“This is the twenty-first century! We put a man on the moon almost 50 years ago, can video chat with anyone anywhere, and have super computers with speeds faster than anyone could have imagined just two decades ago. So why are we still tolerating traffic?”
Luke Bennecke was driving on the freeway when the germ of the idea for his high-tech futuristic thriller Civil Terror: Gridlock took shape. In the book, self-driving vehicles finally arrive. But so do the terrorists.
It’s a thought-provoking thriller about artificial intelligence and the self-driving revolution, and readers are forced to consider how they’d react if they were cornered and trapped in a terrifying life-threatening situation.
Bennecke shed more light on his book in this recent Q&A:
Q: Civil Terror: Gridlock has been called a thought-provoking thriller about artificial intelligence and the self-driving revolution. Tell us about the main storyline.
A: Terrorists weaponize self-driving cars by hacking in and controlling them remotely, causing a massive freeway accident on I-405 in Los Angeles. But this first attack is only a test. The designer of the self-driving network, civil engineer Jake Bendel, discovers a plan for a nationwide attack that could kill millions of innocent Americans. Working with the FBI, Bendel risks his and his family’s lives to stop the attack.
Q: Where did you come up with the idea for this book?
A: I was driving (or more accurately parked in traffic congestion) on the freeway back in 2015. I thought to myself, “This is the twenty-first century! We put a man on the moon almost 50 years ago, can video chat with anyone anywhere on the planet, and have super computers with speeds faster than anyone could have imagined just two decades ago…so why are we still tolerating traffic?” I gave myself a magic wand and thought about what I would do if money were no object. One relatively quick fix would be to create a network of self-driving cars, where, once on a freeway, the cars’ computer would take over for us. This would increase the capacity of all freeways by 600 percent and eliminate all traffic delays. But then I thought about the risks and, at the time, the San Bernardino shooting (where I was raised) was all over the news, and I thought about terrorists and how they could mess everything up.
Q: You recently revised the book. What kind of changes did you make and why?
A: When I first wrote the third/final act, it played out in the way I would personally want it to happen: happy, not much drama, with minimal tension. But this isn’t necessarily an extraordinary experience readers want to spend time on. After writing two more books and taking more writing classes and discussing with my editors, I dove back into the final act of Gridlock and reworked it so it dripped with tension and suspense.
Also, since this was my first book, my author voice hadn’t fully developed yet and I was writing with an overabundance of short, choppy sentences. I went through the entire manuscript and tried to smooth all that out a bit and make it more readable.
Q: Why are people attracted to stories that present forward-thinking ideas for the betterment of society, only to introduce a dark side of humanity hell-bent on exploiting it?
A: Technology is exploding daily with new ideas and inventions. By some estimates, there are more new things happening in a single modern hour than over entire centuries a millennium ago. Since 1) change can be frightening to most people, 2) humans are hard-wired with a negativity bias, and 3) we all want to live in a peaceful world, I think cautionary tales can take a reader down a path with one potential way of an unfolding future, bad people cause bad stuff to happen, then the good guys triumph in the end. And there’s a lesson there, something we can all learn from in real life to ensure our future is bright and filled with joy instead of terror and dread.
Q: Tell us about Jake Bendel. How would you define him, and who, if anyone, was his character inspired by?
A: Bendel is a conglomeration of multiple personalities of people I’ve met and spent time with over my 30+ year career as a civil engineer. He’s a flawed, unsuspecting hero, someone who does not want to go on the journey I’ve forced him to go on. But he surprises himself with a bravery he didn’t know he had and shows courage to fight the bad guys in order to come out on top despite overwhelming odds against him. And the impossible situations I’ve put him in will take their toll mentally and physically, as you will discover in the second and third Jake Bendel novels.
Q: What was the most challenging part of the book to write?
A: The ending was tough because I purposely didn’t outline it. I’m an engineer, so I normally like to have a plan for what I’m going to build, whether it’s a bridge, house, or novel. But I wanted to try something new and have the ending be organic, figuring if I didn’t know what was going to happen to the characters, the readers wouldn’t either.
Q: What would you hope is the primary takeaway for readers?
A: Self-driving cars have great potential to change humanity, but only if we are careful with implementation and put the proper safety precautions in place to prevent hacking. And, of course, my bias toward showcasing civil engineers as critically important to maintaining modern civilization. As a career, civil engineering is fun, rewarding, pays well, and has multiple potential paths for young adults (e.g. transportation, drinking water, structures like buildings and housing developments, dams, lakes, electrical grid, urban planning, and more). If you like computers, math, and building things, civil engineering might be the career you’ve been searching for.
About J. Luke Bennecke:
J. Luke Bennecke is a native Californian and veteran civil engineer who has spent his career helping people by improving Southern California roadways. He has a civil engineering degree, an MBA, a private pilot’s certificate, and is a partner in an engineering firm. In his role as philanthropist, he awards scholarships annually to high school seniors at his alma mater. Bennecke resides in Southern California with his wife of over 30 years and three spunky cats and. In his leisure time he enjoys traveling, plays golf, learns about innovative tech, and spends time with his grown daughters. Bennecke is a member of International Thriller Writers and looks forward to attending ThrillerFest every year in New York.
