Andy Graham Author

Author of dark fiction and fantasy, dystopia, horror.

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One Book Interview #50 – David Hambling (Author)

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The One Book Interview hits its half-century this week and we have a great set of answers to celebrate.

(There may be a moderate amount of alcohol consumed sensibly later too.)

Author #50 is an author of both fiction and non-fiction.

His technology journalism has appeared in New Scientist magazine, Aviation Week, Popular Mechanics, WIRED, The Economist, The Guardian newspaper and others.

His novels have their roots in the myths and legends that stalk the streets and fields of South London.

Good people of the Internet, writing out of Norwood, London – David Hambling

Name one book:

1 – everyone should read

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. It’s a rip-roaring adventure – and arguably the first superhero story. The protagonist has multiple secret identities and the best technology money can buy, including ultra-accurate pistols and concealed body armor. But there’s more to it than simple adventure; it works on other levels as well, and as a study of the art of vengeance and its effect on the revenger it has never been bettered. It’s a real swashbuckler, but it is also a lot more, with some striking characters rather than just placeholders and truly memorable scenes.

Reading a work like this, you start to appreciate how the standard of popular fiction has declined over the last 170 years, and how much we can learn from earlier writers. Dickens and Shakespeare may not be to everyone’s taste, but Dumas is a joy. The phrase ‘entertainment for all ages’ fits perfectly.

2 – you would take with you if you were going to be marooned on Mars

You mean as well as the Bible and the complete Shakespeare?  (The traditional literary gifts on Desert Island Discs).

If I was marooned on Mars I probably wouldn’t survive long enough to do any reading, and if I did survive I would probably be concentrating on staying alive and getting home rather than poring over literary works…

…but if I had to pick a stunning, long book to re-read, I’d pick Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. It’s an epic trans-European WWII sci-fi adventure with bizarre Nazi goings-on centered around the V-2 rocket attacks on London. It also manages to pack in esoteric lore, Pavlovian psychology, plenty of sex, and a great cast of characters. While the central story features a mission to discover the secret of a mystery device fitted to a V-2, subplots spin off in all directions. It’s a book that bears a lot of re-reading, and Mars – reached by rockets directly descended from the V-2 – might be a good place for it.

3 – you took a chance on and were pleasantly surprised by

Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles may not look promising – you’ll find it in the literary fiction section. It’s a surreal horror story which starts with a missing cat and gets steadily darker and weirder as the protagonist’s wife vanishes, and he gradually learns more about the forces working against him. It all centers on an ancient well, now dry, which he descends and starts to dream strange dreams.

The evil is subtler and menacing than in in genre horror (though there is a certain amount of gore), and there’s an amazing flashback as one character recounts his experiences during the Japanese campaign in Manchuria during the 1930s. (Spoiler: it was not a happy time for any of those involved).  There is philosophy, but there are also surprising dashes of humour… one character’s impassioned diatribe about microwaved rice pudding reads like a stand-up comedy routine.

Murakami’s work also bears distinct traces of HP Lovecraft and his notion of Cosmic Horror, and for me that it very much a bonus.

4 – you’ve written that is your favourite

Never ask a parent to choose between their children!

As an author you’re always going to be most excited about the one you’re writing now. I’m just in the final edit stages of Master of Chaos, the fourth of the Harry Stubbs series. This is a sci-fi adventure set in 1920’s London involving Cthulhu-mythos mischief, with the lead character going undercover to work in a mental institution. Madness and mayhem abound…as usual there was a mountain of research to be boiled down and distilled, and some complex plot mechanics going on, plus this time I tried to do something more ambitious with the writing itself.  Overall, I feel I’m getting better.

Hence, of the books that are in already in print the one to recommend is the third Harry Stubbs, Alien Stars, in which our hero is searching for what his employer believes to be the Holy Grail – and which turns out to be something far more alien, and far more dangerous to our world.

5 – that has influenced you most as a person

“Godel Escher Bach: an eternal golden braid.” by Douglas Hofstader is perhaps the most mind-expanding book I have ever read. It takes some intriguing mathematical ideas, in particular self-reference and paradox and shows how they apply to everything from music to the way that DNA replicates, and of course Escher’s amazing ‘impossible’ images, taking in Zen, human (and artificial) intelligence, meaning and meaninglessness.

It’s a far more whimsical book than this bare summary makes it sound, with the subtitle “a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll,” and it is, to coin a phrase, a book that makes you think.

It even inspired some of the core ideas in my latest work, Master of Chaos.

6 – that has influenced you most as a professional

Professionally, the most inspiring books are the bad ones. Reading a good book makes me think I should just give up; reading a terrible one makes me think, “dammit, I can writer better than this!” and inspires me to try.

For me, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is a truly great bad book. It’s tautly written and the plot has you on the edge of your seat. It’s a real page turner…but the contrived plotting, cardboard characters and clunky dialogue had me howling with disbelief. (And don’t get me started on his legal but questionable misappropriation of the historical research by Baigent, Leigh and others).

I’m never going to write The Count of Monte Cristo, but I hope that any writer worth their salt who encounters Dan Brown will think “maybe I can do something in this vein, but not quite so terribly.”

To be fair, I have not read any of EL James ‘Fifty Shades’ series, so there may be even more stupendously great bad books out there, and I’m sure every reader will have their own favourite. I have enough inspiration for the meantime though, thanks.

7 – of yours that prospective readers should start with if they want to get to know your work and where they can get it.

That would have to be The Elder Ice. It’s short – barely a hundred pages – and introduces Harry Stubbs, a former heavyweight boxer and sometime debt collector in 1920s South London. Now trying to make it working for a legal firm. Harry is tasked with tracking down a legacy left by a polar explorer – real life Antarctic legend Ernest Shackleton, who lived in this area.

Shackleton left behind a pile a of debts and hints that he has discovered something valuable, and much of the story centers on the question of what he could have brought back which was worth more than its weight in gold…which also kills people…

You can find David here.

David Hambling aims to bring authentic 1920s Lovecraftian horror to Norwood, his corner of South London, a little-known and haunted place where taxis dare not go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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One Book Interview #49 – Jesse Teller (Author)

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A lover of dark fantasy. A rule-breaker. A writer.

But who better to introduce Author #49 than Author #49 himself.

“All my work is about hope. There are virtues in this world worth fighting for, things we can’t do without. I hope to inspire honor and vigilance. I hope to raise an awareness of innocence and its worth.”

Good people of the Internet, writing out of Missouri, the US – Jesse Teller.

Name one book:

1 – everyone should read

I’m gonna alter this question. I’m gonna say one book everyone should read if they like fantasy or plan on writing fantasy, and that is The Bloody Crown of Conan by Robert E. Howard. I just, I strongly believe that if you’re writing high fantasy you have to have a working knowledge of this book. Howard was the best. He wrote in the 1920s, and he was the original creator of Conan the Cimmerian. I learned about him in a literature class I took in college where we studied the story The Tower of the Elephant. All people who are thinking about getting into the fantasy genre should start there

2 – you would take with you if you were going to be marooned on Mars

We’ve already displayed that I’m a rulebreaker, so I’m gonna alter this question, too. I’m gonna go with the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe. He was dark and twisted and insane and beautiful. He wrote some of the most horrifying stories that have ever been written by anyone, yet his work is so pristine that it is still studied in public high schools. State school curriculum is willing to say, “Yes, we know he married his 14-year-old cousin. Yes, we know he wrote a story about rats eating a person alive, but look at this prose.”

3 – you took a chance on and were pleasantly surprised by

First I need to extend an apology. I’m sorry if you’re reading this, Mrs. Learmann. Please forgive me. My answer to this would be Wuthering Heights. English classic, dense prose, but it hits all the markers. Revenge, tragic love, innocence and darkness, it hits all the markers. I read it in high school. In doing that, I did just enough to pass, barely seeing the book for what it was. But I came back to it years later, as an adult. And if you haven’t read this book, it crosses genres. Writing does this thing where it likes to classify genres. So, it says, “This book is fantasy. This book is sci-fi. This book is romance.” But the one that pisses me off the most is, “This book is classic literature.” It’s like saying, “This book is good. This book is this kind of trash. This book is this kind of trash. This book is this kind of trash.” High forms of art and low forms of art, classic literature being above everything else, in such a way that it makes us rebel against anything called classic literature. This book Wuthering Heights is a thriller. To call it anything else is to force a top hat on it. If you have not read this book, run, do not walk, to your nearest bookstore.

4 – you’ve written that is your favourite

Favorite book that I’ve ever written is called Legends of the Exiles. It’s a complicated book. You have to really want it. It’s the story of four women. It’s a romance, it’s a tragedy, it’s high fantasy and action. Each story of each woman is a novella of its own. Their ages are designated by a timeline that runs through the whole book. Each novella could be read on its own, but when you read them all together, one will answer questions brought up by the others. One will expand the telling of a scene shared by a different novella. It’s a complicated book. It’s a book written for an advanced reader. I have to publish the rest of the trilogy I started in October. Those are my publications for 2018. But, when that trilogy is done I will be publishing Legends of the Exiles. So look for it April 15, 2019.

5 – that has influenced you most as a person

Paradise Lost. It’s not a book, it’s actually an epic poem. For this one, I have to thank Mrs. Learmann. There’s a scene where the angels rebelling against God have lost the war and have been tossed into Hell. They built a castle for themselves called Pandemonium, and in the throne room they have a huge meeting, all the demons and devils. They start planning out their next move. Moloch is a massive warrior and he wants to charge Heaven again, wants to lead all the demons back into war. Belial, another arch devil, wants to go apologize to God and beg and scrape. Satan is whispering in Beelzebub’s ear, and gets him to speak for him. Beelzebub speaks of revenge. He speaks of corrupting God’s favorite child, Adam, destroying the thing God loves most. When I was reading this, I was thinking about destiny. I was thinking about freedom of choice, or whether our lives are handed down by mandate. Here are a collection of demons, damned and imprisoned, and yet they still have freedom of choice to plot out their next move. It gave me an understanding that we can’t blame the choices we make on the people in our lives, or the gods or demons we choose to worship. And at any point, we can turn it all around, or we could burn it all to the ground.

6 – that has influenced you most as a professional

I’m gonna say George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. When I was first learning how to write a book, I was all over the place, swinging wild, one point of view for two or three paragraphs, then switch to another, then yet another, then back to the sixth. It was a disaster. So, my first book had over 15 point of view characters. It was unreadable. Then Martin came in, showed me precision point of view, and showed me that there was no topic too tragic, no scene too horrible to be included in dark fantasy. He anointed me a dark fantasy writer, and gave his blessing for all the most diabolical acts and horrible scenes I could imagine.

7 – of yours that prospective readers should start with if they want to get to know your work and where they can get it.

Start with Legends of Perilisc. It’s short, 170 pages. It’s a short story collection that will acquaint the reader with the creation of the world, the creation of the races, and the rise from the darkest ages. It’ll also show my writing style and ability. It’s a short commitment that will prepare you to read more.

You can find Jesse here.

Jesse Teller fell in love with fantasy when he was five years old and played his first game of Dungeons & Dragons. The game gave him the ability to create stories and characters from a young age. He started consuming fantasy in every form and, by nine, was obsessed with the genre. As a young adult, he knew he wanted to make his life about fantasy. From exploring the relationship between man and woman, to studying the qualities of a leader or a tyrant, Jesse Teller uses his stories and settings to study real-world themes and issues.

 

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One Book Interview #47 – David J. West (Author)

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Not only does author 47 write books, he is also an award-winning poet.

And he collects swords.

(Isn’t there an expression about the pen being mightier than the . . . can’t remember . . . it’s on the tip of my tongue.)

Good people of the Internet, writing out of  Utah, the USA – David J. West.

Name one book:

1 – everyone should read

The Hobbit. I just read it again this holiday and the nuances and wisdom continued really hit me once again. I read it cover to cover back in 7th grade and loved it and as far as I’m concerned it really stands up. The movies are trash by comparison, they ignore the subtle nuance and depth provided by the characters, their very motivation and soul. Really, give it a reread.

2 – you would take with you if you were going to be marooned on Mars

This is really hard, and I mean really hard, how do I fit in all those joys, all that wisdom and entertainment, the laughter and the tears? I would agonize endlessly if I really had to do it.
But if I just guess one right off the top of my head in the heer and now, I’ll go with The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard.

3 – you took a chance on and were pleasantly surprised by

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. High School english made me hate the classics, I had no room or time for things where every little bit was overanalyzed and taken apart to find the “deep meaning” by a bitter old man. I wish I knew then what I know now, so that I could have enjoyed reading all those years ago. School crushed my love of reading for almost ten years. In any case, I decided I would give the classics a shot again and picked up a different Hemingway book and was truly surprised at how much I got into it. I’m a big fan, now.

4 – you’ve written that is your favourite

It’s always the next thing, whatever I am working on is what I like to think is the best thing I’ve ever written.

5 – that has influenced you most as a person

Definitely the work of Robert E. Howard. As much as I have loved a million different books, nothing fired me up to write like his yarns have.

6 – that has influenced you most as a professional

That’s a tough one. I really respect everything I’ve come across of Steven Pressfield. He has so many great tips about craft and such, I can’t recommend his War of Art and Turning Pro enough, but again those works are just a facet of the greater jewel. I have also learned a lot from Larry Correia, Dave Butler, Chris Fox, Bryan Cohen, Lindsay Buroker, Andrea Pearson, Orson Scott Card, Michael Moorcock, Lester Dent, Poul Anderson, L. Sprauge DeCamp, Karl Edward Wagner, and Hunter S. Thompson.

7 – of yours that prospective readers should start with if they want to get to know your work and where they can get it.

At this point, I’d say BRUTAL.

You can find David here.

David J. West is the author of Heroes of the Fallen, Weird Tales of Horror, and The Mad Song. He has an affinity for history, action-adventure, fantasy, westerns and pulp fiction horror blended with a sharp knife and served in a dirty glass—he writes what he knows.

He received 1st place when he was seven for writing a short story about a pack of wolves that outsmarted and devoured a hunter and his dog. Some children and parents may have been traumatized. He has never looked back.

His writing has since been praised in Meridian Magazine, Timpanogos Times, Hell Notes, and Amazing Stories Magazine which said his writing was “a solid collection of weird fiction.” David’s short stories have been published in the Lovecraft eZine, UGEEK, Sword & Sorcery Magazine, Iron Bound, Monsters & Mormons, Artifacts & Relics, Space Eldritch 1 and 2, Redneck Eldritch and many more.

 

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One Book Interview #46 – Frank Dorrian (Author)

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Other than a love for reading (and a bloody-minded persistence*), there isn’t a particular type of person that writes, no easy pigeon hole for, or set of ingredients that go into making an author.

Author #46 is no different.

Describing himself as ‘a veteran observer of the world,’ #46 has competed internationally as a Muay Thai fighter, worked as a mental health nurse, and now works for a specialist unit for those with financial problems.

Good people of the Internet, writing out of Liverpool, UK – Frank Dorrian.

Name one book:

1 – everyone should read

The most recent one that springs to mind would be Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames. It’s an awesome book that I think will strike a note with fans of all branches of fantasy. It’s not overly complex story-wise, in fact I’d say its astoundingly simple, but it gives plenty of room for the characters to shine, which is where the book’s strengths lie.

2 – you would take with you if you were going to be marooned on Mars

Something fat. Like, p h a t. Probably something from the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, as I should probably read beyond the first book at some point.

I actually took three huge tomes with me to Thailand in 2015 when I was training for a fight there for a month – Queen of Fire by Anthony Ryan, The Shadow Throne by Django Wexler and The Liar’s Key by Mark Lawrence. I finished ‘em all in about three and a half weeks, fought, lost, and spent the rest of my free time nursing bruises and drinking cheap beer in 40 degree heat.

3 – you took a chance on and were pleasantly surprised by

The Thousand Names by Django Wexler. I’m not into imperialist/colonialist era stuff, reminds me way too much of Sharpe-style stuff which I’m just not a fan of, but The Thousand Names was awesome. Very different book, and after reading about swords and shields and spears and bows for years on end, reading about muskets was actually pretty refreshing.

4 – you’ve written that is your favourite

I would say my first book, The Shadow of the High King, which I published in August 2016. It took 14 months to write and another 10 to edit and redraft, as it’s a t h i c k  book, but I had a beast of a time writing it in a way that I’ve never had since.

5 – that has influenced you most as a person

More than likely The Hobbit, if I’m honest. It was the first real fantasy book I chose to read when I was about 12, way before The Lord of the Rings films were kicking about. I picked it up from the school library after my dad said I should read it and finished it in about 2 days, after that I picked up his old copies of The Lord of the Rings and fantasy just sort of became my thing, even if Tolkienesque fantasy no longer is.

6 – that has influenced you most as a professional

Definitely Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence. It wasn’t my introduction to grimdark, but it was certainly my introduction to a poetic, philosophical form of grimy fantasy, one with emotional depth. It was enough to inspire me to start writing again after 10 years away from the keyboard.

7 – of yours that prospective readers should start with if they want to get to know your work and where they can get it.

I’m not sure how my readers’ opinions would fall upon this, but personally I’d actually say my most recent book, Scars of the Sand. It’s book 2 of my series of shorter standalones, Tales of the Blackshield Dogs, and something of a prelude to the central story arc in The Shadow of the High King.

You can find Frank at www.frankdorrian.wordpress.com

Frank Dorrian was born in 1987 in Liverpool – his hometown, a post-industrial cityscape, served as poignant inspiration for his creative efforts. He would commence writing in earnest during his teenage years, composing stories to sate desires of both expression and introspection.

Formerly a qualified mental health nurse working with people suffering severe psychiatric and psychological disorders, today Frank works in a specialist role supporting and educating vulnerable people through financial difficulty.

When not writing, Frank spends his spare time reading, playing computer games and attending a martial arts gym. He has previously competed as a fighter domestically in the UK and abroad in Thailand.

 

 

*Don’t believe me? Try writing a book.

 

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One Book Interview #45 – Ty Arthur (Author)

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Metalhead.

Gamer.

Author.

And now winner of the best answer to question one to date!

Good people of the Internet, writing out of Great Falls, Montana – Ty Arthur.

Name one book:

1 – everyone should read

This is a really subjective issue, since obviously not all readers are going to love the same style of writing or be interested in the same subject matter. I could say start off The Song Of Ice and Fire saga with first entry A Game Of Thrones, but not everyone wants to read about royal incest and the good guy getting his head chopped off because he wasn’t conniving enough (although those people would, of course, be wrong). I could recommend trying out Malazan or Wheel Of Time, but not everyone wants to get dragged through a never-ending mammoth fantasy series that becomes a marathon to finish. I could say that people should see where cosmic horror got its legs with Lovecraft or Chambers, but the dense style and off hand racism from another era would be off-putting to many modern readers. No matter what book I think is perfect, someone out there would be able to discover flaws or find it just doesn’t suit their tastes.

Rather than giving a specific title, I’d say the one book everyone needs to read is an indie book from a self-published author or someone on a small time publisher. While there are literary disasters out there to be avoided (that were rejected by all the publishers for very good reasons), I absolutely guarantee if you dive into the indie world you will find a book that’s leagues ahead of anything published by King, Jordan, Sanderson, and so on. Spend some time joining online groups of readers and writers in whatever genre you prefer, whether that’s urban fantasy, grimdark, sci-fi romance, or whatever, and you will find a book that you didn’t know you couldn’t live without.

2 – you would take with you if you were going to be marooned on Mars

When it comes to re-reading books, I find I usually only devour a fiction novel once or at most twice, but I really like diving back into RPG manuals again and again, especially if they are heavy on the story fluff (as opposed to the mechanics crunch) and marry their substance with a distinctive style. If I could only read one book over and over again while stuck on Mars, it would have to be something that was visually interesting and had themes I wanted to keep going back to, so I’d probably pick something like Earthdawn, Warhammer 40: Dark Heresy, or perhaps one of the many Call Of Cthulhu tabletop RPG iterations.

3 – you took a chance on and were pleasantly surprised by

Back in high school years ago, I picked up The Gathering Dark by Jeff Grubb, which is a tale of a magician’s apprentice trying to stay alive during Dominaria’s Ice Age when a powerful religious group is busy persecuting wizards. To be blunt, novels based on game franchises like Magic The Gathering or Forgotten Realms are often terrible, so that was a gamble. The book has always stuck with me over the years though, both for its interesting commentary on real world groups, and for its usage of game mechanics to bring scenes to life. A segment where wizards of various colors are trying to vex each other in entertaining ways at a fest hall – like reanimating the chicken through necromancy – has always stayed with me as a great example of how to use a setting’s quirks to your advantage.

4 – you’ve written that is your favourite

My fiction, whether short stories for anthologies or stand alone novels, is always based on a personal experience that gets translated into a fictional medium like horror, sci-fi, fantasy, etc. Almost universally, its the negative experiences that provide the most drive to write, so honestly I couldn’t say that any of the books I’ve written are my “favorite” in the sense that I actually enjoyed them.

If I had to pick one of these vile, misbegotten bastards though, I’d probably have to go with my short story A Church Full Of Lovers, which features an atheist, an agnostic, and a true believer all experiencing a terrible apocalypse together. It was the first short I actually put serious effort into and intended other people to read, and it has a revolving perspective mechanic that makes it quite different from many of my other releases.

The anthology that A Church Full Of Lovers eventually landed in is no longer available, but a revamped version of the story will be making an appearance in an upcoming release that goes a direction readers may not be expecting.

5 – that has influenced you most as a person

There are a lot of books I could list here that had big impacts on me, from Seyonne’s tale of being relentlessly downtrodden in Carl Berg’s Transformation, to the surprising revelations and genre mixing in C.S. Friedman’s Black Sun Rising, to the unforgettable portrayal of the devil and his motivations in Anne Rice’s Memnoch The Devil. The collision of punny humor with fantasy storytelling in the Xanth series also played a big role in crafting my early years.

Going back the farthest though, I’d have to say the book that influenced me most as a person was Redwall, as that was probably the book that most ignited my imagination and made me fall in love with fiction in general and fantasy in particular as a kid. I think its safe to say I wouldn’t be a roleplayer, an author, or an all around geek today if it weren’t for those books. That love really got a surprise re-ignition with the Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 graphic novel when I discovered it out of the blue at my local library years ago, and I highly recommend it to anyone of any age.

6 – that has influenced you most as a professional

Although I don’t try to emulate his writing style at all, a book that strongly influenced me as an author would have to be Clive Barker’s Weaveworld. The mashup of fantasy with horror in a modern day setting showed me that you don’t always have to color within the genre lines, and there’s plenty of room for characters and themes from one genre to land in another.

7 – of yours that prospective readers should start with if they want to get to know your work and where they can get it.

The place to start with me is definitely my grimdark fantasy / cosmic horror mashup Light Dawning that released back in May. Its a story that turns the standard fantasy tropes on their heads, so don’t go in expecting to meet any chosen one farm boys, brash rogues that evade the authorities and get the girl, or wise old wizards who will help the underdogs save the world.

Most of my other work is currently unavailable or about to become unavailable as contracts with publishers end and I re-launch as an indie self-published author. Those stories are all getting ready to be released again with new covers in the near future.

You can find Ty at www.tyarthur.wordpress.com

Ty Arthur has the good fortune to meld his passions and hobbies with his work while freelancing for the likes of Metalunderground, GameSkinny, and WorldStart.

He’s been busy writing a variety of gaming, heavy metal, and tech-themed columns since 2008.

Following a string of anthology appearances, Arthur’s debut standalone sci-fi / horror novella “Empty” was released in early 2016, with many more dark tales still to come.

 

Arthur writes to exorcise his demons and lives in the cold, dark north with his amazing wife Megan and infant son Gannicus Picard.

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One Book Interview #44 – JR Rice (Author)

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I read Dracula when I was about fourteen years old. I did it in one sitting because I wanted to know how it ended before I tried to sleep.

I have a feeling that if I read author 44’s books, I’d need to do the same thing.

(Or at least read them in a country where the sun never sets.)

Good people of the Internet, writing on an island, near a dark forest, by moonlight – J.R. Rice.

Name one book:

1 – everyone should read

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson.

First published in 1954, it was a novel ahead of its time. I consider it the patriarch of all vampire/zombie/end-of-the-world apocalyptic novels. Famed writer/director George A. Romero claimed Matheson’s novel was his primary inspiration for his 1968 film “Night of the Living Dead.”

2 – you would take with you if you were going to be marooned on Mars

Spacecraft Repair for Dummies by Jerry Rigg.

Alternatively, if that doesn’t work out:

Zen and the Art of Whiskey Making by Glen Livet

All lame attempts at humor aside, I would have to go with Stephen King’s “It” for content, length, and re-readability factor.

3 – you took a chance on and were pleasantly surprised by

The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda.

It was first published in 1968 by the Berkley: University of California Press as a work of anthropology, and submitted as the author’s Master’s thesis, although many people—including myself—contend that it is mostly a work of fiction.

The story documents the events that took place during an apprenticeship—by the author—with a self-proclaimed Yaqui Indian Sorcerer, don Juan Matus from Sonora, Mexico between 1960 and 1965.

It’s a fascinating and moving blend of fact and fiction with regard for Nagualism, and other Native American/Mesoamerican folklore.

4 – you’ve written that is your favourite

I’m a new writer, so I’ve only written two novels. The second book in my Bane County Series “Bane County: Returning Moon” is my favorite, so far.

5 – that has influenced you most as a person

It would be a toss-up between Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and 1984 by George Orwell.

6 – that has influenced you most as a professional

I would say that the writing style of Michael Crichton in novels such as “Jurassic Park” influenced me most. Crichton’s seamless blend of science fact and science fiction make your “suspension of disbelief” almost unnecessary.

7 – of yours that prospective readers should start with if they want to get to know your work and where they can get it.

The first book in my Bane County Series is “Bane County: Forgotten Moon.” Readers should start there.

You can find JR here.

J R Rice is the author and creator of Bane County: a horror/suspense/thriller series.

Book One and Two of the Series are available now:

Bane County: Forgotten Moon (Book 1)

Bane County: Returning Moon (Book 2)

Book Three is currently underway:

Bane County: First Moon (Book 3)

 

An Active Member of the Horror Writers Association, he lives on a large island, near the edge of a dark forest, with his beautiful wife, unruly children, dogs that he loves and cats that he tolerates, and one very nasty monster who lives under his bed and never shuts up.

He enjoys interacting with readers, so please feel free to join him at:

www.Facebook.com/JRRiceAuthor

(Fan page) Facebook.com/jrricefanpage

Twitter.com/jrriceauthor

Amazon.com/author/jrrice

Plus.google.com/+JRRiceAuthor

Instagram.com/JRRiceAuthor

Goodreads.com/JRRICE

Youtube.com/c/JRRiceAuthor

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