Hi again, Makari,
A TON of work went into the making of the series, as a ton of work goes into every book. I was at it for the better part of 2 years, including the planning time.
Most authors don’t require what you call “inspiration,” though. We write because we have something to say, a story to tell. That’s all it takes to start us scribbling. The basic idea was to write about clones; as the planning continued, I decided they would be clones of criminal masterminds, and that they would have to find out about it using the “smarts” they were born with. And so on. It just grew from there. When they escaped, they knew nothing of the real world, and a lot of what they knew was false information. The problems the kids had became the story, and the story carried the book right to the end of #3.
The MASTERMINDS series didn’t require the kind of research that I needed for my TITANIC series, for example. I just had to find a remote part of New Mexico to place Serenity in, and then make sure I had the kids traveling in the right directions and to the right places when they were out of Serenity.
OK? Again, thanks for your support for the series, which has been a big hit for me.
—-Gordon Korman—-

“There’s a little genius in every kid!”
SUPERGIFTED — a companion to UNGIFTED
Coming January 2nd