Courtesy of James Rollins
New York Times bestselling author James Rollins lives in California, travels the world, and writes about Somali pirates, bioengineering, Nazi mysticism, geological meltdowns, and, inevitably, the Knights Templar. But he’s really James Czajkowski. He went to junior high at Parkway South and high school at Parkway West, then on to Mizzou and its veterinary school. His dad worked for the Libby’s canning plant, and his mom was a housewife and mother of seven. “People say The Brady Bunch wasn’t realistic,” he says dryly, “but that pretty much was our life.” The thrilling escapes came from a playful imagination, not grim necessity.
So do you think of yourself as James Czajkowski or James Rollins?
Oh, James Czajkowski. If somebody says ‘James Rollins,’ there is that little momentary kick where I’ve got to sort of realign myself. It’s not a different persona, just a different mindset. At a party, my first response is still, “I’m a veterinarian, but I also write novels.”
Do you still practice veterinary medicine?
Oh yeah, I’ll never give it up entirely. Once a week I spend about eight hours spaying and neutering trapped feral cats for the Sacramento Council of Cats. All I do with my veterinary degree now is remove genitalia.
Yeah, but you created an amazing character in your new book Bloodline—Kane, a Belgian Malinois braver than most people. Have you ever had a dog like him?
I’ve had [he rattles off a motley list that ranges from dachsunds to golden retrievers], but I’ve never actually had a Belgian Malinois. So I did all this research and wrote this entire book about Belgian Malinois, and then one morning my sister called and said, “What do you know about Belgian Malinois? I’m thinking of adopting one.”
How did
I went on a USO tour to Iraq and Kuwait and saw the military war dogs in action, and being a vet, I automatically zeroed in. I interviewed some of the handlers. I wanted to know how they thought of the dog—like a sidearm? I found out there’s a deep emotional bond: If anything, they are a four-legged partner. Handlers said, “The dog seems to understand me better than my wife does!”
When did you first decide to be a vet?
In third grade, the teacher asked us to write about what we wanted to be when we grew up. I’m sitting at my desk wanting to say that I want to be a veterinarian; I just don’t know how to spell it! and the other thing on that list, the next up, was archaeology. Which was not any easier to spell.
What prompted you to pick up a pen?
For 20 years my paycheck was coming from my veterinary degree and my writing was my hobby, and I thought it would be really cool to flip that around. Veterinary medicine is much harder. It’s a 14-, 16-, 18-hour-a-day job. I owned my own practice, had 24 employees. I couldn’t get away, that was the biggest thing. In the 10 years I ran my own practice, I had three weeks of vacation total. I started writing during my lunch hour at the clinic—dogs barking, cats miaowing—so now I can write anywhere.
Your books fuse ancient mysteries with the newest science; it’s an interesting alchemy.
I’m always looking for the wonder in life. That bit of history that ends in a question, or the scientific what-if. There’s always that innate sense that there’s something bigger out there. With any book, I have three things I’m looking for: that bit of historical mystery, the bit of science I can explore, and an exotic location. And the way I define exotic is just taking your reader somewhere they are not normally allowed to go. It can be as simple as the employees-only door.
Maybe so, but you’ve managed to take us to Antarctica, the Amazon, the African jungle, a mysterious island, and the medieval heart of Budapest...
A good part of my novels is travelogue. People even ask me, do I travel for research. Generally, I don’t. I travel for the fun of it. but I take notes, I take pictures, I ask locals, ‘Tell me something strange about this place. Tell me a scary story.’ I collect them. I have a little cardboard box where I throw in bits of ideas. it’s a jumble, a mess, and I like the chaos because strange bits of science wind up next to strange bits of history. I cull it because things become tired or written about too much. and that process allows me to keep ideas in the forefront. I’m just afraid that at some point someone’s going to steal that box!
Why are the ancient mysteries still so resonant?
There’s just a certain belief that there’s knowledge that was known in the past that’s been lost, and we need to discover it again. I get a lot of conspiracy buffs who contact me absolutely certain that I know something I’m not telling them, and that I am slowly trying to get that out through the things that I’m writing. I just, I uh, I thank them for their note. No, there’s no agenda, but thank you for believing that I am that far-reaching!
Do you think there are lost secrets?
There are certainly things lost in the past we can learn again. Nanotechnology is manufacturing at the atomic level. It’s a multibillion dollar industry in the U.S. in the past, Damascus steel was very prized for making swords, and the recipe was secret. The swords were unusually strong, unusually flexible. We have analyzed the few [that are left] and found that woven throughout the metal is carbon nano tubules—a new invention used today for making things like bobsleds. Apparently they were able to make them back then.
You write breakneck adventures—have you had any?
Probably the most terrifying—I did a lot of caving when I was in Missouri, but out here, most caving’s very tight. I got caught in a narrow little chute, and I was stuck there for four hours. And somebody had died in a similar situation about six months prior, and that was in the back of my head. Granted, he was upside down; I kept reminding myself of that. And eventually, through tiny minute movements, I did free my knee. But trust me, at that point I understood the word ‘claustrophobic’ very, very well.
I hope most of your research is less catastrophic. I know you read tons of science and history…
At the beginning of Deep Fathom, I needed to crash the space shuttle. I knew there was some kind of evacuation system, but I didn’t know what it was, and I ended up contacting the webmaster for NASA’s website. I said, ‘I’m thinking of crashing a space shuttle in my next novel. Can you tell me how the evacuation system works?’ I came home from work three days later and leaning on my front door was the operations manual. Somebody hand-delivered it to my doorstep. I went to thank him and realized that nowhere in my email had I left my address.
In one interview, you said you believe immortals walk the earth. Seriously?
That was a little misdirection. Time magazine did a piece on 2045 as the year man becomes immortal. So you figure, a kid walking around right now, he may be immortal. And then I wonder: Would people take more risk if they knew they could live forever? Would they put off things? Does inertia set in? That’s what I like to explore with science. Not so much the cogs and wheels, but how does it challenge our morality. Because science tends to rip along rather quickly, before we have time to think about it.
