NOTES ON NOBODY’S CHILDREN

WARNING: This page contains substantial SPOILERS for Nobody’s Children.


NOTES ON JASON

I’ve always had a soft spot for Jason Peter Kane, as is probably obvious from my stories in the Benny anthologies A Life Worth Living (the aptly-named ‘Sex Secrets of the Robot Replicants’) and Collected Works (particularly ‘Perspectives: The Injured Party’).

He is, however, a bugger to write well, and I’m not sure I’ve always managed it. That is to say, I’ve written a character who I think works, who makes me laugh and who touches me (no – not like that), and who I can honestly imagine Benny loving... but I’m never convinced that it’s the character other people are writing, or who Dave Stone created back in Death and Diplomacy.

The key to Jason’s character, as I write him, lies in two tensions. Firstly, he’s intelligent and resourceful when he needs to be, but he’s also hopelessly lazy. A lot of the time he just can’t be bothered to be very bright. Secondly, his cockiness, insensitivity and philandering are attempts to cover for a deep-rooted insecurity which goes right back to his horrendous childhood. These apparent contradictions make him both an obnoxious git and – to me, at least, and presumably to Benny as well – an enormously appealing character.

I feel very comfortable by now with the Benny / Jason relationship, and I enjoyed inhabiting it from Jason’s perspective for about a quarter of the word-count of ‘Nursery Politics’. It’s by way of being my definitive statement on how I see the two of them together.

Jason’s also a marvellous excuse for dirty jokes and double entendres, which are among the few pleasures left to a writer frantically pursuing a deadline.


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Nobody’s Children cover © Lee Sullivan 2007.
New Worlds cover design © Stuart Manning 2005.