While studying WWII, I became interested in the dilemma of being under the control of an all-powerful dictator. If standing up directly equals death, how far do people bend in order to survive? In WWII, some played along publicly but resisted in secret. Others capitulated completely, and still others kept their heads down and simply tried to survive. There was no single “right” answer to this dilemma; rather it was a choice each person had to make for themself.

It was during this time that I had a dream about Alyssa and Neal fleeing through the woods with a group of kids. Two weeks later, I dreamed about Shay using the virtual reality device on Alyssa. I instantly knew these two dreams were from the same world, and thus Assimilation was born.

I began writing Assimilation in 2010. It took me six years to write a complete first draft. After that, it took another nine years of on-again, off-again revisions. Every time I attended a writing workshop or read a book on craft, Assimilation would come out of its drawer for a fresh revision. This novel taught me how to be a writer and for that I am forever grateful.

Surprisingly, no. I began writing Assimilation in 2010 and completed the first draft in 2016. At the time, I looked at the trajectory of our world and imagined what might happen if events continued on their current course. For this reason, Assimilation feels hauntingly familiar—but with a few twists.

Chiavette’s ideology is left-leaning, but he was most closely inspired by Hitler. The use of all-caps in Chiavette’s State of the Union Addresses, specifically, were inspired by the fervour with which Hitler delivered his speeches.

That said, Chiavette was influenced in part by all the major dictators of the twentieth century—Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, and the Kim family. There are clear patterns to how dictators seize power versus how they keep ahold of power once they’re in control, and I used these patterns to form Chiavette.

Note: I would highly recommend the TV show How to Become a Tyrant, narrated by Peter Dinklage. This show explains the patterns of tyranny throughout modern history, empowering people to recognize a true leader from a rising tyrant.