Category: A Few Quick Questions With… Page 7 of 16

Earlier today, I posted my take on the charming Aether Powered by James T. Lambert, and now I’d like to share this Q&A with you. Lambert got me to work a little harder than most authors do, which was a fun twist for me. Hope you like this Q&A and check out his work! He’ll be back in a week or two for another Literary Local post, too.

The second question and answer are probably technically a spoiler for his novel so you may want to skim/avoid them. But I think we’re both safe enough that it won’t really ruin much for you.

All authors have more ideas running around in their head than they can possibly develop—what was it about this idea that made you commit to writing it? Was there something about it that led it to be the first one you published—is it something as simple as of those you’d finished, it was the most worthy of being polished up, or was it something about that particular story?
So this was my second (and a half) NaNo project. My first had some style problems I wanted to fix and wasn’t making fast progress on, so when someone asked me which of my project was closest to completion, I thought Aether Powered was. Even after finishing some of my other NaNo projects, this one still seemed like it needed the least work to get to publication. After having published Steam Opera and Proxies I think I was wrong and Proxies was probably in better shape, but at the time I was convinced it needed a major rewrite to start in a different spot.

So my first NaNo project was Steam Opera and I attempted to write a sequel about 8 months later. It kind of fell apart between real life drama (a tree crushed both my cars while I was writing a few feet away) and problems with lack of direction in the plot. Steam Opera was a great NaNo idea as it had a specific goal for the plot: Get to the moon. If the characters got to the moon or failed in an interesting way the plot worked. So every decision while writing was ‘what do they do next to get to the moon?’ But Aether Powered was a less clever idea in terms of daily writing. I started with an interesting concept: trunk full of inventions. But every day was ‘what happens next?’ I didn’t have a goal like Steam Opera. But I wanted to succeed at NaNo and get those 50,000 words written, so I stuck to it.

When it comes to a character like Carol—how difficult was it to maintain (and/or arrive at) a believably overbearing girlfriend, without making her into a monster? Is the key in the way you write her, or in how Joseph reacted to her?
At the base she wasn’t that bad a person. She had the assumption that since Joseph owned a house and had a trust fund, he was rich. She just never moved beyond that to realize he was just scraping by. I just kept her focused on ‘I want money’ and always pushing and that gave her some ugly motivation. Also the jealousy and suspicion. I may have gone overboard with the ‘I’ll ruin your dating life’ but maybe she meant it as a joke and it just came out wrong. But with those motivations for acting the way she did, and with Joseph’s easy-going attitude letting him get steamrollered, their relationship was doomed, but not over-the-top unbelievable. People get stuck in bad relationships that aren’t quite bad enough to end. An old friend once said “it may be a cold, wet mudhole, but it’s YOUR cold, wet mudhole.” There’s a certain amount of inertia in most people and overcoming that to get out of a bad situation can be hard. I think Joseph’s reactions to her probably sold it better than anything. He tried to be careful, say the right thing, not make waves, but that just got him in deeper instead of fixing things.

There are several aspects of this book that I’d love to do a deep dive into, but I’m going to keep myself to one other: the Seafair Pirates. They are such a fun group! Is anything about their part of the story (a group like them, the Seafair, anything) based in reality, or is this something you made up en toto? When do we get a novel about them (either as a semi-sequel to Aether Powered, or something unrelated)?
I wish I was clever enough to make them up. Seafair and the Seafair Pirates are totally real. I just lucked into finding the information about them when I needed him to get some help. Here’s the website for the event: https://www.seafair.org/ The Pirates also exist (or did when I wrote the book) and I found news footage of them coming ashore. http://www.seafairpirates.org/

The descriptions of them in costume were from videos and pictures I found online. I read a lot about what they did and tried to incorporate as much as I could, but ended up modeling individuals and group scenes (like the singing) around fan groups I’ve been in. I’ve got a recording of Where the Red Queen Reigns from the group Annwn and I’ve been in Filk circles singing like that at conventions. When I was in my Science Fiction club we had all kinds of interesting people who did interesting things, so I made it a lot like that. Same with the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) where you could find one of everything in the groups. Just as examples: Federal radio techs fixing Smoke jumper radios at NIFC (National Interagency Fire Center), Ham radio enthusiasts who dispatched ambulances during power outages, rocket scientists who programed Martian rovers. Those are all people I’ve met through fan stuff.

I’m thinking about a sequel to Aether Powered with another invention as the key point. I’d most likely bring in the pirates again. My current working title is Rogue Wave and would be about the rogue wave phenomenon of Tsunamis. I don’t have much else yet and want to get a solid plot for it before I start. Maybe late in 2023? Depends on all the things, lol.

Who are some of your major influences? (whether or not you think those influences can be seen in your work—you know they’re there)
All my favorite authors are influences, but I never feel like I get enough of them in there. Lois McMaster Bujold, Terry Pratchett, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Alan Dean Foster, John M. Ford, Charles Stross, and more.

More personal people would be Troy Lambert (no relation), Danielle Gilbert, David Farland, M. Todd Gallowglas, John M. Olsen, and more.

I learned a lot from the Writing Excuses podcast with Howard Tayler, Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Brandon Sanderson.

You’ve published SF and Steampunk so far (and non-fiction about SF)—are those your genres of choice for writing and reading? Is there a genre you particularly enjoy, but don’t think you could/would want to try—or, given time are you going to get around to them all?
I was a huge SF fan growing up and still am. I used to be a bigger fan of Fantasy too, but am less so now. I like Steampunk, but don’t read it as much as I used to a decade ago. Of course, I’m not reading in general quite as much now as then.

I will probably continue doing SF and Steampunk a lot, but I also like Urban Fantasy and have several short stories I’m planning on getting out that are UF. I’m working on a fantasy as well, so we’ll see how that goes.

I really like humor. I’m a huge Discworld fan and would love to be able to write funny/satirical stuff like that. Or like Keith Laumer’s Retief books (more SF) or Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s books. But I’m having trouble getting into writing it. I’ve got a plot idea for a humorous SF story, but it hasn’t risen to the top of the pile yet.

Let’s play “Online Bookstore Algorithm” (a game I made up for these Q&As). What are 3-5 books whose readers may like Aether Powered?
Ouch, I wish I knew, my advertising might be going better, lol. Seriously though… hmmm, that’s tough.

Flaming Zeppelins. It’s a Steampunk book. More crazy than mine.

City of Saints by DJ Butler. Another Steampunk book set in Utah in the late 1800s.

Rock Band Fights Evil by DJ Butler. A series that is exactly what it says. Again, I wish mine was as creative as this.

I am having some trouble finding books that would have crossover to mine. If you have suggestions, I love to hear it. I don’t seem to be good at that kind of matchup. My first thought when you asked was, Not Dressed by Matthew Hanover—if he was to write contemporary Steampunk, it’d be a lot like it Aether Powered (and Not Dressed is the closest match of his books). While reading the book, I thought of K.R.R. Lockhaven’s The Marauders, the Daughter, and the Dragon more than once (his pirates would love yours—and vice versa).

2022 has been a busy year for you, are you easing up on yourself soon? Can you tell us what’s coming up in ‘23?
I hope not! But didn’t have a great start, getting sick right at the end of NaNo. I’m shooting to keep up a three to four book a year pace, but it’s going to be tougher than it has been since I’m running out of written stuff that just needs rewrites and edits.

I know I’ve got Relics of War coming out in early 23, probably by February (I want it for the LTUE conference in February). Relics of War is a SF story set a few thousand years in the future after a devastating war with rouge AI warships set humanity back. A ship of privateers finds information that might lead to one of the warships from the AI wars, but they aren’t the only ones after it.

I was working on Dead Knowledge until I got sick, so I need to pick that up again and get that ready, hopefully in the Summer. It’s an idea I got when taking a class from Dave Farland where he said that Necromancers were never the good guys. So I have a story where one is. He’s a research necromancer who contacts the dead to answer questions and retrieve lost knowledge. Basically he’s a librarian and the dead are the internet.

I’ve got a bit done on a sequel to Steam Opera which just came out. Shadow Opera is a story of spies and spying. Think a little like Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. I may get that out next year.

I’ve got a story idea with a couple of scenes written I plan on calling IGLOW: InterGalactic Ladies Of Wrestling. Aliens are kidnapping lady wrestlers and pitting them against alien female wrestlers. I may work on that this coming year.

I’ve got a partially finished story I’m having some trouble with I might work on. Muse asks the question: If the Greek Muses were alive today, what would they be doing? A college student with severe writer’s block finds one playing guitar on a street corner and another holding a cardboard sign: Lost Home, Lost Hope, Please Help.

Oh, nearly forgot. I’ve got six short stories in a connected set I want to polish up and print in thin little booklets. As a group they are called Monster Marshals and they are about marshals working for a secret government organization that polices magic and monsters in our world. One of the stories made it into the Haunted Yuletide anthology. “’Twas the Fight Before Christmas” has two marshals sent to a Reindeer farm in Maine to stop animated snowmen from attacking it.
WOW. I’m tired just reading that—that’s ambitious.

Thanks for your time—and thanks for Aether Powered, I had a lot of fun with it and I hope you have plenty of success with it.

A little bit ago, I shared my thoughts about Baby Dragon’s Big Sneeze, which is really something you need in your library (if you have people around in the right age range, anyway). Now, here are a few Answers to my Questions from Sheryl Bass, the author. I enjoyed these answers—and really appreciate how she didn’t say anything about my embarrassing typos that I finally noticed when I formatted this post.

Can you talk a little about the genesis of this particular book? What about this idea (among the large number of others you may have had) that made you devote the time to it?
This book started with a big sneeze of my own. I had the ridiculous thought that it was a good thing I wasn’t a dragon or it could have done a lot of damage. This was approximately 13 years ago. The book has been edited and revised since then.

The illustrations are fantastic—how did you team up with Ramesh Ram? What was the process of working with him to combine story and pictures?
This is a self-published book, but the term “self-publishing” is a bit of a misnomer as there are many people who can help every step of the way. I found my mentor, April Cox of Self-Publishing Made Simple while I was watching a free online video she produced about her services. She has approximately 12 illustrators who she regularly works with and knows that they are willing to do work for hire such that the author can retain rights to the illustrations after their work is complete and they are competent and responsive. She had me review the websites of all 12 illustrators and pick my favorite 3 or 4. Then, I asked the three or four of them to draw the exact same scene from my book in black and white. I paid each of them $50 do do this sketch. I then whittled it down to my top two illustrators and had my friends and family be a focus group and vote on their favorite illustrator. Remesh Ram of Prayan Animation won the votes. He is fantastic and I plan to use him for my future children’s picture books.

I can only imagine that coming up with a story in rhyme brings particular challenges—did you find yourself having to abandon ideas, or backtrack a bit when you couldn’t find a decent rhyme and rework a sentence or two?
Yes! I definitely found writing in rhyme to be a challenge. However, I believe it is well worth it. Many publishing houses don’t like rhyme right now. Various types of children’s books go in and out of style and perhaps rhyme is not as in fashion as it once was. However, I am a big proponent of rhyme as there is research supporting it for children in language acquisition, vocabulary expansion, giving a children a sense of rhythm and encouraging reluctant readers. This is part of why nursery rhymes are so useful and enjoyable for children.

You chose to publish this yourself, rather than going through a small press, or a larger “traditional” press—any regrets about that? Any advice for others considering this path?
I have no regrets about self-publishing this book and doing so in the future with additional children’s books. The advantages to self-publishing are more creative control (I chose my own illustrator and told him exactly how I wanted the dragon to look, what I wanted my townspeople to be wearing, etc.), the royalties are higher (40-50% versus 10-12 percent with traditional publishing) and a faster turn around time to publish (months versus years for traditional publishing).

Before this book, you had a couple of personal essays about dogs published—writing about dogs is a big interest around these parts—can you tell us a little about those essays and the books they were in? Any plans to combine your children’s books and your interest in dogs?
These were two slightly different versions of the same story about being a stage mom to my now deceased dog, Lyric. She starred as Toto in the Boulder Dinner Theatre’s production of The Wizard of Oz. She was the only cast member without an understudy and got paid in prime rib every night (since it was dinner theater). Her mom got paid $40 per show. She did 7 shows per week for five months. This story can be found in Lost Souls: Found! Inspiring Stories About Chihuahuas (Kyla Duffy and Lowrey Mumford) and Second-Chance Dogs: True Stories of the Dogs We Rescue and the Dogs Who Rescue Us (ed. Callie Smith Grant).

Related to that—what’s next for Sheryl Bass, author?
I have two additional children’s picture book stories in drafts and others not yet put to paper that I plan to self-publish. You can find my current book and eventually, my others at http://www.be-kindpublishing.com.

Thanks for your time—and thanks for this great little book—I hope it finds its audience!

We’ve reached the end of my little Marshall Karp Appreciation Day posts—I talked a little about how I fanboy-ed on him earlier, I’ve posted about his New Release, NYPD Red 7: The Murder Sorority, I posted about his summer release, Snowstorm in August, and now I get to pick his brain a little about his career and books. It’s probably clear from the questions, but my focus was on Snowstorm in August, not today’s new release, but it’s still good to hear from the author regardless, and some of this fits with that series, anyway. I hope you enjoyed this 1/10th as much as I did.

Let’s start by introducing yourself to the readers by sketching out your path to publication (bonus points for working in a pitch for the Lomax & Biggs books)
My path? That’s like saying to a lab rat who finally got to the center of the maze, tell us about your Path to Cheese. I just started running. Every time I hit a wall I’d get up, and run the other way. Did I follow a path? No. But I could always smell the cheese.

I was born a writer. It’s something you realize at an early age, like if you’re born a natural athlete, or a singer, or a conjoined twin. But I didn’t think of writing as a career. In my senior year of high school, I decided I’d become a dentist, but happily, my plans crashed and burned when I flunked biology in college. I also started working on the school newspaper, and I realized how much I loved — no, wait — needed to write.

After college I got a job as an advertising copywriter. I was good at it. But the punishment for being an award-winning writer is to put you in charge of a large creative department and pay you not to write. It was fun for a while, and then I had my first midlife crisis. I’m a writer. Am I going to spend the rest of my life not writing?

So that summer, I sat down and wrote a play, Squabbles. Some people in TV noticed it, and suddenly I was the flavor of the month. So off I went to Hollywood. Dozens of TV shows and a feature film later, I came back to New York, caught the dotcom wave, opened up an Internet ad agency, did well, sold the company, and finally sat down to write that book.

I figured it would take six months. I was wrong, and for the next five years I slogged along. That so-called path was filled with rookie mistakes, paralyzing self-doubt, and crushing rejections. And then one day, I got the call. Someone wanted to publish my first novel, The Rabbit Factory. I’ve made it, I thought. I can cross “write book, get it published” off my bucket list. But apparently, Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs, my two LAPD detectives, caught on. People wanted more. Fourteen books into my career, I’m still at it. What can I say? I like the cheese.

I can’t imagine that I’m going to get to ask this question a lot, but what was the process like getting the co-writing gig with James Patterson? I don’t imagine it’s like most writing collaborations. And once you got the job, was it more exciting or intimidating? (or after your years in TV and Film, are you at the point where a job is a job?)
I had worked with Jim in advertising. e had given me some brilliant storytelling advice when I sat down to write my first book. But the day he called to ask if I’d write a book with him was mind-jarring. After four Lomax and Biggs books that fell into the Critically-Acclaimed-but-Not-Gonna-Pay-The-Rent category, I was being offered the opportunity to collaborate on a book that I knew had a shot at the #1 slot on the New York Times bestseller list.

The process was simple. Jim came up with the outline. I fleshed it out and started sending him chapters. The book, Kill Me If You Can, hit #1. And then I did something most writers never do. I pitched an idea to James Patterson. A hand-picked squad of NYPD cops who answer the call whenever a crime is committed against New York City’s rich and famous. An elite task force called NYPD RED.

He loved it. We produced six bestselling NYPD RED books together, and then it happened: James Patterson announced, “I’m thrilled to have Marshall Karp take on the NYPD RED series.” It doesn’t get any headier (or scarier) than that. It was both exciting and intimidating. Exhilarating and petrifying. And for me, writing — writing anything — is never a job. It’s a joy.

Moving on to Snowstorm in August—how do you possibly research these things (I’m thinking particularly of the Central Park attack) without landing yourself on a few dozen watchlists? (that’s mostly a joke, but I’m serious—how do you go about researching all these things?)
I Google weird shit dozens of times a day. In the first chapter of my first book, The Rabbit Factory, I killed a pedophile. I researched their behavior, their backgrounds, and their modi operandi, so I’m pretty sure I made the Big Brother watchlists early on.

A word about research — sometimes accuracy is critical. When I was trying to have a character shove a toaster oven down an incinerator chute in a New York City apartment building, I called the company in Florida that makes the chutes and talked to one of their technicians. His first question — “Why would anyone want to shove a toaster oven down an incinerator chute?” I said, “Because there’s a bomb in the toaster oven, and the guy is a cop. Now … can he get it in, and what happens to the chute when the bomb goes off in the basement?” We talked for an hour. Another upstanding citizen sucked into my life of crime.

But sometimes accuracy is impossible. When I was writing Snowstorm In August, I remember asking Google, “How many tons of cocaine would it take to blanket Central Park?” All I got in return were drug laws, street prices, and a link to join the Central Park Conservancy. So I asked Siri, and she responded with, “There are seven drug rehabilitation clinics near you.” Eventually, my friend, retired NYPD homicide detective Danny Corcoran, helped me come up with an answer: four tons. It may be right; it may be wrong. Who’s gonna argue?

The idea of a (at least somewhat) benevolent shadowy cabal of billionaires seems fairly novel. Where does an idea like this come from—was it a product of “I need a funding source for this team” or a “what if I had this group of billionaires wanting to do some good, what could I do with that?”
Definitely the former. I had a Mission Impossible-style team. They needed an unlimited budget. Enter the Baltic Avenue Group, four billionaires who are willing to secretly fund the team. Not because they’re do-gooders, but because they are well aware that the September 11 terrorist attacks cost New York City three billion dollars. And since their individual wealth is directly tied to the financial and political stability of the city, they are willing to spend millions to safeguard their billions.

I haven’t read that many people who’ve done this (maybe only you), so I have to ask—is there a difference between writing LAPD detectives and NYPD detectives? Or is it the characters or what the book/series calls for that makes the difference?
That’s a great question. I think the best way to answer is to come back at you with a few questions of my own. Is there a difference between New York and LA? Is there a difference between Los Angelinos and New Yorkers? Having lived in LA for two years I can answer those questions in one word. Duh! The NYPD RED books are steeped in the lore, the culture, and the attitude of New York. My Lomax and Biggs books are so Hollywood-centric, you can practically smell the bullshit in the world they live in. But here’s a fine point. Mike Lomax was born in LA. He has that casual Southern California way of winning people over. His partner Terry Biggs is much more of an in-your-face cop. That’s because Terry is a transplant. He was born and raised on the tough streets of New York and that “you talkin’ to me?” charm oozes from every pore.

Before we wrap things up, I have to give you a chance to talk about Vitamin Angels. Please tell us about it—and how readers can help.
On September 11, 2001 my daughter Sarah had just arrived at the World Trade Center when American Airlines flight 11 crashed into the North Tower. An eternity would pass before I knew she survived, and the agony of watching the towers collapse until I got the joyful news was unbearable.

Thirty-six hours later I finally got to see Sarah, and that first embrace has forever been enshrined in our Father-Daughter chronicles as The Best Hug Ever. As I held her in my arms, I made a vow. Do something. Pay the universe back for sparing my child.

I searched the Internet until I stumbled on Vitamin Angels. One man, Howard Schiffer, made it his mission to find companies willing to donate vitamins, and then he’d distribute them through local relief groups in 20 countries.

I asked him what was the biggest global problem that vitamins could solve? “Five hundred thousand children around the world go blind from Vitamin A deficiency,” he said. “We know the solution — a high dose of Vitamin A administered every six months. It would only cost 25 cents a year to save one child’s life. But we don’t have the money.”

“Corporations have money,” I said. So I went to Johnson and Johnson and asked if they would be the first to sponsor a program to eradicate Vitamin A deficiency childhood blindness on the planet by the year 2020. They agreed. That first year we reached 200,000 children. Two years later it was a million.

Today, Vitamin Angels is bringing life-saving nutrition to 70 million children and nursing mothers around the world. And all it costs is 25 cents to save one child’s life.

Your readers can donate through my website or directly to Vitamin Angels.

You’ve got the next NYPD Red book coming soon, and presumably more of them to come, what else should readers expect to come from Marshall Karp?
NYPD RED 7: THE MURDER SORORITY will be released on Nov 22. Publishers Weekly gave it a coveted starred review and called it “the best yet in the series.” Pretty heady, since it’s the first one I’ve written since Patterson turned the reins over to me. Your readers — even if they haven’t read any of the previous NYPD RED books — can read this one first. Like episodes of Law & Order, each book stands on its own.

I’m not sure what I will be writing next, but I would be thrilled if you told them about Lomax and Biggs. I’ve just reissued all five books on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. You can also find them as e-books on Smashwords. Start with The Rabbit Factory. (It’s where my life of crime began.)

Thanks for your time, and I hope you have a lot of success with Snowstorm in August, I had a great time with it.

Earlier today, I posted about James Brayken’s debut, The Veiled Edge of Contact (please give it a look if you haven’t seen it yet). Now I get to ask the author a few questions. I really appreciated his answers and time. Hope you enjoy this!

Why don’t we start off with you telling us a little about yourself, what got you into writing/your path to publication, and so on.
Ever since I was a teenager I wanted to write novels, but for a long time I didn’t seriously pursue that goal because whenever I sat down to write, I found I didn’t really know how to effectively express the ideas in my head. So, I would stop before giving my ideas much of a chance. Not until I took up drawing as a hobby did I fully appreciate that you need to work through the initial difficulty when you first put pencil to paper and what comes out isn’t what you intended. Rather than stop in disappointment, I realized I needed to keep drawing and redrawing, and the improvement was visually obvious. They say that writing is mostly rewriting, and once I fully digested that, everything changed.

How much of James Brayken is there in Okon (or another character from the book)?
Ha, hopefully Okon and I don’t share too many characteristics. But admittedly, I would imagine there is a bit of me in all of the book’s characters. Some of these shared characteristics I’m aware of and some, I’m sure, I’m completely oblivious to. That said, I think who we are is many-sided and fluctuating, i.e., I think we all have the capacity to be a bit Okon-like from time to time.

Clearly (well, it seems clear to me), the stories told here aren’t something you arrive at all at once, can you describe the genesis of the idea?
In the early stages, I naturally turned to the things that were of interest to me. In fact, I have a rule that I only write about what I’m personally interested in rather than what I think others might like. I’ve always been fascinated by the existence of uncontacted tribes (although they are growing fewer in number, there are still at least a hundred uncontacted tribes out there according to estimates), and I’ve always been captivated by the idea of extraterrestrial contact and what the outcome of this might be. I think the genesis point came when I began exploring how different levels and types of “first contact” might be overlaid in the same story, and this theme formed the foundation of the narrative for The Veiled Edge of Contact.

All authors have more ideas running around in their head than they can possibly develop—what was it about this idea that made you commit to it?
I do recall being acutely aware that I could forever flit between entirely different ideas and never develop any of them to any substantial degree. And so, I made another rule (I like giving myself rules) that I would stick with my uncontacted tribe/alien contact premise because I was personally excited by the potential scenarios that might unfold. I kept playing with that premise until (after many many iterations of ideas and drafts) I had a fully fledged story that I was happy with.

Not to pick a fight here, but you’ve described the book as “genre-breaking.” I’m not sure that I buy that. In your mind, what do you mean by that phrase and how does your novel do that?
I use the term “genre-breaking” as shorthand communication to potential readers that this science fiction novel breaks a number of first contact sci fi conventions. It’s tricky to be too specific about this without giving spoilers, but I want readers to know up front that this book is going to be different from what they might typically expect of a first contact story, and feedback from readers seems to agree that this book is “different”, “surprising”, “unusual”, “refreshing”, etc.

Just to add, I have no issue with conventions. I love them, in fact. They are integral to how we communicate through narrative, and The Veiled Edge of Contact certainly contains conventions including those that place the book firmly within the genre of sci fi (advanced tech, extraterrestrials, etc.). But the story also contains a number of atypical elements and atypical turns. This is what I want potential readers to be aware of so they can make an informed decision as to whether the book is something they might like.

It’s hard to pick just one or two things to focus on to ask about that don’t involve spoiling the whole book…but I want to talk about Ratu for a minute. I don’t know precisely what to ask—just tell the reader something you want to know about him.
I really enjoyed developing the character of Ratu and in particular his interactions with Okon. I have a theory that “outsiders” tend to be drawn to each other, perhaps sometimes by necessity, even if they have nothing in common except the fact that they don’t fit in very well elsewhere. That in itself can be a bond. I view Okon and Ratu in this way. They squabble like siblings but are initially bonded by their outsider-like status. Another reason I enjoyed developing Ratu’s character is that he annoys the other characters and through doing so we get to learn more about not just Ratu but also those he has annoyed—usually Okon. Not that Ratu is the only tribe member to rub others the wrong way. Far from it. I was very keen for the Wuchumbu to be a living, breathing collection of individuals, each with their own set of idiosyncrasies and opinions. And the result is they bicker a lot.

What was the harder thing to develop and write about—the SF future tech and culture or the culture and practices of the Wuchumbu?
I’d say I found the culture of the Wuchumbu to be less difficult to develop and write about than the SF future tech. Perhaps I felt this way simply because I so much enjoyed bringing the Wuchumbu to life—establishing their values and cultural practices, defining what it is that unites them and makes them Wuchumbu and what it is that separates them from their fellow tribe members. In my view, the tribe are the lifeblood of the novel, and, ultimately, it’s the characters that cause us to invest in a story, right? Well, for me that’s the case.

Who are some of your major influences? (whether or not you think those influences can be seen in your work—you know they’re there)
If we are talking about artists, writers, and filmmakers then my thoughts initially turn to the cyberpunk genre. Although The Veiled Edge of Contact isn’t cyberpunk, I am a big fan of the genre and I’m sure it has influenced me and will continue to do so. The classics of cyberpunk (including proto-cyberpunk) have probably influenced me most, such as Neuromancer (William Gibson), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick), both Blade Runner movies (Ridley Scott and Denis Villeneuve), and the original Ghost in the Shell manga (Masamune Shirow). I imagine the cyberpunk influence will become more apparent the more work I produce. I’m also a fan of horror and so there will be some influences creeping in from there too.

I wouldn’t have guessed cyberpunk to be in that spot (there’s a reason I say “you know they’re there”), but I have to say after reading that answer that I can see that in the background of the novel (deep background, maybe—it’s in the DNA).
Let’s play “Online Bookstore Algorithm.” What are 3-5 books whose readers may like The Veiled Edge of Contact?
Okay. I promise I won’t cheat by looking at the Goodreads “Readers Also Enjoyed” section. So, I think if you like sci fi stories (or any story really) that involve unusual scenarios with some humor and darkness thrown in the mix, then you may well like The Veiled Edge of Contact. With that in mind, I’ll include Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer in my answer for its unusual scenario and darkness. Annihilation is a very different type of book than mine, but there are some similarities in subject. I’d also include Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood for its eccentricity and humor. And finally, The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch for its dark tone—a tone that sometimes surfaces in The Veiled Edge of Contact.

Disclaimer: I find it difficult to predict what people will like. It seems to me that taste is a complex beast.

What’s next for James Brayken, author?
I’m presently developing the idea for my second novel, which will also be science fiction, and I intend to publish it some time in the second half of 2023. Well, actually, I’m developing two ideas concurrently as I’ve been unable to decide which one to go with next. Hopefully I’ll be able make that decision soon. I’ll probably need to make another rule for myself!

Thanks for your time—and thanks for The Veiled Edge of Contact, I was swept up in it and I hope you have plenty of success with it.
Thank you, H.C. Newton. It’s been a pleasure.