This is one in a series of interviews with some of my and The Wife’s favorite novelists. Today we are traveling across the pond to London to visit with Adam Hamdy, one of the most diverse writers, if not individuals, I have the pleasure of knowing.
Identified as an Amazon Rising Star, Adam divides his time today between being an author and being a screenwriter. Take it from me, being accomplished at either of those skills is tough. Being successful at both simultaneously is nigh on impossible. He is also able to do this on both sides of the Atlantic. At the same time.
When Adam and I sat down to spend a few minutes together, I found some hints as to how Adam manages all that he does by taking a look at his beginnings, including his ‘incidental’ background as a rock climber, skier and CPSA marksman.
Ron: You have a law degree from the University of Oxford and a degree in philosophy from the University of London. Why both? Were you trying to avoid getting a real job and going to work?
Adam: Ha! If only. My family didn’t have very much money, so I started working when I was 12, earning extra cash by helping my mum clean the local bookmakers offices after school. By 14, I was working weekends and vacations in a hotel laundry, and I’ve worked ever since. Oxford has strict rules about when and where you can work, so I had to cut back to only working vacations while at the university, but my second degree at London was completed while I had a full time job working as a management consultant. I was drawn to law because it seemed an interesting, well paid career. Studying moral and political philosophy as part of my law degree got me interested in big themes and big thinkers, and I later decided to explore them in more detail. A second degree seemed a good way to structure my learning.
Ron: Adam, that is so impressive! When you did finally pursue a career, it seems it was as a management consultant and as a financial guru. Did your background as a lawyer and philosopher prepare you for those entrepreneurial pursuits, or did those callings just come naturally?
Adam: I’ve always been good at solving problems. One of my university tutors used to say, ‘The most important thing you can do is ask the right questions.’ There’s a lot of people out there who think they’ve got the answer, but the truth is they haven’t even been asking the right question. Be humble when you approach a problem, and leave any assumptions you might have at the door. Law definitely helped prepare me for the rigorous analysis involved in management consulting, but if anyone out there is thinking about pursuing it as a career, I’d advise doing something like math or engineering to really hone that problem solving muscle.
Ron: I understand what you’re saying. Leave your assumptions at the door is quite apt. When I was in law school, the professors always said the good lawyers were the ones who asked the right questions, not the ones who (thought they) had all the answers. My undergraduate degree is a joint degree in math and physics, but I found I couldn’t change a light bulb. So what I did change . . . was to law. I practiced law for some 50 years before I discovered a love for writing. It seems like it didn’t take you quite so long to make that leap. And you began with your comic book limited series, THE HUNTER, no less, which was optioned for film by Scarlet Fire Entertainment, with you providing the script. And then you moved on to write a comedy feature film, PULP, the first ever film to premiere on Xbox. How did you segue from law, philosophy and finance to . . . comics? And comedy features? Were you just . . . restless?
Adam: I’ve always written stories. I reconnected with an old school friend recently who reminded me of a story I’d written when we were kids. He went on about how he could recall every detail and talked about the impact it had on him. I didn’t have the heart to say I couldn’t remember it, because even as a kid I was always writing.
I’d carried on writing as a hobby, but it wasn’t until my father passed away unexpectedly that I decided to get serious and pursue a career in writing. The loss helped me realize that life’s too precious to waste doing something you don’t enjoy. I started with screenwriting, but as anyone will tell you, it’s a hard industry to get into and I had no contacts in the field. Someone suggested I write comics to help build a platform, which is how THE HUNTER was born.
PULP came as the result of a strange trip to San Diego Comic Con to promote THE HUNTER. David Golding, the artist who worked with me on THE HUNTER, and Bill King, who did marketing for the comic, and I ended up having a series of bizarre experiences that wound up being the inspiration for the film.
Ron: Fascinating. And then you transitioned again, somewhat, to what I would call conventional writing, thriller novels, and screenwriting. You are the author of a techno-thriller trilogy which began with PENDULUM. That’s when you and I met. I read PENDULUM and loved it. I was not the only one. James Patterson called PENDULUM ‘one of the best thriller novels of the year’ in 2016. The novel was a finalist for the prestigious Glass Bell Award for contemporary fiction. It was also chosen as book of the month by Goldsboro Books, and selected for BBC Radio 2 Book Club. How did you get from THE HUNTER and PULP to PENDULUM? Not that I’m sorry you did.
Adam: I’ve veered towards darker stories. THE HUNTER is a superhero thriller, sort of a cross between 24 and X-MEN. Most of the things I’ve written are in the crime/thriller genre.
I’d lived in awe of authors. They were my literary heroes. Titans who sit down and build a universe from scratch, populating it with people and stories. Movies and comics are collaborative art forms. As an author, you have a direct relationship with the reader, and your work stands or falls on the connection you establish with that person. It’s daunting, but in 2010, after spending years being terrified by the thought of writing a novel, I decided to confront my fear and sat down and wrote a sci-fi, espionage thriller called BATTALION.
It almost got picked up by one of the big publishers, which was enough encouragement to try again. I wrote a second book called OUT OF REACH, which was acquired by a small independent press. BATTALION and OUT OF REACH were cross-genre stories and the feedback I’d had from the big publishers was that they prefer books they can market to a particular demographic, so I conceived PENDULUM as a book that fit within a clear genre. The book was only half finished when it sold, so I knew I’d made the right decision.
Ron: Indeed you did. Aside from completing the second and the third in the PENDULUM trilogy, FREEFALL, which released in 2017, and AFTERSHOCK, which is due out in just a couple of weeks, on November 15 in the UK, and then next July in the U.S. You now seem to be spending as much time as a screenwriter as a novelist. How did that happen? Aside from my understanding that you have been hired by NBC Universal to adapt PENDULUM into an eight part film series (how cool is that?), what are your latest other screenwriting notables? And what else do you have on your horizon?
Adam: Like I said, I’ve worked since the age of 12. I’m used to being busy and until recently couldn’t afford to give up the screen or novel writing. The popularity and success of the books seems to have coincided with a rise in my stock as a screenwriter, and to be honest, after years of struggle, I’m enjoying the heat, as it’s known in the business. Screen and novel writing are very different experiences and offer me different rewards. I enjoy them both and will try to keep straddling both worlds for as long as possible.
I’ve just signed a new book deal and recently finished my fourth novel, BLACK THIRTEEN, which publishes in 2020. On the screenwriting front, I’ve just completed a drama feature biopic about the Internet activist, Aaron Swartz, and I’m currently working on the TV adaptation of a New York Times bestselling thriller.
Ron: It’s good that you enjoy the heat because you are certainly subjecting yourself to it. I feel like I need to let you get back to it. Time for both of us to get back to work. Thanks for the nice visit, Adam.
Adam: Thanks so much for having me and for taking the time to do such thorough research and to ask these great questions. Good luck with your writing, Ron. I’m part way through your latest novel, THE PUPPET MASTER, and I am hooked on it.
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