Steven Bereznai’s science fiction sequel, The Timematician, starts in an unusual place: with the series villain getting exactly what he wants. The malevolent Doctor BetterThan, in his elaborate, aquatic lair, successfully deploys his death ray, making himself the only living being left on the planet. Bereznai’s Gen M series, which started with the novel Generation Manifestation, is all about engaging with superhero tropes, and Doctor BetterThan is the quintessential comic-book villain. In the opening pages of The Timematician, he crows about his triumph and his perfect performance as the ultimate villain:
My name is Doctor BetterThan—as in, I’m better than him, her, zir, and them. I’ve had many monikers over my multifarious existences—Professor N, Mister Know, Herr Intellekt—to name a few. During each iteration, I’ve had a chance to perfect my look, persona, and modus operandi. I’ve made this decimated planet quake, literally and figuratively, from the DNA regulars in the concrete tenements of the boroughs to the Supergenic elite in their shiny towers on Jupitar Island. Forget Gen M. I’m Gen Me. All of it has brought me to this. Today, I destroy what’s left of the world. It’s been a long time coming.
But if your book opens with the bad guy winning, where can the story possibly go? And what happens to Doctor BetterThan when he finally achieves his terrible goal? Bereznai’s novel explores what’s next in a story that Kirkus Reviews calls “wildly entertaining, with a thoughtful layer under all the villainous boasting and ka-pow action.”
Bereznai, who lives in Toronto and works in government communications, has always been a big fan of franchises like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Hunger Games, and even the wacky humor of classic cartoon characters like Marvin the Martian and Wile E. Coyote. And then, of course, classic mad scientists like Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll influenced Bereznai’s taste in characters who, as he puts it, “pursue science because they must, mental health and blundering egos be damned.”
But most influential of all was Bereznai’s autism diagnosis and the realization that he’d written more than one character with traits of people on the autism spectrum. Bereznai says that The Timematician is the first book he’s written where he has allowed his “autistic voice to run with wild abandon, and it was so zany and fun to do so.”
Part of the pleasure and satisfaction Bereznai found in exploring his authentic autistic voice derived from the security that his experience is still wholly his own. “There’s a saying that ‘if you’ve met one person on the autism spectrum, you’ve met one person on the spectrum,’ ” he says. “We are all so different from each other. When I see autistic characters in books or on TV, there are things I relate to and things I don’t, which is great because that’s life. Now that I’m aware of my own autism and can see a lot of my behaviors, thoughts, and confusions through that lens, I’m more able to use that creatively to show what autism is like for me.” For example, Bereznai writes Doctor BetterThan as someone who is on the autism spectrum, but that connection came more from similar, specific traits like his “playfulness with language” than a more general, nebulous diagnosis.
In addition to approaching the second Gen M novel with new knowledge about himself and his characters, Bereznai was eager to explore parts of his world that were only hinted at in Generation Manifestation. Doctor BetterThan’s affection for steampunk is manifested in how he reshapes the world to his own tastes, and the entire world reflects a view of speculative fiction that is inclusive of people with disabilities. “I had to think about how accessible his secret lair is, given that he has one leg in a brace,” says Bereznai. “I was obsessed with including spiral staircases, so I had to think about why would he do that, given his mobility challenges? I realized that, like myself, the Timematician was obsessed with their aesthetic; he also liked the challenge they offered, and he could avoid them, using his jet pack, when he felt like it.”
Any science-fiction, fantasy, or speculative-fiction writer needs to make sure that all those wonderful, fantastical details in their mind are legible on the page. As Bereznai fleshed out the world of Gen M, his mother served as a fresh pair of eyes, making sure he wasn’t leaving his readers behind. She wasn’t a big science-fiction fan, so she was able to point out where Bereznai needed to add more context and more explanations for readers to follow along. “She pushed me to be really clear on our hero’s and his nemesis’s abilities, how they work, what their limits are. Her feedback really helped me spell things out.”
It’s a bit difficult to discuss what happens to Doctor BetterThan after his grand plans pay off because to give away too many details would spoil the reading experience. But readers can rest assured that Bereznai didn’t simply write a story about regret. Stories about triumphant villains getting bored with victory have already been done, so Bereznai decided to confront Doctor BetterThan with a nonliving survivor of his death ray: a robot named Mairi Lin Monroe.
Mair? Lin Monroe becomes Doctor BetterThan’s new nemesis simply by understanding him, and so Doctor BetterThan must get to know her in order to defeat her. “His gadgets and tricks don’t work on her,” says Bereznai. “He has to learn about her as a person. For an egomaniac to truly get to know someone is no small thing, and it’s what changes everything for both of them.”
Readers who aren’t satisfied with only two books in the Gen M series can find Book 3, The Girl With Green Scales, on Wattpad. Book 4, The Boy With Pink Hair, will be available soon. Bereznai looks forward to focusing on each character’s story in subsequent books. “I like that every character is the hero of their own story and worthy of being a narrator,” he says. “It’s very ‘Marvel Cinematic Universe,’ but with a smaller fan base and budget.”
Chelsea Ennen is a writer living in Brooklyn.
