What would you like people to know about you?

I’m a dystopian novelist who is really much more of an optimist than might appear.  Out of all the countries in the world, I think a major U.S. strength is its ability to rebound.  The danger is the great ideals the country was built upon can slip away after several generations.  My novel centers on a world where that has happened.

The inscription preceding Drew Magary’s first novel, The Postmortal (Penguin, August 2011), is a quote from the band Mastodon. Though appropriate for a story about a species in peril, this reference is an unfortunate omen for the novel to come. Mastodon, for the uninitiated, is a popular (and pretty damn great) metal band whose shows are so notoriously populated by knuckle-dragging testosterone junkies that I’ve always been afraid to attend. As a 30-year-old lady geek, this band and many aspects of Magary’s novel are fantastic in concept, exclusionary in practice.

What is the Rapture, in Christian theology? And why are the people of Salvation City so ready to welcome it?

Many Christians believe that, just before the Apocalypse, the saved will ascend bodily to heaven and thus be spared the tribulations of the final battle between good and evil. Christians like those in Salvation City believe that the world has become so perverse and corrupt that it’s clearly time for it to end and for Christ’s reign—which will bring eternal peace and joy to the saved and reunite them with dead loved ones—to begin.