![]() ![]() My next book is a novella entitled Slab City Blues: The Ballad of Bad Jack.Ģ) Where did the idea come from for the book? My ideas normally take a long time to gestate. ![]() In this case the character name ‘Bad Jack’ popped into my head a long time ago. It’s the fourth story in my Slab City Blues SF-noir series which takes place in an orbital society which has gained independence from Earth after a bloody revolution.Ĥ) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition? I knew he was some kind of criminal but it was several years before I formed a clear idea of who he was and what he did. Writers are notoriously bad at casting and there’s a reason why movie producers pay lots of money to casting agents. ![]() That being said, Janet the gene-spliced vampire in A Hymn to Gods Long Dead (the third Slab City Blues story) is just crying out to be played by Olivia Wilde.ĥ) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?Ħ) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? Plus, as a reader, I like to formulate my own image of how characters look. I’ll be self-publishing this one via the usual outlets on February 1st. Novellas are a tricky thing to sell, being too short to justify the expense of a print run and too long for magazines. Plus, I’m keen to keep hold of the series as it gives me room to enjoy the writing without worrying about a deadline.ħ) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript? I was hoping to get it down in a month, in fact it took three. Also, I ran into a few thorny plot-issues that took time to resolve.Ĩ) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? I started not long after finishing Tower Lord (Book 2 of the Raven’s Shadow trilogy), and was frankly pretty exhausted after writing 2000+ words a day for six months whilst holding down a day job. Richard Morgan’s Takeshi Kovacs books are also a major influence.ĩ) Who or what inspired you to write this book? I do owe a debt to William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy, but that’s true of pretty much everything I write. I wanted to explore the more of the world I’d created in earlier Slab City Blues stories, all of which had been set on the same orbiting slum. This one takes us to the Asteroid Belt and provides an expanded view of the solar system beyond Earth orbit. I’m a full-time author now and I’m realising the more content I can produce, the greater the chance of continuing as such.ġ0) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest? However, the main inspiration was simply need to keep writing. If you’re a fan of hard-boiled crime fiction, armoured power-suits and space battles, then there’s probably something in there for you. Whilst the final Trek series was still on air the Fox Network commissioned the most dystopian space opera to date: Firefly (USA 2002), created by Joss Whedon, one of a growing number of show-runners who can reasonably claim the title of ‘autuer’, having produced the hugely successful Buffy the Vampire Slayer (USA 1997-2001) and spin-off Angel (USA 1999-2004). Firefly was one of several shows commissioned and then cancelled mid-run by Fox in a sustained bid to find a replacement for the massively successful The X-Files (USA 1993-2002) in the 8pm Friday night slot. Other genre shows Harsh Realm, Brimstone and John Doe had all fallen foul of cancellation in quick succession as Fox executives tried to recapture the elusive formula that made The X-Files such a success. Like Sta r Trek, Firefly was conceived as a space western, but whilst the western influence on the adventures of Kirk and co. is vague at best, Firefly’s inspiration is obvious from its credit sequence where the Serenity is shown swooping low over a stampeding herd of mustangs. Stories consistently feature such western conventions as six-shooters, bounty hunters and cattle rustling and characters speak a mixture of colloquial frontier English peppered with Mandarin obscenities. The basic elements of the series were set out in the pilot Serenity. ![]()
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