Interview with A.E. Williams, author of "Terminal Reset"

1. Hello, and welcome to my blog! To start off, what inspired you to take the plunge into the world of publishing?

Well, I always enjoyed writing. I have written stories off and on for most of my life, for amusement. I am a ravenous reader, and average between three to five books a week. More if I have good stuff to read. I felt that the story I am currently writing, my "Terminal Reset" series, had a lot of potential for entertaining other science fiction readers. When I found out how relatively easy Amazon Kindle is to publish works, I was hooked.


 2. Tell me about your book.

"Terminal Reset" is a serialized science fiction series. It takes place in our modern world, and details what happens when a Wave of strange energies hits the Earth.

The effect is that everyone on Earth is regressed, physically, about 40 years. So, if you are 56, now you have the body of your sixteen year old self, but with all your memories, skills, and knowledge intact.

All organic life is influenced, with some very few exceptions.

If you are under 40, sorry...

The Wave causes a 'reset' in every aspect of our lives.

Relationships, ecology, warfare, survival, politics, and even food are issues that are changed by suddenly having a global population that is about one seventh what it currently is. Also, people still have access to a lot of the current technology, for a while. But then, the situation begins to deteriorate. World leaders get ambitious, other people come to power, a lot of turmoil and fallout happens because there is a huge culture shock.

Imagine Obama as a thirteen year old, physically, but with all his experience intact. Now imagine George HW Bush and Jimmy Carter challenging his holding the Office of the President because he is no longer constitutionally fit. You have to be a certain AGE, but what does that really mean?

Or, imagine you have been married to a woman for 17 years, and now you are 15 and she is six. You both remember the marriage, and all the history of your love for each other. But, superficially, you are kids.

Problems, indeed.

 3. What inspired you to write this book?

The idea came to me in a shower about three years ago, and I spoke with a close friend who encouraged me to write it down. It took off, and we now have eight Episodes published.


 4. Are there any books/authors that have had a profound impact on your life?

Well, the usual science fiction biggies -- Clarke, Heinlein, Asimov, EE Doc Smith....but also John Ross, and Massad Ayoob.

Mas is a good friend, and is a self-publisher from way back. Very old school. Shoots pretty damn good, too.

"The World According to Garp" is also one of the books that I treasure. It's very powerful, to me.


 5. What was your favorite part to write (without spoilers, of course)?

I find the parts with the astronauts, especially once Sir Richard Branson appears, to be the most fun to write. The Sub Captain is another personal favorite. The General is just an awesome character, but man is he ever evil.

You will find a lot of characters here based on familiar people, but, as we say, this is ALL FICTIONAL. No resemblance, etc. etc,

Oh, and the Martians, of course...can't have science fiction without Martians, as Ray Bradbury probably said one time or another.

 6. What do you most hope to achieve with this novel?

Sixteen Volumes of a really cool science fiction tale. I have the next five plotted and will be writing them all next year. This is a five year plan to get the entire story Universe set up and running.

There are lots of questions being raised in it. I think this could have some legs...



 7. What do you do when you're not writing?

I am a well-known figure in some other areas, and my expertise in these fields keep creeping into the book.

I usually like to incorporate the latest technology and occurrences to keep the story interesting, but you run the risk of seeming dated a decade or so out.

Pop culture tends to lose its shine, once the fad is over. Pet rocks, anyone?

For entertainment, I read, watch movies, that sort of thing.

And, I target shoot.



 Off-Beat Questions

1. I see you write science fiction. Ever had any other-worldly experiences?

Usually when I have had a few too many Maker's and Pepsi.

Seriously, I have had some weird things happen, but no one would believe me, so...



 2. As a writer, it can be easy to get lost in other worlds. If you could visit any fictional world, what would it be?

I would like to live in the Star Trek Universe, at some point or other. Mainly, if I could be Harry Mudd or Cyrano Jones.

I like the ideas behind "Firefly", but it's pretty violent, for a place to live. (Reavers!)

Having your own freedom is important, but you always need a way to get from here to there.

Author Bio:

http://www.amazon.com/A.E.-Williams/e/B00ICLWWE6/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1417547094&sr=1-1

Website:

www.terminalreset.com

Author Interview iwth Eva Wallace, author of "The Secretary.... Taking the Proverbial"

1. Hello and welcome to my blog! To start off, what made you decide to take the plunge into the world of publishing?

Firstly, thank you for inviting me to post to your blog.

In a word Amazon, they’ve made it possible for anyone to put their thoughts out there on the web, whether you agree with those thoughts or not.

2. Tell me about your book.

Its romantic comedy but not as we know it!

An office based romantic comedy with Emma and David being the main characters that have a few secrets and a taste for coffee shops. I’m British so my humour is sometimes crude, sometimes just funny but definitely British. Although I have American fans that like British humour.


3. Who/what inspired you to write?

I changed roles with my current employer and the move wasn’t good. Bullying on an epic scale. Moving jobs isn’t so easy when there are few of them about. So after a particularly bad day at work I got home and watched a programme on TV about a guy who started writing and then self-published on Amazon. He was making a living at it. Now someone else writing and making a living at it is not you writing and making a living at it, so I thought back to my school days when I had to write a story and then the rest of the class would grade me on it. I did quite well so I thought I’d give it a go.

Even if I don’t make a living at it I still enjoy it and the pleasure it gives others.


4. Do you have a favorite author?

Difficult one this, because I don’t read romance I only participate in it.

I used to own a hair salon so I was always reading business books to try and get ahead; economics isn’t that boring when the world finances are in turmoil!

5. If you could accomplish one thing with your books, what would it be?

To make people laugh.


6. What do you do when you're not writing?

I work full time until I can earn enough or get a publishing contract with my writing. In my spare time I ride motorcycles, go for walks in the Peak district national park and play a little golf (badly) although to be fair it’s a nice walk!


7. Can we expect more books from you soon?

The second in the series I’m hoping to have out around Christmas.

Off-beat Questions

1. Your book is about an office romance. Ever had an office romance yourself?

Yes several, I have fond memories of them all and with each new romance you discover a bit more about yourself and others. 

2. Your book looks light-hearted; comedic, almost. Will you tell us a funny thing that has happened to you?

Right then this is embarrassing but here goes; We were in Rome and had just had a lovely meal in a beautiful Italian restaurant. I had ordered the Pollo Carbonara which those of you who know Italian food will know it is a rather creamy dish. To cut a long story short our walk back to the hotel was about half an hour and it was probably 10mins into the walk when my stomach began to grumble. 

Now I thought it was going to be a fart. 

I was wrong, and what followed was a reminder to us all, that too much creamy food can and does have consequences.

Author Bio.

I’ve worked in various occupations from offices to a hair salon, I’ve even worked abroad.

I work full time but hopefully at some point I would like to be able to write for a living as I enjoy it so much.

My hobbies are walking in the peak district national park, riding motorcycles (It’s good to scare yourself) and occasionally golf, which is just an excuse to go walking really.

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Secretary-Taking-Proverbial-Eva-Wallace-ebook/dp/B00LZWF2QE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411157595&sr=8-1&keywords=eva+wallace

I'm pleased to welcome Robert Dahlen, author of "The Monkey Queen!"

1. Hello and welcome to my blog! To start off, what made you decide to take the plunge into the world of publishing?

It's a combination of two things: The desire to tell stories, and the realization that this may be my last and best chance to do so in front of any sort of audience. The trigger was a sequence of three events: Winning enough money so that I could afford a tablet to let me write on my commute, then discovering the existence of indie publishing, then finding a synopsis for a comic series I had come up with 15 years prior that I realized could make a good series of books.



2. Tell me about your book.

It's a fantasy adventure about a kidnapping and the two women who are out to solve it - Michiko, a young hero with a wisecracking streak, and Beth, a college student/geek girl who gets swept up in events when she discovers a secret about herself. It's about the beginning of their friendship. It's the start of a series, but it's a complete story, cliffhanger-free. I'm biased, but I think it's a fast, funny, satisfying read.

(And there's a snarky guinea pig. You'd be snarky too if you were a once-powerful but selfish sorcerer who was stuck in Limbo for a thousand years, and then reincarnated as something cute and furry.)


3. How long have you been writing?

Well, I was making up stories with stuffed animals and (God help me) Hot Wheels cars when I was eight, so let's just say that's a long time. I got serious about it for awhile in the eighties and nineties, dialed back (but never stopped completely) for a number of years, caught the fire again in March 2013, and haven't stopped since.



4. What authors do you derive inspiration from?

Just authors? I can point to Tolkien and Leiber and Gaiman and Pratchett, but I've also been inspired by Chuck Jones, Hayao Miyazaki, Charles Schulz, Stan Sakai (read Usagi Yojimbo!), the staff behind Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain, five dozen musical artists on my iPod, and another 100-odd sources. Not to mention Wu Cheng'en and everyone who followed him. If I had to narrow it down, I'd point to webcomics artist Phil Foglio (with a nod to his talented wife Kaja); he's the only one out there I consciously tried to emulate at any point. And if we have to stick to prose, well, my favorite fantasy novel (heck, my favorite book period) is Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart.





5. If you could achieve one goal with your writing, what would it be?

World Domination! Leveraging the Monkey Queen franchise until I am king of all entertainment, sitting proudly on my throne while all-girl K-Pop bands sing my praises!... Seriously, if I could get a core audience of fans that like what I write and want to read more, that would be enough, be it 500 fans or 50,000.




6. What do you do when you're not writing?

Well, I have a full-time job that I don't plan on quitting soon, with a long commute on public transit, so I don't have a lot of free time, and I've been using a lot of that to promote this book and write more. I do try to keep up with webcomics, the occasional novel or movie, and time with family. And one of these days I should see if the oven in the new apartment does a good job on chocolate chip cookies.




7. When can we expect your next books?

It depends on whether on not the cover artist - hey, that reminds me, I haven't talked about Willow yet! She did the wonderful cover art you see here, and you can see more of her work at http://willow-san.deviantart.com ! Anyway, I need to find out if she's free soon to do the cover for the second Monkey Queen book. If she is, I'm hoping to get it published in time for Thanksgiving weekend reading!


Off-beat questions


1. I see you write fantasy. If you could live in any fantastical universe, what would it be?

I actually gave this some thought a while back, and I realized that my life expectancy in most fantastical universes would be disturbingly short. As in, doesn't survive season one/first book in the trilogy short. I might consider the Discworld if we're sticking with prose, but my first actual choice would be...Duckburg. Really. All the comforts of home, advanced technology, and there's always the chance that Uncle Scrooge might drag you off on a treasure hunt. (I just don't want to live in Donald Duck's immediate neighborhood. He has to be rough on property values. And property.)



2. One of your main characters is asked, "How would you like to help me save the world?" If you were asked this by a random stranger, what would your response be?


Good question! What would I say? It depends. If I'm just walking down the street or waiting in line for something and someone approaches me with that question, my response would probably be "You may want to check your meds," or maybe "Um...security?"

But if I've just discovered that a good friend of mine actually looks like an elf straight out of Lord of the Rings, pointed ears and all, and then I get chased by a monster that shouldn't exist, and then I'm rescued by a hypercute teenage girl with a magic staff, I mean really magic as in grows fifty feet high, and then said teenage girl asks me that question, my response would probably be, "I'm listening."

And Beth has a different response from the ones above...and that's when things get interesting. In the "may you live in interesting times" sense of the word...

(Hope you don't mind that I reworded the last question to actually fit what Michiko says to Beth at one point.)







Author bio:
 Fantasy novelist, all-around wisecracker and penguin aficionado, Robert Dahlen lives in California with lots of penguins (no surprise), a tablet stuffed with e-books and works in progress, and a long-suffering wife. He is hopefully working on more Monkey Queen stories as you read this. And FYI, his last name is pronounced "duh-LANE", as in "The rain in Spain falls mainly on Dahlen," which really freaks out everyone at the Weather Channel.

 

 

 

Buy links:

Amazon -- http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NAKJUG2

iTunes -- http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id916078980

B&N / Nook -- http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/of-introductions-and-abductions-robert-dahlen/1120314934?ean=2940046304756&itm=1&usri=2940046304756

Kobo -- http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/of-introductions-and-abductions-monkey-queen-book-one

Author Interview with Mikey Chlanda, author of the Heist!

1. Hello and welcome to my blog! To start off, what made you decide to take the plunge into the world of publishing?

  After having to retire early from the fire department due to injuries from a car crash, I went to a college reunion. I ran into an old friend and talking about our first fire department, which was  headquartered at the college. We were talking about how the older guys were dying off, and how it would be nice to capture some of the oral history. So I decided to write the history of my first fire department. It was a way of reconnecting with the fire service, as well as getting my mind off of my rehab and on something else.  

2. Tell me about your book. 

“The Heist” features an aging heistman, Shaeffer, who specializes in taking down football stadium receipts, armored cars, and other heavyweight scores. He's seeing his career go down the drain. The big cash scores are drying up. Nobody carries cash anymore – everything is Paypal, bitcoins, or debit cards. Like a lot of us, he's frustrated and pissed by an increasingly high-tech world. He rants about shopping for reading glasses with the magnification printed in too small type to read without having to buy the damn glasses. To top it off, his live-in girlfriend walks out on him. So with his buddy Grogan, he pulls one more job to get a fresh start and figure out what the hell he wants to do with the rest of his life.

3. Who/what inspired you to write? 

 I've written on and off over the years (my first published work was in 1986), but running into Jeanne, my college friend, was the impetus behind making writing a career choice. My creative writing teacher in high school was Frank McCourt, so that was definitely a help. He always said he wanted to write the great American novel and damned if he didn't do it.

4. You write both nonfiction and fiction. Which one do you find easier to write, and how did you get inspired to write both? 

I find non-fiction easier to write. Once I finish the research, the book is pretty much written. When writing fiction, sometimes I need a break, or bounce ideas off of friends, what happens next.

5. If you could accomplish one thing with your books, what would it be?

 I'd like to leave a legacy for my son. After I'm gone, I'm hoping he can still get a sense of me through the books and show his kids and grandkids what I was like.

6. What do you do when you're not writing? 

I read (obviously!), bike, and tell way too many jokes. I also like discovering new IPA beers, cooking, and baking bread.

7. Can we expect more books from you soon? 

The next Shaeffer book is due out in September. There's a “How and Where to Sell Your Records” guide and a Cincinnati Bengals trivia book due out this fall as well.

Off-beat Questions

1. I see you've written a non-fiction history novel. Would you call yourself a history buff? If so, what's your favorite period of history? 

I wouldn't say I'm a history buff, but I'm definitely drawn to quirky events and characters in history. I'll be reading a newspaper article or a book, think “That's interesting” and start an internet search to find out more about it. Before you know it, I have a few dozen websites bookmarked, a half dozen books on my Amazon wishlist, and another book on the way.

2. What other subjects in non-fiction are you interested in?

 Firefighting, obviously. Quirky facts about New York City, where I grew up. Music, especially rock and blues. Manned space exploration – I think I've read every book by an astronaut. I love reading about “man against nature” as I call them – reading about wilderness survival, the many failed quests to find the Northwest Passage, Shackleton, things like that.

Mikey Chlanda was born in and raised in New York City (born 1961 - ). He came to Yellow Springs to go to Antioch College. When Maples (the college fire department) found out he had been an ER Tech in a Manhattan emergency room, they made Chlanda join. Chlanda fell in love with the fire service and after college, he joined the village fire department, retiring as a lieutenant. His first book, "Maples: A History of the Antioch College Fire Department" is a history of the only student-run fire department in the world. His second book, "MFSL: A Concise Price Guide and Discography", was based in part on his knowledge garnered from 25 years of selling vinyl music, 15 of it in a brick and mortar store that he owned. He just released his first novella "The Heist" featuring Shaeffer, an aging heistman struggling in a high-tech world.

He is currently working on his next Shaeffer book. He splits his time between Yellow Springs and Cincinnati, Ohio, but wishes he could be in New York City.