The Exceptionally Short Version
Is my life too busy? Or am I just incredibly inefficient?
What I’m reading:
I just finished The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler, a famous Canadian author and I loved it. I think the original was released in 1969, so it’s understandably loaded with non-PC commentary, but the content is great. Reminded me of Death of a Salesman, although I haven’t revisited that novel since high school, which was a VERY long time ago.
Up Next:
I’m finally reading Treasure Island, largely because of the reference Rick Deckard makes in Blade Runner 2049, so a must read for me. Update; I finished Treasure Island. Loved it. So much yarr. If I find myself writing a story based in the years of piracy and the high seas, this book will be my bible.
Actually Up Next:
The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Slower than Treasure Island. Less yarr. I slot moments of reading in between moments of Daddying. His latest word is “buttoning,” which describes all things to do with buttons.
What I’m watching:
The Zack Snyder Justice League movie, Justice Is Gray. It’s a four hour marathon so I’m taking it in one hour at a time. Will begin hour three in a couple of days, so far it’s the best DC movie I’ve seen, but a very different vibe from the Marvel Universe. A good thing, but Marvel got it so right, I find it tough to compare the two.
I wrote a bio for my new employer.
Not your standard resumé regurgitation mind you. I was looking for something punchy and this came to me one morning on a 48 hour layover in Maui:
I like race cars, fast jets, speed. As a boy, I remember watching F1 with my dad at Brands Hatch in the UK. Going to the airport in the mornings, fingers in the wire fence, to watch Concorde rip through morning Heathrow mist in full afterburner.
Born in England, my family moved to Canada when I was eight. Graduated from Mount Royal in ’95, flew a Lear 35 in the late 90’s before heading to Hong Kong for 747’s and my fill of dim sum. I wrote a book about that, a techno-thriller following a mercenary hauling contraband for a Hong Kong triad. It’s called The Sequence. It’s won three awards including a nomination for a Hugo, in case you follow sci-fi.
After 14 years of ultra long haul I changed things up, spent the last decade at Sunwing. Now I wear Teal, have a 2 year old and another on the way. Like my children I’m working on the sequel to my debut novel, titled False Ignition. Hoping they’re both finished around the same time, this October. It’s great to be here, pleased to meet you–hope you guess my name.
Where the inspiration comes from.
Well ultimately it’s you the reader. But I have this cool story that I feel other readers will enjoy so I feel it is my job to get it out of my head and into print. But the reviews help. Amazon and Goodreads are the best places, although Google Play and Apple Books are also great spots to cut and past the review, along with Kobo and your favourite local bookstore will always have an online place to drop that same review.
Reviews.
Here’s a review I hadn’t read until just last week. These seem to pop up more and more frequently and I MUST finish the sequel.
This is a highly engaging thriller that draws upon sci-fi and noir conventions. The story is peopled by scientists, smugglers, and detectives. The dialogue is sharp and funny. The world-building is detailed and inventive. The story also feels chillingly prescient. This is a world shaped by extreme weather and widespread sociopolitical disorder. Features of this world, such as “pod” dwellings, “protective covered walkways,” “asteroid mining,” and sudden violence (inflicted by both criminal operatives and by weather systems) are assumed parts of daily life.
At the center of the story are stunning advances in genetic modification. Geneticists have been driven out of the United States (“the United Governments of the America”) as a result of some sort of theocratic crackdown, but elsewhere the work races forward. One modification revealed near the end of the story is genuinely species-altering.
Though the story is not without disturbing elements (e.g., unconscious humans are grown in medical storage facilities for organ harvesting), it is also full of laugh-out-loud funny passages (the one about bad-food tourism was a particular favorite).
Kit McKee, the plucky antiheroine at the center of the story, is a gene editor—an author of “augments.” Detectives Woo and Fong are wisecracking, analog-preferring, persevering investigators. Dallas and Cam are aviators for hire—extremely good at their jobs, but working in a definite gray area. The author deftly weaves all of their stories together.
If you enjoy the rich atmospherics of Bladerunner 2049 as well as the fast-paced plotting and provocations of Minority Report, you really should check out The Sequence.
The US AI generated version of what customers say:
Customers find this science fiction novel engaging and fast-paced, with a story that feels urgent and well-realized. The book successfully blends near-future elements, and customers appreciate its authenticity, with one review noting its wild verisimilitude. Customers praise the character development, with one review highlighting the interesting characters, while another describes it as an action-packed international thriller.
Where I’m at.
I'm always curious. I want to live in the future. I will read/watch anything sci-fi but it's William Gibson's techno–thriller-noir style that I seek to write. My debut novel is a thriller at its heart, but a cross-genre like Blade Runner. I take infantile emergent technologies and iterate them, to have a look at what might happen to the tech, and how it will be used after 100 years of two-point-o's. The Sequence is about human genetic engineering, its ethical boundaries, who will cross them and why. The sequel I'm working on takes that ethical boundary to another level and explores the theme of the consequences of technological progress. All that said these characters that live whole lives in my head finally get some cred once they hit the page, and it's their intriguing stories that I tell.
I’ve got to press the send button, the child is awake. Buttoninggggg…