A Discovery of Unicorns

One of the most common questions I receive about the unicorn series is in regards to the way the world at large responds to the rediscovery of unicorns. At the beginning of Rampant, people don’t think there are any such thing as unicorns (including Astrid) — kind of like the world we live in. But throughout Ascendant, you see that knowledge about the existence of unicorns has moved into the mainstream, and the ramifications of that, such as a pharmaceutical company exploiting their special properties, fringe environmental groups devoting themselves to the species, and Astrid’s mother Lilith making her living as a unicorn expert commentator on cable news specialties.

However, the existence of unicorns does not cause the world to grind to a halt. This strikes some readers as odd, though it’s actually the most realistic reaction. About five years ago, they confirmed the existence of giant squid, another heretofore mythical monster best known for its literary exploits (hello, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea). When I was a teenager, I had a book of mythical monsters. This animal was in it, despite the fact that there had been occasional sightings of dead giant squids or pieces of dead giant squids found in the bellies of whales. (People have things called unicorns horns, too, and there are “created” unicorns like the kind that used to tour with the Ringling Circus.)

But slowly we learned more and more about real giant squids, and now we have videographic proof that they are real. Sixty foot long squids, totally real !There were articles about it in every paper, and people talked about it on the news for like a week. But I still got up and went to work that day. The metro didn’t stop running because there are actually giant squids in the sea.

What happened with giant squids is similar to what happens with unicorns — there are articles about them, researchers can get grants to study them, people who are fascinated are still fascinated, and people whose lives aren’t so much touched by the whole situation go on with their lives as they did before — to them, it’s a curious article in a newspaper, a “Huh, isn’t that cool. Pass the coffee,” kind of moment. If it happened today, it would probably trend on twitter, and then the world would move on.

Now, with unicorns, it’s a little different, because, generally speaking, giant squids aren’t a danger to anyone except sperm whales and Captain Nemo, whereas the unicorns in my books attack campers in wild places and children in public parks. Indeed, in “The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn,” which takes place at the same time as Ascendant, a unicorn attack has caused the closing of all the parks in Wen’s town.

And yet, the world still goes on. To imagine otherwise is a statement about how sanitized most of our lives have become — most of us are lucky enough not to live in a place where we are in danger of being attacked by wild animals. Again, my concept of how real people and towns would react to this danger is based in reality — in how rangers in National Parks respond to bear attacks, or, on a more personal note, how the people on the beaches in my home state of Florida responded to a mysterious uptick in shark attacks about a decade ago.

Namely: there were lots of articles about it, lifeguards warned you about sharks, in places where there were heavy shark sightings or reported injuries, they closed the beaches… and yet people still went to work and school, and let their kids build sandcastles on the shore… even if they didn’t let them go in the water.

Of course, as Mark Twain once noted, the difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to be believable, and to some, it’s just not as fun if the average accountant or pastry chef or soccer mom hears about unicorns on the news, then continues to pay their bills, make lunch, and drop the kids off at school the way they do when they hear about shark attacks or the reality of giant squids.

Except, not everyone does that. My books are about the people who don’t. (If they weren’t, it wouldn’t be very interesting to read!) The people who put their entire lives on hold and devote themselves completely to the unicorns. Before there were unicorns, Neil Bartoli was a law student, Philippa Llewelyn was a volleyball player, Lilith worked odd jobs and Astrid went to high school. And you don’t have to be a unicorn hunter, either. All those environmentalists camping outside Gordian Pharmaceuticals — they have jobs and lives and families, too. But to them, unicorns are more important. There are people like that, and there are people who just watch the TV shows Lilith stars in and then go back to being bank tellers and car salesmen and pediatricians.I don’t talk a lot about those people in the books, though.

There are also people in the middle. People like Giovanni, who indeed had close encounters with unicorns, and now has a nice story to tell his friends at college. One imagines that when there’s a unicorn story in the news, Giovanni’s friends say, “Hey, aren’t you dating one of those unicorn hunters?” the same way I might read a story about the space shuttle and say to a friend, “Hey, isn’t your cousin an astronaut?” Giovanni can say, “Yeah, I got attacked by unicorns once. I hid in a van and this girl I was dating kicked their ass.”

Actually, I know exactly what Giovanni says. One of these days, I’ll write that story. 😉

I’m such a tease.