What made you decide to settle in Massachusetts?
Honestly? A job. lol! After retiring from the USAF, I got job offers from a few different places. My wife and I considered all of them and ended up deciding on the offer from Massachusetts. Easily one of the best decisions we've ever made. The job is fantastic, the people here are phenomenal, and its a beautiful state full of history and fun. Couldn't be happier here.
What is the best science fiction series of books that you have read? What gripped you about it?
The best Sci-Fi series I ever read I cant even remember the name of. The story was about a team of scientists that were experimenting with dimensional gateway technology. The idea was they could use the gateways to instantly travel anywhere in the universe. It would open a whole new way to explore the galaxy. The book starts off very upbeat, science fiction, and very similar to Star Trek. Then the scientists actually succeeded, but instead of finding a new world in our universe, they opened a portal to a high fantasy realm where fantastic creatures and all sorts of magic exist. The initial contact does not go well, and the designs on the Fantasy side of the portal use their magic to keep the gateway open and invade. The way the author combines all the spectacular action of a science fiction series, with the flavor of a fantasy realm, was incredible. Never read anything like it to this day and I wish I could remember the name of the book. Easily the best twist in a story, and example of science fiction I've read to this day.
Did you hone your writing skills through intensive reading and imitating The Economist articles?
I honed my writing skills through experience. I started by writing campaigns for D&D games I ran while in Korea (2000-2001). At first, they were only 6 pages long and were mostly outlines. By the time I was ready to write my first novel,(2009) the stories for my D&D games were dozens of pages long and had many details that could adapt to most situations my players put themselves in. I wrote 2 novels set in a fantasy world where I learned what worked, what failed, and what I liked and disliked about writing. Sadly, I lost the rights to that series to a vanity publisher that went out of business, but the number of lessons I learned from that experience is what made my ability to write my Sci-Fi series possible.
How did you begin writing The Blackshade Machine series?
After losing the rights to my fantasy series I quit writing for years. Then, in 2016-2017 I got the urge to write again and had a few ideas rolling around in my head. I ended up settling on The Blackshade Machine because I wanted to tell a story of what I believe would happen if aliens came to Earth. I set it in the near future so I could adapt the world to my needs, and to get laser guns (Shaped Molten Metal) into my story. Took a little over a year to complete and around the same amount of time to get it proof read, edited, and published. Very proud of my series so far and hope to get book 4 out by early 2023.
Does your story, Original Design have a childish innocence in the story or a serious tone to it?
Its got a lighter side to it sometimes, but for the most part, its very serious. With a strong military tone, and the stakes being the total extinction of the human race, I had to keep it "heavy" in order to keep the reader in the correct frame of mind. I did inject some military humor and lighter elements so it wasn't all so serious the entire time. Some times you need to give the reader moments of laughter so that when the hammer drops, they really fell it through the words.
As a writer, how do you explain the science or pseudoscience behind some of the crazy gadgets and phenomena in your story without using too much exposition?
Heh, I use exposition dumps. I know... I know... its not a great idea, but my book is heavy into made up military jargon, so the tone of the story prepares the reader for the explanations. I try to make these a rare occurrence, so that the reader doesn't feel they're reading a book on stereo instructions, so I approached it similarly to how "The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy" approached their expositional dumps. Not nearly as sarcastic or light-hearted, but in such a way that the information sticks with the reader without annoying them. I think I have a 75% success rate with my approach. lol!
Who is your best friend? Have you ever modeled a character after him/her?
My wife is my best friend. 🙂 (Make sure you tell her I said that!) and yes, I have modeled a character after her. Zahera is NOT my wife, but the character has many of her mannerisms and personality quirks. Easily one of my favorite characters in the series.
For a sci-fi novel, is it better to write a good story with a background of the future, or to write a good future background and overlay it with a well-tested story?
= IMO, its important to focus on the characters. If you have 2 dimensional, uninspiring, or uncharismatic characters, then your reader will never get to your plot, story, foreshadowing, or chapter 2. Imagine reading a story and the main character is Joffrey from Game of Thrones, or Umbridge from Harry Potter. 99% of readers will not only but the book down before getting to chapter 2, but most will kick it into the nearest fire in order to not expose anyone else to the awful character design. IMO, authors needs to have a strong understanding of who their main character(s) are, and how they're going to function in the story from start to finish. Otherwise your reader will have no one to identify, to live the story vicariously through, and will never experience your story because they cant, due to the terrible character design. Thats why audiences reject Mary/Marty-Sue type characters, or reject the idea of an 80lb child taking down a 300lb muscle bound elite marine using brute force. Its terrible character design and makes the suspension of disbelief impossible, as our minds are designed to reject things like that. So to try to answer your question. Character development is key. If you get that dialed in, the story can actually be a little weak, but the charisma of the MC will carry the reader through it. See the entire Harry Potter series for proof of this. 😄
If you were writing your own science fiction television series, which propulsion system would you use, the warp drive of Star Trek or something new like wormhole induction propulsion (WHIP)?
Neither. Warp drive is overused and I'm afraid the Star Trek people would sue me into oblivion. Wormholes are terrifying and the idea of using them for travel is ridiculous to me. I actually have a propulsion system for the alien ships in my story, but I haven't really revealed how it works yet. I wont reveal it yet, because I want it to be discovered when the story reaches that point, but what I will say is, imagine if death wasn't a concern anymore. Would the time it takes to get from one galaxy to another matter anymore? What 10,000 years to a being that's been alive for 10 million? Think about that, and then you'll be better prepared for when my story explains the propulsion used by the Omegas (The alien race in my series)
Why is science fiction not accepted as real literature, even when it is literary in style and content?
I believe its accepted as real literature, its just that some people that like to think they can determine these things have a loud social media voice and people tend to parrot when they hear online. If Sci-Fi wasn't accepted as literature we wouldn't have movies for it, amazon would have it as a category on KDP (with hundreds of subcategories), and there would be no market for it. Since none of those things are true, I take the stance that the only reason some circles claim Science fiction isn't literature is becasue they need to get outside of their echo chambers. 🙂
Name one author you'd love to collaborate with.
Steven King. He's got nothing to do with Sci-Fi really, but I think it would be awesome! He might be a few degrees off center, but what legend isn't? if he wasn't interested (Understandable) I'd love to talk with JK Rowling. I know she's a little controversial right now, but keeping politics out of the equation, being able to pick her brain on story creation, development, and character design would be a once in a lifetime opportunity. Like talking to Hawking or Einstein! I feel like I'd leave a conversation with either of them with my IQ a few points higher. 😄
What is one of the biggest mistakes you made as a new author and how did you fix it?
Signing a deal with a vanity publisher. I was new, had no idea what self-publishing or traditional publishing was all about. I sent out my manuscript to everyone I could find online that was accepting them, Rejection letters poured in, which I totally expected, so when an acceptance letter arrived, and they offered me a DOLLAR signing bonus, I was hooked. Stupid decision on my part. Terrible deal, all so I could see my story in print. I should have just gone to Kinkos. Lost the rights to my story. To this day its on amazon, but they went out of business and I haven't see a royalty check from them in a decade+. Never fixed the problem. 🙁
Are you currently working on anything?
-Book 4 of The Blackshade Machine, outlining a Non-Fiction book on how to be a Game Master (Pet project), and I am in the conversation stage of possibly doing a collaboration short story with another author.
What marketing avenues have you found to work best for your genre? Has your experience with AllAuthor been helpful in this department and would you recommend this platform to your other author friends?
The promotional material AllAuthor has provided has helped me create banners and ads for social media and the other platforms I use for marketing. The templates are very user friendly, and the community is incredibly friendly. So far my experience with AllAuthor has been outstanding, and I dont regret signing up with them in the least. My ONLY complaint is the book cover contest. I love the idea, but I get bombarded by people in the contest that ask me to vote for their cover and they'll reciprocate. I ignored the requests, but then I saw that they were the ones that typically won every month. I stopped entering my covers after that. This is a tiny gripe though, the value I've gotten from AllAuthor has been fantastic. Not participating in the cover contest anymore is not a big deal.
