• Book Review: The Fall of Hyperion
    Let me begin by saying I know I’m supposed to like the book.The Fall of Hyperion is the the sequel to the Hugo Award winning novel, Hyperion. Hyperion brought the reader into a rich world. Following a group of characters on a pilgrimage to the infamous home of the Shrike during an interstellar war, the…
  • Question Four: You back load your characters. Why?
    Traditionally, a novel begins with characters. These are the protagonist (the “hero” that the novel will revolve around), the antagonist (the one that is resisting the antagonist), and other characters that may or may not contribute to the protagonist’s journey. Some protagonist’s journeys are internal, some external. Sometimes the protagonist has ill intent, some are…
  • Question Three: You divide parts of your chapters with black circles. Why?
    The book is roughly divided into small wholes (a significant moment in someone’s life) that help to tell a larger story, a story that is centered around Alex or Alice’s journey (which one you choose as the primary focus changes the novel completely). Within the stories I use black circles to further divide the flow…
  • Question Two: At the start of THE CORE you don’t do much world building. Why not add more so your reader can know more?
    It should feel like you are within a nondescript void. Part of what the reader feels at the beginning is loneliness. The method of achieving that is through sparse description. I describe what needs to be described. No more. No less. I want the reader to fill in the holes with things from their lives,…
  • Question one: I read your novel, and it’s a novel, but sometimes it feels like short stories. Did you want it to feel like that?
    Readers have asked questions about my upcoming book, The Core. Through a series of posts, I hope to help my readers understand the purpose and nature of the book and my work in general I write speculative fiction, at least that where I start. A large part of that is playing with form in order…