilet in space or how to mine aluminum on Mars. There can also be fiction texts similar in mood and style to the one I'm working on, but as I read I constantly note down phrases and expressions that impress me. Something like this, to fill the lips numb with horror. It allows for improved depiction of the emotions of my characters. I read, analyze, and take notes for two hours. It is now 14.51 p.m. Kyiv time and there is another air alert all over the country. I will just open the window.

14:11I'm not sure if my microphone picks it up, but there is a loud siren all over my city.

14:25The third I arrayed for today.

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15:47Millions of people have used Insurify to shop for their car insurance. So insure with Insurify. Go to Insurify.com. That's I-N-S-U-R-I-F-Y.com. Insurify.com. This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture East. That's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culture Research with Matt Rodgers and Bowen Yang. You know when people try a new food and suddenly it's like, wait. That's the reaction a lot of people are having when they first try Kewpie mayo. It's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. You've probably seen it in the grocery store before. And if you've ever just walked past it, some people would say that's a huge mistake.

16:24Because this mayo is different. Most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Kewpie only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper, and almost buttery. Once people try it, they start putting it on everything. Egg sandwiches, fries, burgers. Some fans even swear by dipping pizza crust in it. And once you notice it, you start seeing it everywhere. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. People who really care about flavor use it. Never tried it? Grab the bottle with the red cap next time you're at the store. Put it on just about anything. Then you'll understand. Cupid, the original Japanese mayonnaise.

17:00Max Kidruk:This is the BBC World Service documentary in the studio. 55 seconds, she said before. She was again in the background and Mervyn saw how she was moving under her head.

17:28And sometimes I can spend a whole day trying to get five miserable sentences out of a hundred words. It's not much, of course, especially when you are writing a thousand-page saga. But if I'm satisfied with the end result, then it's worth it. When the book is finished, there will still be better readers, a second draft, and eventually a professional literary editor. But I usually edit what I've written right away. Raw text makes me feel physically uncomfortable.

18:02So it's 1am and it's the most productive part of the day for me. Everyone went to bed, the street is quiet, and I can sit down and write quietly without worrying about being disturbed. It's a really amazing time when I can get up to a few hundred words in an hour. I'm just finishing a large chapter about how the Ukrainian diaspora on Mars elects a new elder. The situation is complicated there by the fact that the authority of the previous elder, who became, shall we say, incapacitated, rested not on procedures or rules, but on personal qualities. And no one in the diaspora can imagine how it is possible to simply appoint someone else in his place.

18:53I've been nursing this episode for a long time, running it over and over in my head, so the text comes surprisingly easily. You see the characters, you hear their voices, and you write without stopping. And the words fall on the screens literally by themselves.

19:18Text comes surprisingly easily, despite all these air raids and other stuff.

19:28Max Kidruk:Kidruk grew up in western Ukraine, born on April Fool's Day in 1984. His father is a writer with a well-stocked home library, perfect for a child's imagination to range across the pages. but very few, if any, Ukrainians wrote the kind of fiction Max grew to love as a teenager. Big, fast-paced techno-thrillers. He got educated as an engineer in industrial ecology, really good for the nuts and bolts of how to power a planet, worked briefly as a computer programmer, and began to experience life beyond Ukraine. His escape trajectory mirrors that of so many of his newly independent countrymen emerging from the shadow of Russia.

20:04Max Kidruk:First mission anywhere but here. Have backpack, will travel. For me and for people of my age, from Ukraine, it wasn't so obvious that you can actually travel a lot around the world with a small amount of money. And then in the summer of 2008, I flew to Mexico and I spent there more than a month hitchhiking and stuff. Met lots of nice people from everywhere. And we had lots of adventures to tell my friends about. and one of them said to me like, Max, look, these are cool, funny stories. You can write about them a book. Actually, I wrote not only about my adventures. I also wrote about a young guy in Western Ukraine, really poor East European country, and who dreams about coming to Mexico one day.

20:56And then how this dream becomes true. My first publisher dubbed me as an author of the first travelogue in Ukraine. In 2012, I wrote a techno thriller called Bot. It was like an instant success and it's still selling good to this day. The first Ukrainian techno thriller. I consider those times golden because it was hard, it was tough. But whatever you do, you are the first one, you do something new and if you do it well, you will be successful for sure. It's way more harder for a new writer, for instance in Britain to start a career right now because your market is full of exceptional talented writers.

21:37In Ukraine at those times it was easier. If you can write, if you can provide good stories, you can do it for a living. It was just wonderful. But now it's like, it's not like that.

21:49Max Kidruk:That golden age for Kidruk saw him write over 20 works of fiction and journalism and crossed the globe, everywhere from China to Brazil and Syria. Along with his wife, Tatiana, he started the publishing house Bearded Tamarin, not just for his own fiction, but for other global authors, for a growing Ukrainian readership. War has played a part in that too. After the invasion started, the supply of Russian books to Ukraine just stopped. Ukraine cut all ties with Russia. Lots of Ukrainian publishing houses just go bankrupt. Those who managed to survive those first really gloomy and dark months, they're kind of doing well now.

22:31We founded our own publishing house. Yes, during the war. It was tough. Colony was our first book and if it failed, our family literally would go bankrupt. Printing house, where we ordered the first print run, was located not far from the front line. And we started printing in December 2022. And this was the time when the Russians were most actively shelling Ukrainian infrastructure. So there was no electricity like for weeks. The printing house bought huge industrial generators and worked mostly at night. So when somehow we managed to get the first print run just before the new year, it was really hard.

23:09It's like two or three months old child. It's kind of the same when you have two or three months old publishing house. My wife and me thought that we will be good if we sell 12 ,000 copies within a year. We sold first 12 ,000 copies within like three weeks. That's how we got our money for other books and other projects, which are already more than a dozen.

23:33Max Kidruk:There was something nagging away at the back of his whole conversation, an unspoken burden. In this meat grinder of a war with Russia, Max is of military age and yet is permitted to leave the country to promote his work in Europe, raising funds along the way for the Ukrainian military. It turned out that Max can't go into combat. His own physical frailters would kill him before any bullet. From the age of 20 he was diagnosed with chronic arrhythmia and needed surgery that was only partially successful. It was just terrible. It's really risky conditions. I don't know if it's the right English word, ablations.