Guest author at Warp Speed Odyssey

Despite a near-catastrophic PC meltdown I faced a few days ago, I was fortunate enough to have managed to write a guest post on Warp Speed Odyssey blog about my latest cyberpunk thriller, Through Stranger Eyes. In it, I explain a couple of things about what I had in mind while writing the book, the “what if” questions that triggered the story and the plot, and a bit about the setting. You can read all about it here.

Here’s a brief excerpt:

[…] The story takes place several decades after the end of the last great war that saw the planet almost destroyed and had billions in casualties. Ten mega-corporations (The Matriarchs) run the world as a form of government and all of them deal in body augmentations among other things. Due to the lack of habitable areas on the planet, cities are now stacked one on top of another and they are called stacked megacities. If that’s too hard to grasp, imagine going to your window, looking out and up, and seeing the bottom part of another city on top of you instead of the sky. 

You can read the full post at Warp Speed Odyssey.

Guest post at Lauren’s Bookshelf – about Through Stranger Eyes

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to talk about Through Stranger Eyes, my latest cyberpunk thriller novel, over at Lauren’s Bookshelf. During that guest post, I had the chance to talk about some of the pioneers (as I see them) of modern scifi and cyberpunk, as well as what my take on the genre was while writing Through Stranger Eyes. Here’s a small excerpt from it.

 

A lot of the sci-fi writers of the past, like Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein and all the others, who paved the way for the newer generations, wrote sci-fi with something very specific in mind: the repercussions technology would have to our understanding of certain things. Things like soul and morality, both for human beings as well as the societies we have built. They pushed the boundaries, and in doing so I think they wanted readers to sit down and think about things. The way I see it, in every story they wrote, there was almost always an underlying question they wanted us to answer. And to a certain extent, perhaps even a warning.

When I started writing my latest cyberpunk thriller, Through Stranger Eyes, I wanted people to do the same about things that in my opinion are important.

 

You can read the full article at Lauren’s Bookshelf. Please go ahead and read it.

Thank you, Lauren, for the opportunity.

Lost in a cyberpunk world

A few months ago I published my second full novel, Through Stranger Eyes. Through Stranger Eyes is the first instalment of a cyberpunk / futuristic dystopic world I’ve been working for some time now. I drew a lot of inspiration and was strongly influenced from movies and books like Altered Carbon, Blade Runner and others. The series name is Matriarchs – Silicon Gods.

Last year I also finished drafting book 2 of the same trilogy. The title is Through Silica’s Apex (provisional title) and I was working on plotting book 3. I’m happy to announce that I have not only finished plotting that third book but that I have also started drafting it. I’m actually 30,000 words in already.

This trilogy wasn’t an easy task for me. One reason is that it’s the first series I’ve ever attempted. The other is that each book is a separate story (with limited mention of things that have happened in previous books) however, when all three books are read in sequence, the reader gets a clear picture of what’s been happening behind the scenes from book 1. Another thing to note is that each book takes place years apart from the others. Book 2 for example (Through Silica’s Apex – provisional title) takes place 10 years after the events of Through Stranger Eyes and book 3 (Through Virulent Time – provisional title) takes place well over a century since the events in book 2. The main thing is that certain key players’ actions in Through Stranger Eyes affect the events and mindset of other characters throughout the world and consequently, the rest of the books. That’s also true for book 2 that will have a major impact on book 3 and the characters that populate it.

That means that each book has its own main characters, although in some cases (I won’t go into detail or spoilers here) some characters or their names appear in all three of them.

In the future (unsure when yet) I plan to expand on this cyberpunk universe and create more stories and maybe even full novels. The fact that each book has a rather big time gap between the others in the series provides me with great flexibility. Plus the fact that the things happening in these books happen at a global scale, so I think it’s safe to say that there’s room for more characters and stories.

If you have never read anything cyberpunk, anything like Altered Carbon or Neuromancer or have never watched Blade Runner, or if you have done all the above and are looking for something similar, Through Stranger Eyes is available on Amazon and is free for Kindle Unlimited users.

Crutch Words – Walk – part 1

 

It’s been a while, but I’ve been super busy, I assure you! I’m setting up another website, this time for my book cover design business (or hopefully, soon-to-be business) and I’ve been spending a lot of time creating book covers (you can check it out here, if you like, but please bear in mind that it’s still under construction). Between family, writing my novels, designing book covers, learning about important legal stuff for both of them, and managing life, there’s hardly any time left for blogging. Still, I haven’t abandoned it completely. It’s just that I can only do it whenever I get some free time and if I have enough energy left (which is not as easy to find as you may think).

So, here’s a new list of synonyms that will hopefully help new and seasoned writers alike. This time, the word I focused on is WALK. Needless to say that you shouldn’t swap all instances of walk with these synonyms. Each word has a deeper meaning and can convey your message correctly only if used properly.

So here’s the list:

I was interviewed!

I got interviewed earlier this month from Meghan’s Haunted House of Books. It’s the longest interview I’ve ever given this far, but if you read it you’ll get to know a few things about me that are not that well-known. I had a lot of fun with this one and I invite you to take a look at it. While you’re at it, see if she has interviewed any of your favourite writers.

You can read the full interview here.

Many thanks to Meghan for everything!