Award-winning author and self-confessed tech geek Alastair Chisholm delves into the inspiration behind his latest novella Blitzers, a gripping sci-fi adventure that explores themes of artificial intelligence, toxic masculinity, big tech and corporate power.
Blitzers is my second book with Barrington Stoke, and it was a lot of fun to write! It follows Danny, a boy obsessed with the latest gaming craze, BLITZERS. Blitzers are little virtual creatures you train up to fight each other. The only problem is that Danny’s Blitzer is … well, rubbish.
Other Blitzers fight – Danny’s just runs away. Other Blitzers have terrifying special powers – Danny’s has flower arranging. Other Blitzers get cool names like Hook Jaw, Death Fist, Kill Face – Danny’s Blitzer is called … Chew Lip. (“Tulip?” says his friend Tan. “You mean, like the flower?”)
And so begins Danny’s (and Chew Lip’s) adventure. How can Danny train Chew Lip into the vicious, bloodthirsty monster needed to beat the other Blitzers? Who is the mysterious company running the Blitzers game? And what are they really trying to achieve? It starts with mouthing off against the school bully, and ends, like all the best stories do, with giant exploding killer robots…
I do love a good exploding killer robot story. And the idea of a virtual fighting creature that simply wouldn’t fight tickled me. It reminded me of Munro Leaf’s classic tale of Ferdinand the bull, who would rather smell the flowers than fight in the bullring. I picked some definitely-not-killer skills, like flower arranging and singing (and running away – Chew Lip is excellent at running away), and imagined what would happen next.
Because there isn’t much Danny can do about it. He can’t afford a new Blitzer, so Chew Lip is his only option. Not only that, but you don’t even get to control the Blitzers when they fight. You train them, and then you send them into battle all by themselves. All they have is what you’ve taught them.
And I thought, well, isn’t that what we do with kids? We can’t live their lives for them. All we can do is try to teach them, then watch as they head out into the world all by themselves…
And Blitzers was born.
The whole idea of the Blitzers fighting game is to fight, kill, destroy. The Blitzers die over and over again, but it doesn’t matter, because they’re only virtual. They don’t really exist. You train them with two buttons, ‘stroke’ or ‘zap’. And they don’t like being zapped. But they’re not real, so … it’s OK? You send them to fight. You buy extra weapons. SMASH YOUR ENEMIES! says the brochure. CRUSH YOUR FOES! DESTROY!!!!
Danny tries to train Chew Lip (or Chewy, as he calls it). He likes Chewy, and Chewy seems to like him. But it won’t fight. And Danny’s cred at school depends on Chewy fighting. He searches online and finds people ready to advise him, like White Trainer Guy, who wears fake army fatigues and shows off sponsored kit and shouts at the camera about the need to Establish Your Dominance! Punish Failure! And above all: Don’t Let It Grow Up Weak!
White Trainer Guy, online influencer and toxic masculinity jackass (Illustrations by the wonderful Francesca Ficorilli)
So … it’s not just a story about exploding killer robots.
Blitzers is about how we treat others, and what effect that has – on them, and on us. The people Danny finds online tell him ‘how he should be’, and that soon spills out to affect his friends, his family, the people who care for him. Meanwhile, Mel, the terrifying school bully, has her own problem in the form of a domineering, threatening father who gives her advice like, “You gotta be tough! You gotta raise them to be tough!”.
All we can do is teach them and then send them out into the world. But what we teach them … well, that matters.
And it matters in the game, too, Danny realises. Chewy is just a virtual creature, but it acts as if it’s real. And if that’s the case, then is the way Danny treats it … also real?
I didn’t want the book to be an earnest lecture. I promise, the killer robots are really cool. But toxic masculinity is a problem that society constantly struggles with. And the rise of online influencers, all battling for likes and shares, all trying to think up the next shocking thing to make their posts go viral, has made it far more insidious than ever before. Kids have access to extraordinary content, good and bad, and we can’t stop them finding it. All we can do is prepare them.
So I thought: maybe I could just show an example or two. Like a vaccination, perhaps? A little note to the immune system, saying: look at this guy. Listen to what he says, how he talks, how he acts. Watch out for people like that. And if they seem to offer you everything you want, then ask yourself – what is it they want from you?
And Danny’s lucky, because while he’s seeing this stuff online, at home he has his big brother Jay, the exact opposite and everything a big brother can be – role model, provider, guardian, and all-round example of positive masculine influence. “That White Trainer Guy,” Jay says at one point. “Seems a bit of a jackass, to be honest. You know that, yeah?”
Yeah.
Killer robots!
So, Blitzers is about virtual fighting creatures, and killer robots, and evil corporations, and flower arranging. It’s short, super-readable, dyslexia friendly, wonderfully illustrated by Francesca Ficorilli and – I hope! – funny. And it’s about toxic masculinity vs empathy, and positive male role models, and how the way we treat everyone – even slightly silly virtual creatures – really matters.
I hope you enjoy it :-)
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Everyone is desperate to have a Blitzer, the new fighting-game craze. But Danny’s Blitzer is broken – it won’t fight!
His classmates laugh at him. His brother tells him to wipe the code and start again. But Danny does something different … and everything changes.
For the people behind Blitzers are hiding a deadly secret, and now everyone is in danger. Can Danny uncover the truth? Can he figure out what Blitzers are? And above all, can he save his best friend?
Particularly suitable for readers aged 9+ with a reading age of 8.