A Game of War Season One Amazon
Page 18
'The Avengers meets Magician, The Planets series is superhero conflict on a global scale...'
An ancient cadre of magicians
A select team of extraordinary warriors
An unseen foe
As two ancient forces battle for control, reality as we know it is being torn apart. Caught somewhere in the middle, and tasked with ridding the world of the insidious alien intelligence are The Planets. Neptune hails from Rio, the gay daughter of strict catholic parents. Mars, from Ireland, still missing the sister he lost years ago. Uri grew up on the streets of New York, and Venus... well, no one knows and she isn't telling. Imbued with extraordinary powers, these highly trained individuals take the fight across the globe. With startling and unnerving revelations at every turn, the depth of deception is only now becoming clear...'
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Breathing in Space - A Game of War Episode Four
A short extract...
The warning light had been flashing for a couple of hours. Each time she came back to herself, it was that much harder to breathe. Stem was in the pilot seat, head resting to one side, eyes half-closed.
They were drifting, breathing vapours. Close to death, and still so far from earth. Would she feel it, the point when her body gave up, or would she just stay on the spiritual plane forever, searching?
She closed her eyes and slipped free of her body, and the Vale. The stars glittered around her and she forgot the fear and the heaviness in her chest. Life lapped at her like waves striking a beach, a universe of souls vibrating and being. But they were too far away!
It was like the beach just kept getting bigger, the sea forever out of reach. She picked a new direction, traveling miles in seconds, only to be met by the same quiet murmur.
She came back to herself and glanced one more at Stem. His mouth hung open, his eyes closed.
"Stem? STEM."
She pushed herself up from the cot, then sunk back, gasping and coughing. Her mind was drifting and she found herself out of her body again, looking down at her pale, skinny form. Her hair had gone pale, and her braids were fraying.
She rushed from the ship...
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
And now an interview with the author...
Can you say something about your inspiration for A Game of War and what you wanted to achieve when you wrote it?
I began the books, as I mention at the start of this collection, with an image in my head. Beyond that I had nothing. The first book, with its four main characters, came out fully formed. I only realised I was going to end it with a cliff hanger as I typed the last page!
For the series as a whole, I wanted to combine the things I loved about science fiction I read and watched as a kid. I wanted space battles and I wanted kiss-ass characters and I wanted some romance, because you've got to have romance. And I wanted someone who was gifted in a unique way. Something that ties most of my books together is that special gift. I think it comes from reading lots of comics. I love superheroes and the powers that come with them and always try to get them in somewhere. What I particularly enjoyed about writing Ally's story is the organic, natural progression to her powers and the way in which she discovers them. The story isn't a superhero story, but there's no denying that that's what she is.
In terms of the cliff hanger, as soon as I'd written it, I wanted to write the next. I also wanted to release the next part some time after the first, but not too far. In much the same way that TV series may have a cliffhanger from one week to the next, I fancied doing something similar with my books. A little research later I discovered other people were already doing that, particularly the three guys who run the self-publishing podcast, Johnny Truant, Sean Platt and David Wright. They were just coming to the conclusion that this sort of serial was a tough sell. However, I was already committed and went ahead with it. And I'm glad I did. Commercially, selling series is tough, but it felt right for the story.
Great. So why release it as a season then?
Excellent question. A cliffhanger is only a cliffhanger until the resolution is out there. Once the second book in the season came out, the cliffhanger stopped being that and became an annoyance for people who got the first book and discovered they had to buy another and another and so on. The idea behind publishing the seasons is to make it as easy as possible for the readers to get hold of the story.
Also, the story so far tends to fall into neat three-book runs, so collecting them in that way makes sense for a sense of completion for the reader. And if they decide to put the book down after the cliffhanger and leave it a day or two, then yay!
Is Ally inspired by anyone particular or pure fiction?
Ally, as with all of my characters, is almost certainly inspired by a whole bunch of people. I am forever spotting facets of someone's personality that resonate with me and I think would fit well into a book. But when I actually sit down and write, I'm not thinking about anyone. The best characters are those who tell me about themselves. Ally did that in Childhood Dreams by going through the defining moments of her childhood. That's how I got to know her and what mattered to her. From there, I just let her take the reins and react to whatever comes her way. The same goes with Stem. The situation with his parents is a large part of who he is, however much he'd like to think otherwise. The nice thing about writing Stem is that as the books have gone on, we've discovered more and more about him as their trials have brought him to the fore.
Your editor mentioned he thought one of your space battles was very 'Star Wars'. Were you aware of that when you were writing?
I don't think it's possible to write any science fiction without being aware of Star Wars. It's a little like trying to write a romance without reading Gone with the Wind, or fantasy without reading Lord of the Rings. Having said that, I wasn't consciously aware of it until he so generously pointed it out. Once he did I smiled proudly and left it just as it was.
Joking aside, we are all the product of our influences. The wider our influences, the more chance we have to be original. But ignoring the key ones, or claiming they are somehow lesser, because they are popular or powerful is daft. Star Wars is a classic for lots of reasons and I look forward to watching it with my kids when they're old enough. And if my books can stir even the slightest fraction of the excitement in my readers that Star Wars did for me, then I'm a very happy man.
So where next for Ally?
Well, A Game of War season two is out as separate books and the collected season will be out in the next couple of months. To say much beyond that would be telling. Suffice it to say that they should reach Earth pretty soon. This isn't Lost in Space and you can't hold out on the payoff forever. However, the course of true love in space, or anything else in space, rarely runs smooth.