Interview With Edward McKeown...

Hey everyone! I'd like you all to give a hearty hello to Edward McKeown, author of 'Was Once A Hero', which I reviewed last week. You can find that review here.

Edward is a fellow author over at Hellfire Publishing and it was a great pleasure to read his book, review it and now interview him. So without further ado:

Mel: What is your favorite genre? Is it also the genre you write in?


Edward: Yes SF is my favorite genre and in it I like the broad star-spanning far future stories of Andre Norton, CJ Cherryh, and Larry Niven. I am less fond of cyberpunk or near future or dystiopia stories. I want starships and aliens

Mel:How much research goes into writing a Sci-Fi story?
 
Edward: As you would imagine it is highly variable. I tend to take as few liberties with the laws of pyshics as I can. My stories are character centric and less concerned with the technology. While I do not want to be busted by “mythbusters” I have an educated layman’s version of the sciences and do the best I can. Sometime I get lucky when I got bonked with the difference between the rotation interval of a pulsar and my story needs of my work, the great Catherine Asaro (scientist and SF writer married to a rocket scientist) told me to use a Preon Star because as she put it, “No one knows how those things work.”

(I wouldn't want to get busted by 'mythbusters' either!)


Mel: How long have you been writing? 

Edward: On a serious basis about 10 years.

Mel: What made you start writing? 

Edward: I was finding it hard to find the sort of book that I liked and one day I was reading a work by a major author (and torture will not get the name out of me) who I normally like and I felt it was a bit of a dog. I thought maybe I could do as well. Fortunately I did not know how hard it would actually be….

(I hear you. But it is a labor of love.)

Mel: Do you read in the same genre you write? 

Edward: Yes, though less now as I am afraid of being overly influenced which is kind of silly as there is nothing new under the sun. I draw most of my influence from anime, and actual history books I read.

(No, that's not silly. I'm afraid to read fantasy sometimes as I dread finding a story too similar to my own.)

Mel: What part of the writing process is your favorite? (Plot development, character creation, etc.) 

Edward: My process is a spontaneously creative one. I preplan nothing, I sit down and I write, it pours out of me like wine from a bottle. So I don’t section my work or think of that way. My characters tell me what happens and I write it down.

Mel: Do you have a routine you do after completing a book?
 
Edward: Yeah I work like heck trying to promote the book and get the word around. 

Mel: And now for something totally random: What would you ask for as a last meal if you were on death row?

Edward: Something that would take a really long time to eat, maybe a Scottish dish as they take a long time to choke down and digest…

Well maybe a Hawiian Pizza? 

Thanks for all you do Mel.


Mel: You are most welcome, Edward! And all I can think of now is Haggis... lol! Have a great week everyone.

Interview: Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps of "Elf Killers"...

I had the privilege of reviewing a cool fantasy called "Elf Killers" by Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps.

I'll be doing a giveaway of their book. Want easy? How about this, all you have to do is look for the review and then leave a comment to be entered into the drawing! Can't get any easier than that, now, can you?

I'll be posting the review in a few days, but thought you all might like to get to know the authors first. So without further ado, here it is:

1) Tell us all a little bit about yourself and Tom:

Carol Marrs Phipps: Tom and I have spent the last twenty years (not counting the last two) teaching on Native American Reservations in the Southwest. (Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico.) Since we own a farm in Illinois, each year when the school year was finished, we would return to the farm for the summer. The traveling was great for most of those years, but it began to wear on us after awhile and we decided we wanted to get closer to home. Meanwhile, what we longed to do even more was write.

We moved back east and Tom took a teaching job in southern Illinois. Jobs for elementary teachers, however, were scarce at the time and we decided to take the opportunity for me to begin writing full-time and hopefully, Tom could do the same in a year or two. That is still the current plan.

2) Tell us a bit about "Elf Killers":

C.M.P.: "Elf Killers" is a story about a peaceful populations of Elves who are being hunted as prey by a large clan of night stalking trolls that believe themselves to be the only true people in the world. Hence, every other creature is theirs to do with as they please, including the Elves who have become the main staple of their diet.

Although the Elves have magical ability, they learned from their very earliest encounters with the Elf Killer trolls that the creatures were utterly immune to magic of any kind.

Eventually, the Elves began to fear extinction of their race and decide the only chance they have to survive is to sail across the sea in search of a new land to rebuild their lives and their numbers.

When the Elves are nearly ready to set sail, a group of young Elves are sent off into the forest to collect seedlings from the trees the Elves have used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years. Unfortunately, the trolls encounter the young Elves and one of the leaders of the seedling expedition is mortally wounded while the others scatter frantically deeper into the woods.

The young wounded Elf manages to mount his unicorn and gives it instructions to return to the beach camp where his people are making the final preparations for their journey. Sadly, when the unicorn arrives at camp, the brave young Elf is already dead leaving his people to conjecture about the fate of the rest of the group of youngsters.

Believing that the group of young Elves could not have possibly survived, the rest of the Elves set sail on schedule. The youngsters are left to cope with the Elf Killer trolls as best they can, save for a small group of the older Elves who refused to believe that their children were all dead.

3) Was collaborating with your husband difficult?

C.M.P.: Actually, no. Collaborating with Tom was amazingly easy. We got to where we'd take long walks together and brainstorm until it was clear where things should be going with the story, then, it just kind of all flowed seamlessly together. Of course, we've been writing together now for about fifteen years. We have an epic fantasy series (nearly complete) that we've written together that we hope to start getting published in the near future.

4) What made you choose fantasy as a genre?

C.M.P.: I love to read fantasy above all other genres, so I just naturally gravitated to it when I began to put pen to paper, as it were.

5) Do you write in any other genres?

C.M.P.: Not yet, but that isn't to say that I/we won't.

6) Do you have any other books in the works?

C.M.P.: As I mentioned in question three, Tom and I are currently writing an epic fantasy series. It is called Heart of the Staff and we have completed the first four books so far. The epic spans the lives of four generations of a wearing family who are direct descendants of the First Wizard.

7) How did you choose the names of the Elves in your book?

C.M.P.: The Elves names are all from a list of Irish names I got from the internet. End of that mystery.

8) And now a completely random question: What is your favorite snack while writing or watching a movie?

C.M.P.: Popcorn...definitely popcorn.

Thanks so much, Carol and Tom! I loved the Irish names, knew they were Gaelic in nature but wanted to make sure. I have a Sorcha as well. ;)

All right, remember, keep an eye out for the review of "Elf Killers" by Carol Marrs Phipps and Tom Phipps. Post a comment on the review and that will be your entry into a drawing for your very own copy! See you then!