Story Behind the Story: The Fox and the Hedgehog (#SFWApro)

As I mentioned Friday, the second Monster Earth book, Betrayal on Monster Earth is out and it includes my short story, “The Fox and the Hedgehog.” Which strangely enough was inspired by a scene that didn’t appear in the final draft.
First off, here’s the premise of the book. In Monster Earth, kaiju were the world’s super-weapons, as deadly as an atomic bomb. The book ran into the 1970s. Some time after the ending story, US scientists discovered a key gene found in all kaiju, making it possible to grow more of them. A doomsday cult steals samples of the gene and begins distributing them world-wide, touching off a nightmarish arms race.
When the publishers invited me to pitch a second story, I reflected back on a Silver Age Legion of Super-Heroes story in which the sole watcher on a far-off space outpost is bored out of his mind, almost wishing “It” would show up to give him something to do. And then realizing that’s a horrible thought because It will wipe out the galaxy if it appears. And then the siren sounds …
That was how the story was going to start. The creature they were waiting for was something unstoppable, unkillable—but, I decided, not particularly aggressive. Instead of a savage, destructive force, why not an invulnerable one? A creature that levels cities simply by walking through and smashing everything in its path.
And then it hit me: A hedgehog. Not an aggressive creature, even 100 feet high. But at 100 feet high, human beings look just like tasty grubs. If it has to knock down a few buildings to get the yummy nummies, well, that’s what it’ll do. And no matter what weapons humanity employs, they just don’t hurt it.
I pitched this concept to publishers Jeff and Jim, who said it sounded fine provided it wasn’t too comical (otherwise I doubt I’d have resisted calling it Spiny Norman). I was confident I could make that work, so I began. My initial concept was that the hedgehog was created by Soviet cultists, then the government managed to drop it into a lava flow. But now it’s been forcing its way through the Earth and emerges in the US, which is what the watchers in the opening scene were waiting for.
The transition from Russia to the US felt very awkward though, so I wound up keeping Koschei the Deathless (a name from Russian folklore) entirely in the USSR. The protagonist, though is a US scientist: This was during the period the Soviet government was loosening up, and both they and the White House want to keep that going. Our government is concerned that if Koschei destroys Moscow, the Soviet military will launch a coup, maybe unleash their own monsters on other nations.
With the basic set-up, it became time to work on the characters. Though when I say “work” I mean write draft after draft. It’s not like I sit down and plan everything out, step by step. Not even remotely like.
On the cultist side: An aging Russian scientist, bitter to see the greatness of Stalinist Russia falling to reform (yes, some Russians really did feel that way). On the US: A brilliant young scientist, Shelly Fox, who sees this as her chance to prove her radical theories are sound. Everyone else looks at the genetic breakthrough and dreams of creating newer, more powerful Monsters. Shelly realizes that if we can understand the Monsters at the genetic and biochemical level, we can attack them in totally new ways. Until now, nobody’s agreed with her, but the Soviet Union is getting desperate …
Those two became the core of the story, Shelly in particular. At my friend and fellow writer Samantha Collins’ so-obvious-I-should-have-seen-it suggestion, I trimmed out a number of supporting characters to concentrate the focus. I hated giving up Shelly’s comics-loving boyfriend, but it was the right call.
The title, by the way, is a quote from Isaiah Berlin: The fox has many tricks, the hedgehog has just one but he’s very good at it. It seemed apropos.
I’ll post a link to the print edition whenever it comes out, but until then, it’s ebookable. Don’t delay! Buy today!