The Qwillery

Recursion
Author:  Blake Crouch
Publisher:  Crown, June 11, 2019
Format:  Hardcover and eBook, 336 pages
List Price:  US$27.00 (print);  US$13.99 (eBook)
ISBN:  9781524759780 (print); 9781524759803 (eBook)

From the New York Times bestselling author of Dark Matter and the Wayward Pines trilogy comes a relentless thriller about time, identity, and memory—his most ambitious, mind-boggling, irresistible work to date.

“An action-packed, brilliantly unique ride that had me up late and shirking responsibilities until I had devoured the last page . . . a fantastic read.”—Andy Weir, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Martian

Memory makes reality. That’s what New York City cop Barry Sutton is learning as he investigates the devastating phenomenon the media has dubbed False Memory Syndrome—a mysterious affliction that drives its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived.

Neuroscientist Helena Smith already understands the power of memory. It’s why she’s dedicated her life to creating a technology that will let us preserve our most precious moments of our pasts. If she succeeds, anyone will be able to re-experience a first kiss, the birth of a child, the final moment with a dying parent.

As Barry searches for the truth, he comes face-to-face with an opponent more terrifying than any disease—a force that attacks not just our minds but the very fabric of the past. And as its effects begin to unmake the world as we know it, only he and Helena, working together, will stand a chance at defeating it.

But how can they make a stand when reality itself is shifting and crumbling all around them?

Qwill's Thoughts

Recursion was difficult for me to read at first as Blake Crouch alternates POVs and periods of time. I felt disoriented. We are programed to think linearly - yesterday, today, tomorrow. Recursion turns that on its head and inside out. What if you could change your memories and have a do over? Prevent an accident from killing a loved one? Go back in time and prevent an atrocity? Would it be the ethical thing to do? How would altering your memories affect the reality of those around you? Crouch asks these questions and more.

Neuroscientist Helena Smith is driven to find a way to help preserve memories because her mother is losing hers to Alzheimer's. She is given unfettered access to everything she needs to create a machine that will do just that by Marcus Slade. He is incredibly wealthy and known for philanthropy and being the founder of many cutting edge technology companies. With Slade's resources Helena's work speeds ahead and she is hopeful she will be able to help her mother and others like her.

Barry Sutton is a NYPD detective whose life has fallen apart since his daughter was killed by a hit-and-run driver when she was a teen. He begins to investigate False Memory Syndrome (FMS) after trying to prevent the suicide of a woman suffering from it. FMS is occurs when someone has memories of 2 different lives one more vivid than the other. Trying to reconcile these differing lives is causing people to kill themselves. Barry's investigation into the woman's suicide and FMS puts him on a very dangerous path.

Recursion is a stellar thriller which explores memory, identity, and reality. Crouch takes a bit of hard science and pushes it well beyond its limits to create an intense speculative novel. Recursion is deeply emotional, dark, frightening, and at the same time hopeful. With great pacing, engaging characters, and non-stop twists this is Crouch at his mind-bending best.

Foundryside
Author:  Robert Jackson Bennett
Series:  The Founders Trilogy 1
Publisher:  Crown, August 21, 2018
Format:  Hardcover and eBook, 512 pages
List Price:  US$27.00 (Hardcover);  US$13.99 (eBook)
ISBN:  9781524760366 (Hardcover);  9781524760373 (eBook)

“The exciting beginning of a promising new epic fantasy series. Prepare for ancient mysteries, innovative magic, and heart-pounding heists.”—Brandon Sanderson

“Complex characters, magic that is tech and vice versa, a world bound by warring trade dynasties: Bennett will leave you in awe once you remember to breathe!”–Tamora Pierce–

In a city that runs on industrialized magic, a secret war will be fought to overwrite reality itself–the first in a dazzling new series from City of Stairs author Robert Jackson Bennett.

Sancia Grado is a thief, and a damn good one. And her latest target, a heavily guarded warehouse on Tevanne’s docks, is nothing her unique abilities can’t handle.

But unbeknownst to her, Sancia’s been sent to steal an artifact of unimaginable power, an object that could revolutionize the magical technology known as scriving. The Merchant Houses who control this magic–the art of using coded commands to imbue everyday objects with sentience–have already used it to transform Tevanne into a vast, remorseless capitalist machine. But if they can unlock the artifact’s secrets, they will rewrite the world itself to suit their aims.

Now someone in those Houses wants Sancia dead, and the artifact for themselves. And in the city of Tevanne, there’s nobody with the power to stop them.

To have a chance at surviving—and at stopping the deadly transformation that’s under way—Sancia will have to marshal unlikely allies, learn to harness the artifact’s power for herself, and undergo her own transformation, one that will turn her into something she could never have imagined.

Qwill's Thoughts

I started Foundryside with a bit of trepidation. I've read every novel that Robert Jackson Bennett has written and fell in love with his Divine Cities Trilogy - the first trilogy he's written. Could Bennett once again create a striking world with wonderful characters that drive the story? Could the plot again be compelling, deeply engaging and as exciting? Could I care about the characters as deeply? The answer to all these questions is an unequivocal "yes".

Foundryside is set in city of Tevanne which is run by four Merchant Houses. The Merchant Houses have monetized magic technology and have become rich and greedy. The areas in Tevanne not controlled by the Merchant Houses are lawless, grimy and extremely dangerous. One of these areas is called Foundryside and this is where we find Sancia Grado, an extraordinary thief. She's taken on a job to steal an artifact and has no idea what she is getting herself into. Because of this particular heist more than one person wants Sancia dead. In order to survive, she will team up with an unlikely group of individuals from within and without the Merchant Houses.

Sancia is a wonderful character - strong, flawed, damaged, funny, brave. She comes from a horrific background. She is such a remarkable thief because of something that was done to her; something that Bennett reveals slowly and the horror of it for Sancia (and the reader) is palpable. However, this is an ensemble piece and the people that Sancia encounters and works with are wonderfully developed throughout the novel. In their own rights each of the characters is remarkable. There are also plenty of bad actors and villains to go around. This world is full of gray and everything is not as black and white as it may seem.

The magic system is intricate and Bennett delves deeply into how it works and its antecedents. There is a lot of history of this world and Bennett does not skimp with explaining much of it while not overwhelming the story. There is still a great deal we don't know about this magical technology and this world. Social issues are touched upon as well - how the technological marvels created only benefit some and not all; how some people are disposable and others are elevated; and more.

While Bennett resolves the main plot of Foundryside he leaves open several questions for the upcoming novels. Note for those who don't like cliffhangers - there isn't one. There is mystery, nail-biting action, magic, technology, fights, heists, some gore, and much to love about this new world and these new characters. Bennett has done it again. Foundryside is a marvelously entertaining, thrilling and riveting start of a new epic fantasy trilogy. 

TQ:  Welcome to The Qwillery. What is the first fiction piece you remember writing?

Jonathan:  Let's see...It was a fantasy story I wrote in 4th grade. I was living in England at the time and my teacher, Ms. Carlsen, was an amazing Dutch woman that read The Hobbit to her class every year as a tradition. I'd already read it, but I loved hearing her read it aloud because she had such love for the story. She encouraged me to read The Lord of the Rings, to draw scenes from the book, and to write my own fiction. I ended up writing this multi-chapter short story that was more akin to Dragonlance and the Golden Axe video game than to Tolkien. But she was still unbelievably supportive to the point that she had me read it aloud to the class, which was simultaneously awkward and exhilarating.



TQ:  Are you a plotter, a pantser or a hybrid?

Jonathan:  I'm a hybrid who leans heavily to the pantsing side.



TQ:  What is the most challenging thing for you about writing?

Jonathan:  Consistency. I don't defend my writing time very well. My son is 5 and the stuff he is doing is just so much more fun than staring at a screen and thumping at keys. I also hate trying to describe architecture. And physics.



TQ:  What has influenced / influences your writing?

Jonathan:  Living abroad as a kid was a major influence. I was this 9-year-old from Tennessee that had recently discovered Dungeons & Dragons and comic books, and the next thing I know I'm living in a place where medieval castles and cathedrals can be visited after school. And it all compounded from there. The interests spread to military history, weapons/warfare, wargaming, art history, all while beginning to absorb book after book: Middle-earth, Prydain, Discworld, Redwall, Conan. Those trends have continued almost uninterrupted as I've gotten older, but have also been supplemented by new pursuits like fatherhood and an interest in wilderness survival.



TQ:  Describe The Grey Bastards in 140 characters or less.

Jonathan:  #TheGreyBastards is a raucous tale of half-orcs riding huge war pigs. It’s been hailed as one of the filthiest books ever written. It’s now available!



TQ:  Tell us something about The Grey Bastards that is not found in the book description.

Jonathan:  Halflings in this world live underground, but instead of nice cozy hobbit-holes, they dwell in the ancient tomb of a fallen human god, sending out pilgrims to endlessly search the world for every last relic of the deity's time as a mortal warlord.



TQ:  What inspired you to write The Grey Bastards? What appeals to you about writing Epic Fantasy?

Jonathan:  My wife was the one that insisted I write the story as a novel. Originally, the story was a half-formed idea for a Dungeons & Dragons game. I had painted a bunch of cool half-orc models that I wanted to use for my next game and I always like to provide my players with an element that firmly connects their characters out of the gate. Sons of Anarchy gave me the notion of a mounted gang, so I figured on having that gang be “half-orcs only.” My wife suggested I use hogs instead of horses, though I was concerned it was a little too obvious. She also said, “Forget the game. Write the fucking book.” That pretty much set the tone for the entire thing!

Far as Epic Fantasy goes, it’s always called to me as a reader and I write what I want to read. The possibilities are endless and, for me, it only gets better when married to elements from our own world history. Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age as an alternate version of our own past, Tolkien's use of Anglo-Saxon folklore, even the original Old World of Warhammer, I find all of that to be such a wonderful gateway into learning about real world events. I would love for The Grey Bastards to spark some young reader's interest in medieval Spain. So many people find history to be dull, but fantasy can be the sugar that helps the medicine go down.



TQ:  What sort of research did you do for The Grey Bastards?

Jonathan:  I did a massive amount of reading about Reconquista-era Spain. S.S. Wyatt's translation of Daily Life in Portugal in the Middle Ages by A. H. de Oliveira Marques was invaluable. I also had to do a fair amount of internet research about different species of swine in order to make the riding hogs believable.



TQ:  Please tell us about the cover for The Grey Bastards.

Jonathan:  The cover was designed by artist and photographer Larry Rostant, along with Little, Brown Book Group creative director Duncan Spilling. It depicts the POV protagonist, Jackal; a young, cunning half-orc rider and member of the Grey Bastards.



TQ:  In The Grey Bastards who was the easiest character to write and why? The hardest and why?

Jonathan:  Oats was probably the easiest. Mostly because he never gave me any problems. I always knew what he was going to say and how he was going to react. Plus, he’s both overestimated and underestimated at the same time; he’s pretty vulnerable despite his size and strength, and also far from stupid despite initial appearances. My inspiration for him was a mix of Jayne Cobb (from my favorite TV show Firefly) and the late, great MMA fighter Kimbo Slice, so I had a solid foundation to work with when writing him.

The most difficult to write was definitely Starling. I knew having a female character that was seemingly helpless through most of the book would cause trouble for some readers. But I was (and still am) playing a rather long game with her, so I kept the course despite second-guessing it on many, MANY occasions.



TQ:  Why have you chosen to include or not chosen to include social issues in The Grey Bastards?

Jonathan:  It was never a conscious choice. I didn't have that moment where I thought: "I'm going to address X issue!" However, I don't see how they can be avoided in a believable world. They exist, period. Bigotry, racism, and sexism are certainly a part of real life, and I could not avoid their inclusion in a book about mixed-race characters living in a male-dominated society. As a pantser, the issues came to the page organically, so I was forced to face them down. Or rather, the characters were. I tried to keep my opinions out of it and not preach or come down on any side. The characters are flawed, but they are also products of their experiences and there were opportunities that allowed them to evolve. This shit is complicated and messy in real life, so I hope that's what came to the page.



TQ:  Which question about The Grey Bastards do you wish someone would ask? Ask it and answer it!

Jonathan:  The question would be: Do you ever dream about The Grey Bastards being adapted into a tabletop wargame? And the answer is: Yes! Everyone raves about A Song of Ice & Fire getting an HBO show, but I think GRR Martin's real victory was getting a miniatures wargame. I daydream all the time about a gorgeous line of models: half-orc hog-riders, centaur marauders, orc raiders, noble and low-born cavaleros, Unyar scouts. I write up army lists for each of the hoofs and mull over a rules set for a game focused on mounted combat.



TQ:  Give us one or two of your favorite non-spoilery quotes from The Grey Bastards.

Jonathan:  Oh, these are always tricky because my memory is awful! Here goes:

1) Jackal likened religion to madness. He had heard that in the north, in the great cities of Hispartha, there were more temples than well-fed children, that a hundred faceless gods received the wealth of the nobles and the fearful pleas of the peasants. He found that difficult to imagine, but Delia, Ignacio, and others had assured him it was true. Thankfully, such belief was all but unknown in Ul-wundulas. Perhaps the badlands were gods-forsaken, but Jackal preferred to think that the Lots were home to those who had no need of invisible old men, dog-headed demons, and sour-faced crones. Here, faith was better placed in a strong mount, a loaded stockbow, and a few solid companions.

and

2) Roundth was standing in his stirrups, balanced perfectly, and windmilling his exposed cock around in one hand as he passed. The damn thing was as thick as a floppy tankard.



TQ:  What's next?

Jonathan:  The sequel is next! More Bastards are coming in March 2019. Sex! Violence! Vulgarity! Half-orc! Hogs! For those that wish to return to The Lots, it'll be a fun ride!



TQ:  Thank you for joining us at The Qwillery.

Jonathan:  Are you kidding? It was my pleasure. Thank you for having me!

The Grey Bastards
The Lot Lands 1
Crown, June 19, 2018
Hardcover and eBook, 432 pages

“A dirty, blood-soaked gem of a novel [that reads] like Mad Max set in Tolkien’s Middle Earth. A fantasy masterwork.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred)

–
Live in the saddle.
Die on the hog.

Call them outcasts, call them savages—they’ve been called worse, by their own mothers—but Jackal is proud to be a Grey Bastard.

He and his fellow half-orcs patrol the barren wastes of the Lot Lands, spilling their own damned blood to keep civilized folk safe. A rabble of hard-talking, hog-riding, whore-mongering brawlers they may be, but the Bastards are Jackal’s sworn brothers, fighting at his side in a land where there’s no room for softness.

And once Jackal’s in charge—as soon as he can unseat the Bastards’ tyrannical, seemingly unkillable founder—there’s a few things they’ll do different. Better.

Or at least, that’s the plan. Until the fallout from a deadly showdown makes Jackal start investigating the Lot Lands for himself. Soon, he’s wondering if his feelings have blinded him to ugly truths about this world, and the Bastards’ place in it.

In a quest for answers that takes him from decaying dungeons to the frontlines of an ancient feud, Jackal finds himself battling invading orcs, rampaging centaurs, and grubby human conspiracies alike—along with a host of dark magics so terrifying they’d give even the heartiest Bastard pause.

Finally, Jackal must ride to confront a threat that’s lain in wait for generations, even as he wonders whether the Bastards can—or should–survive.

Delivered with a generous wink to Sons of Anarchy, featuring sneaky-smart worldbuilding and gobs of fearsomely foul-mouthed charm, The Grey Bastards is a grimy, pulpy, masterpiece—and a raunchy, swaggering, cunningly clever adventure that’s like nothing you’ve read before.

About Jonathan

Photo by Casey Gardner

JONATHAN FRENCH lives in Atlanta with his wife and son. He is a devoted reader of comic books, an expert thrower of oddly shaped dice, and a serial con attendee.













Website  ~  Twitter @JFrenchAuthor  ~  Facebook

Melanie's Thoughts (during the 2016 Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off)

If you take the orcs, the elves and the dwarves from Middle Earth, mix in some rampaging centaurs with a big helping of not very nice humans, quite a bit of swearing and a multi-layered plot then you have The Grey Bastards. Set in the bleak landscape of ‘the Lotlands’ The Grey Bastards, an elite group of half orc militia. protect their community from almost everyone else. The hero of this tale is not a tall dark and handsome knight on a white charger but rather, a greyish green half orc named Jackal who thunders onto the battle field on enormous multi-tusked hog. That doesn’t make him any less heroic. When Jackal discovers that elvin women are being held captive by a sludge monster, that the leader of Bastards might be involved and there are more and more incursions of full blooded orcs killing his friends and community then Jackal decides to take a stand….and one he might not survive.

I tentatively started The Grey Bastards as I wasn’t completely sure I would like it. I am not normally a fan of this type of fantasy so when I found myself staring at the cover I decided to give it a go. I loved it. This isn’t a book if you are sensitive to blood, guts and swearing so be warned but the plot is soo engaging. Despite Jackal’s penchant for prostitutes, overuse of certain misogynistic words used by some presidents and the fact he had tusks, he was very much the traditional hero – tall, handsome, fights the good fight and protects the innocent.

French has crafted an ambitious but intricate plot. I never knew what was going to happen next or whether Jackal would live to tell the tale. This is a sign of a good book in my view. I could very easily recommend this as one of the best books of SPFBO 2016 and potentially one of my favourite books of this year.

Doreen's Thoughts (now)

When I first started reading The Grey Bastards, I knew it was an homage to the television show, “Sons of Anarchy,” but when discovering the names of the main characters, Jackal (Jax), Oats (Opie), and the Claymaster (Clay), I thought they were a little too close to the real thing. Then I discovered that these half-orcs rode hogs – real, animal hogs – and I almost gave up reading what I thought might be a spoof. I kept reading, and despite my misgivings, I started to get caught up in the story.

There is some tremendous world-building here. I loved the description of the kiln, their hideout, where the walls can be heated to kill any intruders. Then there was the Hogback, which is a ramp that can be raised and lowered to let the hogs and their riders out over the walls. There are the sludges, gelatinous creatures that can envelop and suck the life out of a creature, and the Rohks, flying predators who could carry a whole hog. The magic is different, created out of smoke and sparks.

Given the nature of the show, I expected the sex and violence to be more graphic than it is; however, many of the other descriptions are just as graphic and gross as can be.

Just as in “Sons of Anarchy,” this hoof (club) is being run by a corrupt tyrant whose time has come. Jackal has discovered that the Claymaster is making deals and paying for them using elves, a violation of the treaty they have which could lead to war. As he comes closer to taking over leadership of the Bastards, he discovers that perhaps they are not the fierce proctors of the Lot lands that they think they are; perhaps they are simply the dregs of humanity left to survive on scraps. Along with his backups, Fetching and Oats, and the wizard, Crafty, Jackal will find out about the Bastards and their place in the Lot Lands, even if it kills them all.

Hello again. Sorry I have missed a couple of WIRs. I have been busy reading books for SPFBO 2017 and can't share my opinion of those books quite yet. I hope you have had some good books to enjoy while I have been offline. Let me tell you of two of the non-SPFBO books I have been reading.


First up is Andy Weir's Artemis. This standalone novel has been released recently but was I pretty lucky to receive it from the publisher via NetGalley a few months ago.

The story is set on the moon and features the plucky Jazz, who spends her days pushing contraband and living just shy on the right side of the law. She grew up on the moon, in the city of Artemis and loves every inch of it. When she gets an offer that will give her the life she yearns for it seems almost too good to be true. If it seems to good to be true it usually is. Its not long before Jazz is on the run from a criminal syndicate that plans to take over Artemis. With just her wits and her friends Jazz is determined to save the only home she has ever really known.

I rather enjoyed Artemis although it did take a couple of chapters for me to adjust to Jazz and her rather dubious moral code. This book is completely different in content and tone to Martian so if you are expecting another good guy then you may be disappointed with the more complex Jazz. I liked Artemis as a setting and all the sciency bits that made the plot more credible. The plot was interspersed with letters between Jazz and her childhood pen friend and this plot device helps to develop Jazz as a character and later on to help advance the plot. This is a quick, easy read with a strong female lead that I enjoyed. Science fiction fans be sure to take a chance on Artemis.


Book 2 for me was the third instalment of the Crossbreed series by Dannika Dark - Deathtrap. In this instalment Raven Black is set on the trail of criminal who is kidnapping breed children, killing their mothers and then selling them on the black market. All of the 'gang' are involved in this one and different sides are told through POV chapters. All this comes with Raven trying to reconcile letting her human life go and saying good-bye to her father. Helping her is the hunky vampire Christian who Raven is drawn towards, despite her hatred of vampires.

This series is very much light relief for me. The plot isn't challenging but there is enough substance to make it readable. Raven is not without her flaws which makes her a more likable character but Dark introduces a coincidental meeting that, in my view, adds nothing to the main romance of the story. Overall, an OK read but I am not expecting any big surprises.


That is it for me this week. Hope to be back next week but I do a few more SPFBO books to read so if I miss another week it's not because I'm not reading. Be back soon!

Artemis
Crown, November 14, 2017
Hardcover and eBook, 320 pages

The bestselling author of The Martian returns with an irresistible new near-future thriller—a heist story set on the moon.

Jasmine Bashara never signed up to be a hero. She just wanted to get rich.

Not crazy, eccentric-billionaire rich, like many of the visitors to her hometown of Artemis, humanity’s first and only lunar colony. Just rich enough to move out of her coffin-sized apartment and eat something better than flavored algae. Rich enough to pay off a debt she’s owed for a long time.

So when a chance at a huge score finally comes her way, Jazz can’t say no. Sure, it requires her to graduate from small-time smuggler to full-on criminal mastermind. And it calls for a particular combination of cunning, technical skills, and large explosions—not to mention sheer brazen swagger. But Jazz has never run into a challenge her intellect can’t handle, and she figures she’s got the ‘swagger’ part down.

The trouble is, engineering the perfect crime is just the start of Jazz’s problems. Because her little heist is about to land her in the middle of a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself.

Trapped between competing forces, pursued by a killer and the law alike, even Jazz has to admit she’s in way over her head. She’ll have to hatch a truly spectacular scheme to have a chance at staying alive and saving her city.

Jazz is no hero, but she is a very good criminal.

That’ll have to do.

Propelled by its heroine’s wisecracking voice, set in a city that’s at once stunningly imagined and intimately familiar, and brimming over with clever problem-solving and heist-y fun, Artemis is another irresistible brew of science, suspense, and humor from #1 bestselling author Andy Weir.

Deathtrap
A Crossbread Novel 3
Dannika Dark, September 2017
Trade Paperback and eBook, 326 pages

The explosive third installment in USA Today Bestselling author Dannika Dark’s Crossbreed series.

“YOU MIGHT BE DONE WITH THE PAST, BUT THE PAST ISN’T DONE WITH YOU.”

For Raven Black, hunting criminals is second nature. So is denial. It’s not easy moving forward with one foot stuck in the past. But a new case offers her a much-needed distraction when Keystone accepts their toughest assignment yet—to track down an elusive criminal who’s selling children on the black market.

Their investigation leads them deep into the underbelly of the Breed world, a place both treacherous and enticing. With no room for mistakes, Raven makes a tough decision to lock the door to her past before it interferes with her job. The only trouble? Christian holds the key.

The stakes are high, and a shocking twist turns everything on its head. Will they catch this criminal before more lives are lost? Find out in the latest edge-of-your-seat installment of the Crossbreed series.

An Excerpt from Dark Matter

I’m aware of someone gripping my ankles.
     As hands slide under my shoulders, a woman says, “How’d he get out of the box?”
     A man responds: “No idea. Look, he’s coming to.”
     I open my eyes, but all I see is blurred movement and light.
     The man barks, “Let’s get him the hell out of here.”
     I try to speak, but the words fall out of my mouth, garbled and formless.
     The woman says, “Dr. Dessen? Can you hear me? We’re going to lift you onto a gurney now.”
     I look toward my feet, and the man’s face racks into focus. He’s staring at me through the face shield of an aluminized hazmat suit with a self-contained breathing apparatus.
     Glancing at the woman behind my head, he says, “One, two, three.”
     They hoist me onto a gurney and lock padded restraints around
my ankles and wrists.
     “Only for your protection, Dr. Dessen.”
     I watch the ceiling scroll past, forty or fifty feet above.
     Where the hell am I? A hangar?
     I catch a glint of memory—a needle puncturing my neck. I was injected with something. This is some crazy hallucination.
     A radio squawks, “Extraction team, report. Over.”
     The woman says with excitement bleeding through her voice, "We have Dessen. We're en route. Over."
     I hear the squeak of wheels rolling.
     "Copy that. Initial condition assessment? Over."
     She reaches down with a gloved hand and wakes some kind of monitoring device that's been Velcroed to my left arm.
     "Pulse rate: one-fifteen. BP: one-forty over ninety-two. Temp: ninety-eight-point-nine. Oh-two sat: ninety-five percent. Gamma: point-eight seven. ETA thirty seconds. Out."
     A buzzing sound startles me.
     We move through a pair of vaultlike doors that are slowly opening.
     Jesus Christ.
     Stay calm. This isn't real.
     The wheels squeak faster, more urgently.
     We're in a corridor lined with plastic, my eyes squinting against the onslaught of light from fluorescent bulbs shining overhead.
     The doors behind us slam shut with an ominous clang, like the gates to a keep.
     They wheel me into an operating room toward an imposing figure
in a positive pressure suit, standing under an array of surgical lights.
     He smiles down at me through his face shield and says, as if he knows me, "Welcome back, Jason. Congratulations. You did it."
     Back?
     I can only see his eyes, but they don't remind me of anyone I've ever met.
     ''Are you experiencing any pain?" he asks.
     I shake my head.
     "Do you know how you got the cuts and bruises on your face?''
     Shake.
     "Do you know who you are?"
     I nod.
     "Do you know where you are?"
     Shake.
     "Do you recognize me?"
     Shake.
     'Tm Leighton Vance, chief executive and medical officer. We're
colleagues and friends." He holds up a pair of surgical shears. "I need to get you out of these clothes."
     He removes the monitoring device and goes to work on my jeans and boxer shorts, tossing them into a metal tray. As he cuts off my shirt, I gaze up at the lights burning down on me, trying not to panic.
     But I'm naked and strapped to a gurney.
     No, I remind myself, I'm hallucinating that I'm naked and strapped to a gurney. Because none of this is real.
     Leighton lifts the tray holding my shoes and clothes and hands it to someone behind my head, outside my line of sight. "Test every­ thing."
     Footsteps rush out of the room.
     I note the sharp bite of isopropyl alcohol a second before Leighton cleans a swatch of skin on the underside of my arm.
     He ties a tourniquet above my elbow.
     "Tust drawing some blood," he says, taking a large-gauge hypoder­-
mic needle from the instrument tray.
     He's good. I don't even feel the sting.
     When he's finished, Leighton rolls the gurney toward the far side of the OR to a glass door with a touchscreen mounted on the wall beside it.
     "Wish I could tell you this is the fun part," he says. "If you're too
disoriented to remember what's about to happen, that's probably for the best."
     I try to ask what's happening, but words still elude me. Leigh­ ton's fingers dance across the touchscreen. The glass door opens, and he pushes me into a chamber that's just large enough to hold the gurney.
     "Ninety seconds," he says. "You'll be fine. It never killed any of the test subjects."

Excerpted from DARK MATTER. Copyright © 2017 by Blake Crouch. Published by Broadway Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.

TQ:  Welcome to The Qwillery. You've written over a dozen novels. Has your writing process changed (or not) over the years? What is the most challenging thing for you about writing?

Blake:  Thanks for having me! My writing process has definitely evolved and is continuing to evolve from book to book. The hardest thing for me is finding the right idea. It involves lots of hemming and hawing and self-doubting and journaling and outlining before I finally commit to something and get underway with the writing itself.



TQ:  Are you a plotter, a pantser or a hybrid?

Blake:  I would describe myself as a plotter who, along the way, is very open to becoming a pantser when inspiration strikes. In other words, I go into a book having a pretty good notion of what the first half of the book is going to be and a vaguer idea of the latter half. But along the way, I want to be surprised. By characters. By sudden reversals I never planned. So I go into the process with a game plan that I hope inspiration and magic will dramatically alter.



TQ:  What has influenced / influences your writing?

Blake:  Lately, it’s a combination of two things. 1. My own life: the challenges and struggles I face seem to work their way into the psychology of my main characters (and sometimes villains). 2. A strong interest in emerging technologies and how they are changing our world, our species.



TQ:  Describe Dark Matter in 140 characters or less.

Blake:  If Christopher Nolan directed It’s a Wonderful Life.



TQ:  Tell us something about Dark Matter that is not found in the book description.

Blake:  At it’s heart, it’s a love story.



TQ:  What inspired you to write Dark Matter? What appeals to you about writing Thrillers?

Blake:  I wrote it because I’m fascinated by quantum mechanics and what that field of science suggests about the universe we live in. I love writing thrillers because I love reading thrillers. I write the kinds of books I would want to read.



TQ:  Do Dark Matter and the Wayward Pine Trilogy (Pines, Wayward, and The Last Town) share anything thematically?

Blake:  Yes. They share man questioning his reality, and at times, his identity. They also share the idea that as we progress as a species and reach higher levels of scientific achievement, that threatens to not only change the world around us, but also what it means to be human.



TQ:  What sort of research did you do for Dark Matter?

Blake:  I read books, articles, abstracts for the last decade, just trying to wrap my brain around quantum mechanics. I still don’t fully understand it. To truly grasp the insanity of how sub-atomic particles behave requires advanced mathematics degrees, and I took as few of those courses as possible in college. When I finished Dark Matter I sent the book to a physicist named Clifford Johnson who teaches at USC. He was kind of enough to read the science-heavy passages and make sure I hadn’t gotten too far off track in my representation of certain theories.



TQ:   In Dark Matter who was the easiest character to write and why? The hardest and why?

Blake:  Jason was far and away the easiest because I feel like he and I are pulled in similar direction in terms of career vs. family. And being in my mid-thirties, I find myself looking more and more back toward the path not taken. Amanda was the hardest character for me, not to write, but to do justice to. She’s a fairly minor character in the book, but she is with Jason during his hardest moments. I didn’t want to short shrift her character, while at the same time, I didn’t want her journey to overshadow my main character’s.



TQ:  Which question about Dark Matter do you wish someone would ask? Ask it and answer it!

Blake:

Q: Was this the hardest book you ever wrote?

A: By a factor of about 10.



TQ:   Give us one or two of your favorite non-spoilery quotes from Dark Matter.

Blake:  I really like this one, from early on in the book. We’re deep in the main character (Jason’s) head here and beginning to understand where he is in life:

“There’s an energy to these autumn nights that touches something primal inside of me. Something from long ago. From my childhood in western Iowa. I think of high school football games and the stadium lights blazing down on the players. I smell ripening apples, and the sour reek of beer from keg parties in the cornfields. I feel the wind in my face as I ride in the bed of an old pickup truck down a country road at night, dust swirling red in the taillights and the entire span of my life yawning out ahead of me.

It’s the beautiful thing about youth.

There’s a weightlessness that permeates everything because no damning choices have been made, no paths committed to, and the road forking out ahead is pure, unlimited potential.

I love my life, but I haven’t felt that lightness of being in ages. Autumn nights like this are as close as I get.”

TQ:  What's next?

Blake:  That’s a great question. Remember what I said about how hard it is for me to fall in love with a new idea? I’m speed-dating a bunch of them right now.



TQ:  Thank you for joining us at The Qwillery.

Blake:  Thank YOU! Awesome questions.

Dark Matter
Broadway Books, May 2, 2017
Trade Paperback,368 pages
Hardcover and eBook, July 26, 2016

“Are you happy with your life?”

Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.

Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.

Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.” 

In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.

Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.

Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human—a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we’ll go to claim the lives we dream of.

Qwill's Thoughts

Jason Dessen's life is about to change dramatically. He's kidnapped. His life is wrenched away from him. And all he wants is not the fame and glory of the new world he wakes up in, he just wants his wife and son and the life they've made. Jason is not a typical hero. He starts out a happy man who understands what he has potentially given up to have the life he has with the woman he loves deeply and their son he loves as much. This love is palpable and deeply felt. He will do what he has to do to get home if he can while coming to a deeper understanding of what makes the world around him his world. I didn't always like Jason's attitude and some of things he did, but I understood and respected his decisions.

Dark Matter is tightly plotted and beautifully written. There are moments of deep introspection and of pulse-pounding action. There is science that stretches the boundaries of what we know and what is possible. Crouch raises questions about identity, the multiverse and who we are and wraps these questions in an extremely entertaining, often tense, moving SF thriller.

Dark Matter is, for me, essentially a story about a man's love for his wife and family and his journey to be with them. And it's about quantum mechanics and human entanglement. It's about perseverance in the face of nearly insurmountable odds and finding your way home. It's also mind-blowingly twisty and wonderful. Dark Matter will make you think, question and wonder.

About Blake

Photo by Jesse Giddings

Blake Crouch is a bestselling novelist and screenwriter. He is the author of the novel, Dark Matter, for which he is writing the screenplay for Sony Pictures. His international-bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy was adapted into a television series for FOX, executive produced by M. Night Shyamalan, that was Summer 2015's #1 show. With Chad Hodge, Crouch also created Good Behavior, the TNT television show starring Michelle Dockery based on his Letty Dobesh novellas. He has written more than a dozen novels that have been translated into over thirty languages and his short fiction has appeared in numerous publications including Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Crouch lives in Colorado.

Website  ~  Facebook  ~  Twitter @blakecrouch1

TQ:  Welcome to The Qwillery. You've written over a dozen novels. Has your writing process changed (or not) over the years? What is the most challenging thing for you about writing?

Blake:  Thanks for having me! My writing process has definitely evolved and is continuing to evolve from book to book. The hardest thing for me is finding the right idea. It involves lots of hemming and hawing and self-doubting and journaling and outlining before I finally commit to something and get underway with the writing itself.



TQ:  Are you a plotter, a pantser or a hybrid?

Blake:  I would describe myself as a plotter who, along the way, is very open to becoming a pantser when inspiration strikes. In other words, I go into a book having a pretty good notion of what the first half of the book is going to be and a vaguer idea of the latter half. But along the way, I want to be surprised. By characters. By sudden reversals I never planned. So I go into the process with a game plan that I hope inspiration and magic will dramatically alter.



TQ:  What has influenced / influences your writing?

Blake:  Lately, it’s a combination of two things. 1. My own life: the challenges and struggles I face seem to work their way into the psychology of my main characters (and sometimes villains). 2. A strong interest in emerging technologies and how they are changing our world, our species.



TQ:  Describe Dark Matter in 140 characters or less.

Blake:  If Christopher Nolan directed It’s a Wonderful Life.



TQ:  Tell us something about Dark Matter that is not found in the book description.

Blake:  At it’s heart, it’s a love story.



TQ:  What inspired you to write Dark Matter? What appeals to you about writing Thrillers?

Blake:  I wrote it because I’m fascinated by quantum mechanics and what that field of science suggests about the universe we live in. I love writing thrillers because I love reading thrillers. I write the kinds of books I would want to read.



TQ:  Do Dark Matter and the Wayward Pine Trilogy (Pines, Wayward, and The Last Town) share anything thematically?

Blake:  Yes. They share man questioning his reality, and at times, his identity. They also share the idea that as we progress as a species and reach higher levels of scientific achievement, that threatens to not only change the world around us, but also what it means to be human.



TQ:  What sort of research did you do for Dark Matter?

Blake:  I read books, articles, abstracts for the last decade, just trying to wrap my brain around quantum mechanics. I still don’t fully understand it. To truly grasp the insanity of how sub-atomic particles behave requires advanced mathematics degrees, and I took as few of those courses as possible in college. When I finished Dark Matter I sent the book to a physicist named Clifford Johnson who teaches at USC. He was kind of enough to read the science-heavy passages and make sure I hadn’t gotten too far off track in my representation of certain theories.



TQ:   In Dark Matter who was the easiest character to write and why? The hardest and why?

Blake:  Jason was far and away the easiest because I feel like he and I are pulled in similar direction in terms of career vs. family. And being in my mid-thirties, I find myself looking more and more back toward the path not taken. Amanda was the hardest character for me, not to write, but to do justice to. She’s a fairly minor character in the book, but she is with Jason during his hardest moments. I didn’t want to short shrift her character, while at the same time, I didn’t want her journey to overshadow my main character’s.



TQ:  Which question about Dark Matter do you wish someone would ask? Ask it and answer it!

Blake:

Q: Was this the hardest book you ever wrote?

A: By a factor of about 10.



TQ:   Give us one or two of your favorite non-spoilery quotes from Dark Matter.

Blake:  I really like this one, from early on in the book. We’re deep in the main character (Jason’s) head here and beginning to understand where he is in life:

“There’s an energy to these autumn nights that touches something primal inside of me. Something from long ago. From my childhood in western Iowa. I think of high school football games and the stadium lights blazing down on the players. I smell ripening apples, and the sour reek of beer from keg parties in the cornfields. I feel the wind in my face as I ride in the bed of an old pickup truck down a country road at night, dust swirling red in the taillights and the entire span of my life yawning out ahead of me.

It’s the beautiful thing about youth.

There’s a weightlessness that permeates everything because no damning choices have been made, no paths committed to, and the road forking out ahead is pure, unlimited potential.

I love my life, but I haven’t felt that lightness of being in ages. Autumn nights like this are as close as I get.”

TQ:  What's next?

Blake:  That’s a great question. Remember what I said about how hard it is for me to fall in love with a new idea? I’m speed-dating a bunch of them right now.



TQ:  Thank you for joining us at The Qwillery.

Blake:  Thank YOU! Awesome questions.

Dark Matter
Crown, July 26, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 352 pages

A brilliantly plotted, relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller from the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy

“Are you happy with your life?”

Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.

Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.

Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.” 

In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.

Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.

Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human—a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we’ll go to claim the lives we dream of.

Qwill's Thoughts

Jason Dessen's life is about to change dramatically. He's kidnapped. His life is wrenched away from him. And all he wants is not the fame and glory of the new world he wakes up in, he just wants his wife and son and the life they've made. Jason is not a typical hero. He starts out a happy man who understands what he has potentially given up to have the life he has with the woman he loves deeply and their son he loves as much. This love is palpable and deeply felt. He will do what he has to do to get home if he can while coming to a deeper understanding of what makes the world around him his world. I didn't always like Jason's attitude and some of things he did, but I understood and respected his decisions.

Dark Matter is tightly plotted and beautifully written. There are moments of deep introspection and of pulse-pounding action. There is science that stretches the boundaries of what we know and what is possible. Crouch raises questions about identity, the multiverse and who we are and wraps these questions in an extremely entertaining, often tense, moving SF thriller.

Dark Matter is, for me, essentially a story about a man's love for his wife and family and his journey to be with them. And it's about quantum mechanics and human entanglement. It's about perseverance in the face of nearly insurmountable odds and finding your way home. It's also mind-blowingly twisty and wonderful. Dark Matter will make you think, question and wonder.

About Blake

Photo by Jesse Giddings

Blake Crouch is a bestselling novelist and screenwriter. His international-bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy was adapted into a television series for FOX, and he is the co-creator of the TNT show Good Behavior, based on his Letty Dobesh novellas. He has written over a dozen novels that have been translated into more than thirty languages, and his books have sold over two million copies. Crouch lives in Colorado with his family.

Website  ~  Facebook  ~  Twitter @blakecrouch1

TQ:  Welcome to The Qwillery. When and why did you start writing?

Beth:  It’s probably a cliché but in truth, I’ve always written. The first story I remember writing was in Class 2, I would have been five or six, and it just went from there. I made up my own narratives and wrote down all the stories my mother told me, stapled the pages into books and asked for a typewriter for my birthday one year. It was an obsession and it still is. I just love making up stories and characters and my mind is always buzzing with ‘what if’ questions that are just begging to be turned into novels.




TQ:  Are you a plotter, a pantser or a hybrid?

Beth:  I used to think I was a pantser and was proud of the fact, but recently I’ve come to realise I’m more of a hybrid but still very much leaning to the pantser side. I tend to have a basic plot in my mind when I start writing, or at least, an endpoint I want to get to. The characters will come to me shortly after and an opening scene. I usually don’t have any idea how I’ll get to the end from there but that’s the fun part.



TQ:  What is the most challenging thing for you about writing?

Beth:  Finding the time. I have a more-than-full-time job which I love but can be very stressful. It’s hard to find the motivation after a long day to sit down for a few hours in front of a laptop of an evening. I tend to write most on weekends, but that can also be difficult as sometimes I just want to slump down in front of Netflix and binge-watch House of Cards. It’s a balancing act and takes a lot of discipline.



TQ:  What has influenced / influences your writing?

Beth:  TV and movies influence me quite a lot, probably more than books nowadays if I’m honest. I’m quite a visual person so the medium works for me. If I’m writing a book set in the forest, I don’t want to read how another author describes that forest, I want to see it for myself and describe it for myself, TV is invaluable for that. I’ve had a couple of ideas spark from moments in movie or TV scenes, just seconds really. I also love the southern storyteller tradition and going back to my school days, reading the epics, the Iliad, the Odyssey, both originally told orally, were a great influence. All I really want to do is tell stories.



TQ:  Describe The Wolf Road in 140 characters or less.

Beth:  In a war-torn wilderness, Elka discovers the man who raised her is a killer so flees to find her parents, but he’s not letting her go easily.



TQ:  Tell us something about The Wolf Road that is not found in the book description.

Beth:  The book description, both in the UK and US, doesn’t tend to mention Penelope. She’s probably my favourite character, as she’s the total opposite to Elka but no less kick-ass. They form a reluctant partnership which grows into a sister-like bond. Their friendship is key to Elka’s whole story and was my favourite part to write.



TQ:  What inspired you to write The Wolf Road? What appealed to you about a post-apocalyptic setting for The Wolf Road?

Beth:  The post-apocalyptic setting came about after I’d conceived the basic story. I considered making the book historical but that can be very restrictive, especially in terms of gender roles. I didn’t want to limit Elka, Penelope or Lyon just because they were female in a certain time. A post-apocalyptic setting gave me quite a lot of freedom, it was a bigger playground for the story and as soon as I realised that it would be a PA story, everything fell into place. The PA element was never about the event that triggered it or the wider societal implications, it became coincidental. It just so happened that Elka’s story took place in that environment.



TQ:  What sort of research did you do for The Wolf Road?

Beth:  I watched a lot of TV, mainly survival shows and anything set in Alaska or the Yukon, lots of nature documentaries as well. I also went on a three-day Wilderness Survival course which involved sleeping under a shelter I built, preparing game (skinning rabbits etc.), learning all different ways to make fire, knife skills, trapping and snares, natural medicine and navigation, all kinds of things Elka uses in her journey. That hands-on experience was fantastic and gave me so much inspiration for the book.



TQ:  In The Wolf Road who was the easiest character to write and why? The hardest and why?

Beth:  Elka was the easiest. She sprang fully formed from the ground and swore at me. Elka has clear motivations and a kind of code she lives by so her actions and reactions were always framed by that. She was a joy to write. The hardest character was probably Lyon. She gets very little screen time but I still had to make her as scary as possible and also sympathetic. It was quite challenging.



TQ:  Why have you chosen to include or not chosen to include social issues in The Wolf Road?

Beth:  This is a difficult one. I haven’t consciously included or excluded any social issues but all novels seem to contain them. I suppose human’s relationship to nature is something I wanted to explore, how we can destroy it so carelessly thinking it’ll just recover in a generation. We’ve got a finite about of world and land and we’ve got to respect it.



TQ:  Which question about The Wolf Road do you wish someone would ask? Ask it and answer it!

Beth:  This is the hardest question of them all! I’m thrilled to be asked any questions to be honest so I can’t really think of anything that’s missing. Sorry!



TQ:  Give us one or two of your favorite non-spoilery quotes from The Wolf Road.

Beth:  My favourite -

     These were trees grown up in sorrow and hard soil, green was dark, trunks was twisted and stunted and I could hear ‘em weeping. Right across the mountains, right across the low plains and torn-up land, them old wailing voices carried strong on the wind. The north was raging, low and slow like only land knows how.



TQ:  What's next?

Beth:  A few weeks ago I handed in the first draft of my next book. It’s the story of four kids in a small, farming community in the midwest, set in the early ‘70s. They find a body and set about trying to solve the murder but, of course, they dig too deep, ask too many questions, bad things happen. Now that’s handed in, I plan on doing very little for as long as possible!



TQ:  Thank you for joining us at The Qwillery!

The Wolf Road
Crown, July 5, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 368 pages

ELKA BARELY REMEMBERS a time before she knew Trapper. She was just seven years old, wandering lost and hungry in the wilderness, when the solitary hunter took her in. In the years since then, he’s taught her how to survive in this desolate land where civilization has been destroyed and men are at the mercy of the elements and each other.

But the man Elka thought she knew has been harboring a terrible secret. He’s a killer. A monster. And now that Elka knows the truth, she may be his next victim.

Armed with nothing but her knife and the hard lessons Trapper’s drilled into her, Elka flees into the frozen north in search of her real parents. But judging by the trail of blood dogging her footsteps, she hasn’t left Trapper behind—and he won’t be letting his little girl go without a fight. If she’s going to survive, Elka will have to turn and confront not just him, but the truth about the dark road she’s been set on.

The Wolf Road is an intimate cat-and-mouse tale of revenge and redemption, played out against a vast, unforgiving landscape—told by an indomitable young heroine fighting to escape her past and rejoin humanity.

About Beth

Photo © Andrew Mason

Beth Lewis is a managing editor at Titan Books in London. She was raised in the wilds of Cornwall and split her childhood between books and the beach. She has traveled extensively throughout the world and has had close encounters with black bears, killer whales, and great white sharks. She has been a bank cashier, a fire performer, and a juggler.









Website  ~  Twitter @bethklewis  ~  Facebook

Beth Lewis

The Wolf Road
Crown, July 5, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 368 pages

ELKA BARELY REMEMBERS a time before she knew Trapper. She was just seven years old, wandering lost and hungry in the wilderness, when the solitary hunter took her in. In the years since then, he’s taught her how to survive in this desolate land where civilization has been destroyed and men are at the mercy of the elements and each other.

But the man Elka thought she knew has been harboring a terrible secret. He’s a killer. A monster. And now that Elka knows the truth, she may be his next victim.

Armed with nothing but her knife and the hard lessons Trapper’s drilled into her, Elka flees into the frozen north in search of her real parents. But judging by the trail of blood dogging her footsteps, she hasn’t left Trapper behind—and he won’t be letting his little girl go without a fight. If she’s going to survive, Elka will have to turn and confront not just him, but the truth about the dark road she’s been set on.

The Wolf Road is an intimate cat-and-mouse tale of revenge and redemption, played out against a vast, unforgiving landscape—told by an indomitable young heroine fighting to escape her past and rejoin humanity.

TQ:  Welcome to The Qwillery. When and why did you start writing?

Scott:  Thanks very much for inviting me.

As far as ‘why’--reading has always been my main entertainment, and I’ve got a do-it-yourself streak. I guess it was natural that sooner or later I’d try my hand at writing. The first time I tried to make up a story was around 1980, when I was eleven. I was going to write a novel about Superman. I got a page and a half into it—pencil on spiral bound notebook--before I decided it was too much work.

I got my first rejection slip for a short story a couple of years later. It was an actual slip, about the size of an index card with the publisher’s address and a very brief “no thanks” printed on it. I remember being a little disappointed, but I also remember thinking “well, it’s probably normal to not hit it out of the park on your first try. But I learned a lot from writing that. Surely the next one will sell.” This was in, I think, 1982.



TQ:  Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Scott:  A little of both. The first time I set out to write a novel, I tried to write everything in the order that it would be read. That didn’t work for me. The problem was I’d find myself kind of rushing through whatever was up on Tuesday to get to the bit slated for Friday, or whatever. Then Friday would roll around and my mind would be back on the Tuesday stuff. Eventually I just started working on whatever I was in the mood for when the caffeine kicked in.

These days the way I get started on a book is to just noodle around on random stuff—dialog, action sequence, character sketch--until something sparks. I’ll be a little vague here to avoid spoilers, but the first couple of things that I wrote on Mount Char were a guy going out for a jog, and a neighborhood picnic that ended badly. In the final product those two scenes ended up about dead center and near the end, respectively.

Once I’ve got 50,000 words or so of snippets that feel like they have potential, I shuffle them around until I can see some sort of narrative thread emerging, then go back and fill in any gaps.



TQ:  What is the most challenging thing for you about writing?

Scott:  I think the most challenging thing about writing for anyone is to keep at it. After X number of years without any breakthrough it starts getting hard to think up reasons why you shouldn’t just say “oh well, at least I gave it a shot, I wonder what’s on TV?” But when it’s going well there really is nothing I enjoy more.



TQ:  Who are some of your literary influences? Favorite authors?

My first big love as a reader was the Robert Heinlein juveniles. That started when I was maybe eight. Stephen King was next. It was around the time I read ‘Salem’s Lot that I started seriously wanting to get published. Ursula Le Guin and Thomas Harris were big influences. In college I took a class on writing non-fiction that introduced me to Annie Dillard’s essays. Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time studying a guy named Adam Johnson, who manages to work in some sort of emotional sledgehammer about every other page. He’s phenomenal.



TQ:  Describe The Library at Mount Char in 140 characters or less.

Scott:  Monty Python presents The Godfather starring the X-Men.



TQ:  Tell us something about The Library at Mount Char that is not in the book description.

Scott:  The last four chapters of the book as its being published are very different from what I originally wrote. My wife Heather absolutely hated the original ending. Heather is my first reader for a lot of reasons, but one of the big ones is that, God love her, she’s really not one to mince words. I gave her the first draft of Mount Char to read over Labor Day weekend. A day or so later she came back with a big grin on her face. She handed me the first 2/3 of the manuscript and said “this, I love.” Then she literally whacked me on the head with the third act. “This part sucks! Fix it!” Those are more or less direct quotes.

It took me a while to understand what she was getting at, but in the end I saw her point.

For anybody who’s read the book, the original ending had a lot more to do with the Black Folio than what ended up as the final version.



TQ:  What appeals to you about writing contemporary fantasy?

Scott:  It just seems to be where my head goes. I guess that’s because I read so much speculative fiction when I was a kid. These days my tastes in fiction are a lot broader, and about half of what I read is nonfiction. The first novel I tried to write was a crime thriller, but while I was working on it I noticed it kept wanting to skew magical. For the next book I decided not to fight it.



TQ:  What sort of research did you do for The Library at Mount Char?

Scott:  I made an effort to get anything that took place in the real world at least in the ballpark of accurate. I spent forever tracking down pictures of the room just outside the Oval Office. I tried to verify that AH-64 helicopters can conceivably have mounted loudspeakers without getting myself put on some sort of NSA watch list. I spent a good bit of time mangling foreign languages on google translate. A really nice veterinarian from the internet helped me out with a scene of unlikely veterinary medicine.



TQ:  Who was the easiest character to write and why? The hardest and why?

Scott:  The easiest was one of the protagonists, a guy named Erwin. Erwin is every inappropriate remark you ever bit back because you’re too polite to say it out loud. You can put him in any situation with one other person to act as a straight man and he just flows onto the page.

Another one of the protagonists, an everyman sort of guy named Steve, was probably the hardest. In the early drafts I spent a lot of time fighting the urge to turn him into some sort of half-baked action hero. It’s just not that sort of book.



TQ:  Which question about The Library at Mount Char do you wish someone would ask? Ask it and answer it!

Scott:

“So, Scott, a couple times in Mount Char you briefly mentioned an old adversary of Father’s who the librarians refer to as The Duke—can you tell us a bit more about him?”

The Duke was so-called because he was, in fact, John Wayne. I have about five pages on this, and they are absolutely nuts. The gist was that during the filming of the 1956 movie The Conqueror, John Wayne fell through some sort of wormhole back to the days before Father’s reign—seventy thousand years ago, more or less. He eventually used good old American gumption to fight his way back to our time, but along the way he was driven insane and grotesquely scarred. Today, The Duke only appears in public wearing a wooden tribal mask, but to movie fans of a certain age—like one of the main characters, Steve--his voice is unmistakable.

Originally The Duke was invented to illustrate the idea that there were at least some commonalities between librarian culture and the culture of normal Americans. Later on in the book when Steve was having trouble getting through to Carolyn, his encounter with The Duke was going to spark the idea that he could get through to her via this small-but-non-zero cultural overlap.

Partly I cut the sequence with The Duke for length. Partly I thought the story could get by without it. But the main reason—you won’t often hear me say this—was that it was just too far over the top.



TQ:  Give us one or two of your favorite non-spoilery lines from The Library at Mount Char.

Scott:  I always liked the last line of the first chapter. It ties everything up to that point in a neat little bow, and hints at things to come:

Her fingertips trembled with the memory of faint, fading vibrations carried down the shaft of a brass spear, and in her heart the hate of them blazed like a black sun.

TQ:  What's next?

Scott:  Right now I’m working on a hardboiled detective novel. It’s not related to Mount Char, but it’s a similar kind of story in that a more or less normal person gets catapulted into a very weird situation where she’s way out of her depth.



TQ:  Thank you for joining us at The Qwillery.

Scott:  Thank you!

The Library at Mount Char
Crown, June 16, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 400 pages

A missing God.
A library with the secrets to the universe.
A woman too busy to notice her heart slipping away.

Carolyn's not so different from the other people around her. She likes guacamole and cigarettes and steak. She knows how to use a phone. Clothes are a bit tricky, but everyone says nice things about her outfit with the Christmas sweater over the gold bicycle shorts.

After all, she was a normal American herself once.

That was a long time ago, of course. Before her parents died. Before she and the others were taken in by the man they called Father.

In the years since then, Carolyn hasn't had a chance to get out much. Instead, she and her adopted siblings have been raised according to Father's ancient customs. They've studied the books in his Library and learned some of the secrets of his power. And sometimes, they've wondered if their cruel tutor might secretly be God.

Now, Father is missing—perhaps even dead—and the Library that holds his secrets stands unguarded. And with it, control over all of creation.

As Carolyn gathers the tools she needs for the battle to come, fierce competitors for this prize align against her, all of them with powers that far exceed her own.

But Carolyn has accounted for this.

And Carolyn has a plan.

The only trouble is that in the war to make a new God, she's forgotten to protect the things that make her human.

Populated by an unforgettable cast of characters and propelled by a plot that will shock you again and again, The Library at Mount Char is at once horrifying and hilarious, mind-blowingly alien and heartbreakingly human, sweepingly visionary and nail-bitingly thrilling—and signals the arrival of a major new voice in fantasy.

About Scott

Photo: © Scott Hawkins

SCOTT HAWKINS lives in Atlanta with his wife and a large pack of foster dogs.  When not writing he enjoys woodwork, cooking long and impractical recipes, and playing fetch with his dogs.  He works as a computer programmer.  The Library at Mount Char is his first novel.










Website  ~  Twitter @scottrhawkins

Facebook  ~  Goodreads

TQ:  Welcome to The Qwillery. Your first two novels (Ex-Heroes and The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe) were published in 2010. How has your writing process changed (or not) since 2010 to now?

Peter:  My process probably hasn’t changed that much since then. I’d been writing for a long, long time before I started having some noteworthy success with fiction, so I’d already struggled through trying different methods and finding what worked best for me.

The biggest change has really been doing it as a full-time job. Up until a few years ago it was always fiction and writing for a magazine or website, or fiction and film work before that. Now that it’s just fiction, I’ve had to learn how to better schedule my time. It’s a lot easier to burn out on something when it’s the only thing you’re doing, and I had to figure out where my maximum returns were, if that makes sense.



TQ:  Are you a plotter or a pantser? What is the most challenging thing for you about writing?

Peter:  A little of both, probably leaning more towards a pantser. I try to have a few rough beats and plot points when I head into something, a pretty good idea of where I want to end up, some basic character ideas, but that’s about it. If I do anything more detailed than that, it tends to cause problems. I have a bad habit of sticking to the outline no matter what, even when I can (and should) be doing something else with the story and characters.

The most challenging thing is probably just self doubt—which is probably the biggest challenge for every writer at every stage of their career. I thought it’d get easier once I was doing this professionally, but the truth is I worry about things even more now. Will people like this? Has this idea been done before? Am I doing anything new with this? Could this be better?

And then all that stuff gets beaten down or addressed and I get back to writing...



TQ:  Your most recent novel is The Fold. Please tell us something about The Fold that we won't find in the book description.

Peter:  It went through many, many titles. I’ve always been jealous of people who can come up with great titles (David Conyers is an author who almost always has clever, compelling titles) but I’ve never been good at it. From the time I started writing it until the time we got the first sample cover art, I think The Fold went through five or six different titles. At one point I even had a “vote for your favorite” thing up on my Facebook page.



TQ:  What sort of research did you do for The Fold?

Peter:  All sorts. I’ve always loved science, so I had the added benefit of already knowing a few avenues to pursue, so to speak. I started off with articles about IQ and memory. Then there was a lot on supercomputers and bugging some of my more in-the-know friends about that. I also read a lot of physics books and articles, starting with more accessible things like Alice in Quantumland by Robert Gilmore and working my way up to find certain answers I needed. And then, of course, figuring out what facts I would carefully avoid or tweak to make for a better story.



TQ:  What inspired you to write The Fold? It seems to be a bit of a genre bender. Did you set out to write an SF/thriller/mystery?

Peter:  The various elements of The Fold have been rattling around in my head for years. It began as a short story assignment in college (which the TA hated), and then about ten years ago I played around with expanding it into a full novel. And then I set it aside again to work on other things. About... I think it was three years ago that I first made the sort of “wait, I could do this” realization that got me thinking about it again.

As far as genre-bending... I don’t know, I tend to think most stories work better when they cross genres. And sci-fi and mystery have a great history together. Look at probably half the Star Trek episodes ever filmed, for all the different shows. They’re sci-fi, but there’s a strong “how/why is this happening?” element to them. You can still see that in current sci-fi shows like Orphan Black or The Flash or Person of Interest. So I don’t think I did anything really bold or groundbreaking in that sense.



TQ:  In The Fold, who was the most difficult character to write and why? The easiest and why? Which character surprised you the most?

Peter:  Hands down, Mike was the most difficult. Possibly one of the most difficult I’ve ever written. One of Mike’s defining traits, as we learn very early on, is that he has eidetic memory--he can recall anything he’s ever seen or heard from any point in his life—combined with an exceptionally high IQ. While this sounds very freeing and full of potential, it actually became very limiting. Think of any book or story you’ve recently read, and think how often a character “couldn’t place” something or had something nag at their mind or just didn’t remember something important. These are all very common—and very useful—storytelling devices, but this can never, ever happen for Mike. He remembers everything. So it forced me to rethink many scenes and how parts of the story unfolded, and also just his basic character. What would living with this ability do to someone? How would they interact with other people?

Easiest was probably Bob, just because he’s such an open geek. Surprised... I don’t think any character really surprised me. I was surprised by the reactions my beta readers had to some of them, but that’s probably pretty common for a lot of writers (“really... he was your favorite? Really...?”)



TQ:  Please give us one or two or your favorite non-spoilery lines from The Fold.

Peter:  Hmmmmm... that’d be really tough to do because of the whole mystery aspect of the book. Figure anything that isn’t spoilery at all (either directly or in that sort of Buzzfeed “you’ll never guess what this refers to...” sort of way) is going to be so out of context it’ll be kind of meaningless. So it’ll be really bland and everyone reading this will think “wow, that’s one of the best lines he’s got?”

So, in conclusion... hey, look at that over there! A baby wolf!



TQ:  What's next?

Peter:  I just finished up Ex-Isle, the fifth book in the Ex-Heroes series, and my editor and I are batting it back and forth (he’s an incredibly patient person). I’m probably going to clean my office, write a giant robot story that I owe one anthology, and then start this new book that’s been bubbling in my head for a while. It’s sort of a mystery-horror-road trip story. With time travel. We’ll see how that goes.



TQ:  Thank you for joining us at The Qwillery.

Peter:  Many thanks for thinking I’d be even slightly entertaining or educational.

The Fold
Crown, June 2, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 384 pages

STEP INTO THE FOLD.
IT’S PERFECTLY SAFE.

The folks in Mike Erikson’s small New England town would say he’s just your average, everyday guy. And that’s exactly how Mike likes it. Sure, the life he’s chosen isn’t much of a challenge to someone with his unique gifts, but he’s content with his quiet and peaceful existence.

That is, until an old friend presents him with an irresistible mystery, one that Mike is uniquely qualified to solve: far out in the California desert, a team of DARPA scientists has invented a device they affectionately call the Albuquerque Door. Using a cryptic computer equation and magnetic fields to “fold” dimensions, it shrinks distances so that a traveler can travel hundreds of feet with a single step.

The invention promises to make mankind’s dreams of teleportation a reality. And, the scientists insist, traveling through the Door is completely safe.

Yet evidence is mounting that this miraculous machine isn’t quite what it seems—and that its creators are harboring a dangerous secret.

As his investigations draw him deeper into the puzzle, Mike begins to fear there’s only one answer that makes sense. And if he’s right, it may only be a matter of time before the project destroys…everything.

A cunningly inventive mystery featuring a hero worthy of Sherlock Holmes and a terrifying final twist you’ll never see coming, The Fold is that rarest of things: a genuinely page-turning science-fiction thriller. Step inside its pages and learn why author Peter Clines has already won legions of loyal fans.

About Peter

PETER CLINES has published several pieces of short fiction and countless articles on the film and television industries, as well as the novels The Fold, Ex-Heroes, Ex-Patriots, Ex-Communication, Ex-Purgatory, and 14.  He lives and writes in southern California.

Photo by Coleen Cooper