PHV Interview Published on: 20, Mar 2023

It was back in high school. I wrote a short story for the students’ newspaper titled ‘Unknown’ (I think… this was a loooong time ago!). If I recall correctly, it was about a couple of ‘final-evolved’ humans (i.e. now Q-like entities) encountering a space exploration vessel of their (long ago) former creations, androids, with this vessel happening to have on board the first ‘clonal-revived’ human, a woman. It turns out the androids had been missing their creators (whom ‘disappeared’ thousands of years prior) and longed to have them again as partners. For those who saw the A.I. movie, you’ll notice something eerily familiar with its ending scenes – however, my high school story was written decades prior! Ah, similar minds think similarly, I suppose? (Haha).

I’m retired as a professor/research scientist as of July 2019 after a career of 22 years, so… All I’ll say is that my peer-reviewed scientific publication cv goes back to my MSc studies and spans my PhD, post-doc training, and professor/research scientist years (some 30 years, all combined).

In all ways (haha)! I think the whole ‘chromosome 9’ and ‘A-allele/E-allele’ thingie about alihumans says it all, no? Same with the Homo sapiens alisapiens phylogenetic nomenclature, or Protocystis amazonia and how the deadly protist came about (wink).

As far back as in 2005! I started writing something I titled ‘Children of the Dawn/Book One: Ascension’. I published it chapter-by-chapter on FictionPress (as it happened, my account/pen name was ‘Psion’). It was a ‘practice’ of sorts for me, from writing style-wise to dialogue and action writing. The yarn also contained the embryonic versions of many of the concepts, characters, settings, etc. that are found in ‘Psiarch: Rising’ and to be found in the rest of ‘The Psiarch Chronicles’ series (e.g. the CotD, the Autarch, alihumans-which were called instead ‘parahumans’, FutureTek, and so on). I got bored with it because it wasn’t really the story I wanted to tell (i.e. that of Trajan Valence, for all he was in there and named ‘Steven Matthews’). I eventually deleted the seven chapters I’d published (don’t remember exactly when), although I still have them together in a word doc. I began writing Psiarch: Rising in summer 2013 and I wrote it in any spare time I could exploit while I was still very busy as a professor/research scientist. The writing of the 5-6 final chapters went way more quickly after I took my early retirement (/big smile).

I knew the ending had to have three things: a) the final reveal of the Autarch’s identity (i.e. the culmination of all the clues and hints), in addition to revealing another mystery-twists about her (not only leaving some questions open, but adding a few more, along with planting new plot points, for the following books); b) Trajan rethinking his decision to abandon his (hero) path and forget about the whole ‘Psiarch thing’ (even if he ‘ascended’ as one) after an unexpected encounter with a certain redhead woman (not wanting to spoil too much!) and another encounter with one of his biggest (now ‘reformed’) detractors; and c) hints at what’s to come (mainly through Lawrence Garneau). Then, as planned, the epilogue of a fully healed Trajan about to make his ‘return sortie’ as Psion caps the ending. Were you satisfied at once? Yes - for better or for worse (haha).

I’d have to say none of them (haha)! Sure, Trajan is a professor/scientist like I was, and there may be some temperament similarities, but… Well, let’s just say that I would not make the same decisions/have the same reactions as him under most of the circumstances described in the book (haha). One example: he’s very forgiving of others, whereas I’m less forgiving than him (or rather, I do wound up forgiving eventually, but I never forget).

Three to start with, although I have additional ‘follow-up stories’ which could extend it to five, if not six books.

I can’t say anyone or anything inspired me to create Trajan. I’ve probably drawn subconsciously from many ‘heroic’ characters I saw/read/found in pop culture movies, scifi/fantasy literature, comic books/graphic novels (same thing for the ‘villains’), but… I suppose Trajan’s character, personality, etc. simply came to me, as if we’d been introduced to each other and from then on became good acquaintances. If we’d met/knew each other in RL, he’d most likely see me as an elder colleague and a social friend/acquaintance, although not a close one (/shrug).

The title is sort of a two-word summary of the book, which also implies the questions ‘what is a Psiarch?’ and ‘what does ‘rising’ means?’. Book 1 of the series is essentially Trajan ‘rising’ as a Psiarch. So, nothing esoteric or mysterious about the title (haha). In fact, the titles of the books to follow will be in the same format, with the same intent (not revealing the title of book 2 just yet…).

I’d rather not say, since chances are it’ll be found in the ‘fourth’ book (after I finished the first three) and I don’t want to spoil anything inadvertently (haha).

I’ll answer this by simply stating that I only want to write scifi stuff (/shrug).

I don’t consider myself experienced enough to offer any writing advice to anyone. I view myself as being still a ‘word dabbler’, nothing more, so… (haha).

I have a story to tell (that of Trajan Valence). However, I remain open to readers’ feedback to improve my craft, and so on.

I’ve already begun writing book 2 of the Chronicles. As of answering these questions, I’m into Chapter 4. My humble hope is that this time around, what with me retired and everything, I should be able to finish the draft version in about a year and a half, with the final rewrite done six months later. Then, taking into account beta reading, feedback implementations, more little rewrites here and there, and then line/proof editing, book two should be published sometimes in 2026. However, we’ll see how it all goes, eh? (haha).

I just stumbled upon it (sorry – haha). I have no complaints so far (wink).