Distant Worlds – Welcomes Katie Alford!

This is the sixth post of a brand new blog series, as I dip my toes into the mysterious waters of author interviews.

Having watched so many fantastic interviewers (Tricia Drammeh and her Authors to Watch, AFE Smith (see below), Katrina Jack and her New Authors section and Susan Finlay’s Meet the Author to name a few of the best – please check out their wonderful blogs), I’ve always been a little reluctant to throw my hat into the ring…but here goes!

One of my all-time favourite worldbuilding PC games, is Sid Meier’s ‘Alpha Centauri’. So, in homage to that (and a shameless rip off of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Desert Island Discs’ and AFE Smith’s brilliant blog series Barren Island Books), here is my own author interview series – Distant Worlds.

To kick off the Distant Worlds strand, over the next few weeks I will be focusing on fellow fantasy and sci-fi authors from ultra-cool UK publishing house, Grimbold Books and their imprints, Kristell Ink and Tenebris Books – a bunch of uber talented and whacky characters who I am also proud to call friends.

Grimbold Books were also doing a fabulous ‘Summer Promotion’ from 31st July – 4th August, where ALL of its wonderful titles were priced at only 99p/99c across Amazon platforms. Now, although the promotion is now over, check out their titles to still grab a great bargain before the prices go back to normal! Awesome fiction at awesome prices!!!!

hyperurl.co/GrimboldBooks

Right, now to our sixth author interview…the cosmically awesome and talented…

Katie Alford

Katie, YOU find yourself cast adrift in deep space, your colony pod’s life support is failing, your only chance of survival is a distant habitable world…

What 5 essentials would you choose to help you survive?

A hunting rifle, although I probably wouldn’t hit anything with it. A lighter, a must for lighting fires to cook the beasts caught with the rifle. A homing beacon, how else will I eventually get rescued? An axe, to chop down trees and make a shelter/ fence to keep away any savage alien beasts. Rope, to tie the shelter together. We’ve all learnt from poor Eeyore that just piling logs together never ends well.

What 5 personal items would you salvage from your crashed ship before it explodes?

My chocolate stash – It would probably feed me for a month. My laptop – Can’t live without that. A solar powered charger for said laptop, otherwise it wouldn’t last long. My phone, I have a number of unread e books on it which should keep my entertained until rescue. My teddy bear, because I’ve had her since I was born and would hate for her to go up in flames. Plus, should I be attacked by a savage alien beast I could use her as bait, sneak around behind said beast and blast its head off.

Would you seek life-forms for help or go it alone?

Depends how attractive they are. A little eye candy would make being marooned more bearable.

What 5 fantasy/sci-fi books would you have to keep with you and why?

1. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Oh, damn it! I forgot my towel.The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkozski. I’ve got no interesting excuse for this one.
2. The thickest Twilight book, because I’ll be needing something to light the fire with.
3. One of the Disc World novels. I can’t choose a favourite that would damn my soul forever. I’d grab whichever one is closest to hand.
4. The Day of the Triffids, because after rereading that book my situation wouldn’t seem so bad.

What 5 songs or albums could you not live without?

1. Queen’s Greatest Hits, so I can rock out the new world.
2. The Heart of Everything by Within Temptation
3. Cult by Apocalyptica
4. Dark Passion Play by Nightwish
5. The Macarena, because it would be fun to teach the dance to the native inhabitants and then upload the video to you tube when I get back, because let’s face it, aliens dancing the Macarena is sure to go viral.

You are all alone on a distant world with little chance of being rescued…do you choose water, vodka or coca-cola to drown your sorrows?

Coco-cola because caffeine is a necessity for a writer. I couldn’t possibly live without it.

Random comet question: Bella or Katniss?

Who is Bella and Katniss? Are they going to eat me for not knowing?

You have 30 seconds (max 100 words) to tell the alien approaching you about your latest book. Remember this is more pressurised than an elevator pitch – screw up and he’ll eat your brains! Go!

It’s a tale of two great powers in time: Atlantis with their academics and time conservation teams and the Norse, a new rising power. The Norse’s emergence sends technological ripples out through the time steam, disturbing its peaceful waters and diverting the flow through some of the most pivotal moments in history.  After decades of quiet time watching, the Atlanteans are caught off guard by the violent changes surging down the time stream, threatening to destroy all known civilisations, even that of Atlantis itself. The Atlanteans soon find themselves battling not just to save the world but also its history. Yes, I was sad enough to make it exactly 100 words…

What 5 things would you miss most about Earth?

Fast food outlets, I don’t think they deliver to deep space. Google Maps, very useful in avoiding getting lost. Steam Store, how am I supposed to buy new games without it? Computer repair shop, when I inevitable drop my laptop into viscous goo and realise there’s nowhere to get it fixed in deep space. The super market, because hunting beasts to live is hard work.

What 5 things would you NOT miss about Earth?

Cold callers – Haha! Can’t get me here! Party political broadcasts, if I want to indulge in a blatant work of fiction I’ll watch a film. Apple products – IPhones and IPads should all be shot into the nearest black hole. Frozen, because nearly every post on my facebook page mentions it and I don’t have children so I should be sheltered from it.

Time-traveller questions (for Dr. Who fans):What is the one thing you wish you could turn back time and change?

I would go back in time and tell myself to pick up my Magic the Gathering decks as well before jumping into the life pod.

If you had the chance again to go on this deep space adventure, would you take it?

Depends how attractive the aliens are really.

What 5 indie authors and books you would recommend to any carbon based lifeform – and why?

Well there are my favourite two Kristell Ink Books, In Search of Gods and Heroes By Sammy HK Smith and Darkspire Reaches by CN Lesley.

Terry K Simpson has written many fine books including his The Quintessence Cycle Series. How he manages to churn so many out, I’ve yet to discover.

Kat Hawthorne is a very talented writer and has had both novels and a number of short stories published. Her website also looks fantastic.

And last but not least, the latest Kristell Ink release Green Sky and Sparks by Kate Coe. I haven’t read it yet, but I’m sure it’s fantastic.

What advice can you give to fellow space travellers (writers and readers) out there?

Just because everyone else has read a certain book, it doesn’t mean you have to read it too.

Before we leave you and blast into another parallel universe, please tell us about yourself, your inspirations and your publishers!

Katie Alford in her own words…

I write fantasy Sci-Fi and Steampunk and love playing computer games, strictly for inspirational purposes of course. I’m also a Digital Artist and create both 2D and 3D Computer Generated art. I even modelled and animated my own book trailer found here: Book Trailer

My publisher is Grimbold Books which have published many exceptionally good titles. You can browse them right here: Grimbold Books

Bio:

Katie was born in London and raised in Bristol. After a number of years in Middlesbrough, where she gained three degrees in 3d modelling and digital art subjects, she moved back to London, where she currently resides.

She loves playing computer games, watching anime and art and writing. She is a member of both the Kingswood Writers Group and the Greenacre Writers Group, who run the annual Finchley Literary Festival. She is really good at starting novels but not so good at finishing them, with her in progress works now into double figures.

As a day job, she works as an admin assistant which gives her many boring hours to contemplate her evening’s writing. She has won a number of short story competitions but recently realised it was taking precious time away from her novel writing and so stopped entering them, but she does now sometimes judge them instead.

The current genres she has written works in include fantasy, sci fi, steampunk, dark fantasy, folklore and detective and she has recently dabbled a bit in poetry, she is not intending to take that any further, it just seemed a good idea at the time.

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Latest Book Blurb:

For over a hundred years Atlantis, a culture of academics, has ruled the flow of time. It’s only travellers, they sought to conserve its flow and research and document the many cultures that span it. During that time, the only ripples threatening disturbance were the mischievous pranks of a few rebellious teenagers. In particular, those of a Hayden Edward Lywen whose constant pranks kept the Department of Time Conservation or DTC in high anxiety as their overworked operative Professor Lokyne was forced to run back and forth through time, restoring the timeline again and again.

Tired and rundown by the constant battle with his students, little did Lokyne know that he would soon be yearning the simplicity of dealing with rowdy teenagers. As a threat soon emerged far beyond those he’d dealt with before; a threat that would rewrite the whole of known history and plunge Atlantis into a war for which they were ill equipped and inexperienced. Can Atlantis find a way to fight back in time to stop their own culture being wiped from history, or is a new era dawning, as all cultures will eventually come to an end?

***

Oh look, is that a rescue ship I see? I hope it reaches me before that pack of vicious, alien wildlife catches up with me. I guess I ate too many of their friends.

Lol, thank you, Katie. Yes, congratulations, you are survivor! A passing medical frigate has honed in on your distress beacon, you’re going home!!!

Happy Horizons! 😀 xx

Distant Worlds – Welcomes Jude Houghton!

This is the fifth post of a brand new blog series, as I dip my toes into the mysterious waters of author interviews.

Having watched so many fantastic interviewers (Tricia Drammeh and her Authors to Watch, AFE Smith (see below), Katrina Jack and her New Authors section and Susan Finlay’s Meet the Author to name a few of the best – please check out their wonderful blogs), I’ve always been a little reluctant to throw my hat into the ring…but here goes!

One of my all-time favourite worldbuilding PC games, is Sid Meier’s ‘Alpha Centauri’. So, in homage to that (and a shameless rip off of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Desert Island Discs’ and AFE Smith’s brilliant blog series Barren Island Books), here is my own author interview series – Distant Worlds.

To kick off the Distant Worlds strand, over the next few weeks I will be focusing on fellow fantasy and sci-fi authors from ultra-cool UK publishing house, Grimbold Books and their imprints, Kristell Ink and Tenebris Books – a bunch of uber talented and whacky characters who I am also proud to call friends.

Grimbold Books were also doing a fabulous ‘Summer Promotion’ from 31st July – 4th August, where ALL of its wonderful titles were priced at only 99p/99c across Amazon platforms. Now, although the promotion is now over, check out their titles to still grab a great bargain before the prices go back to normal! Awesome fiction at awesome prices!!!!

hyperurl.co/GrimboldBooks

Right, now to our fifth author interview…the epically talented and enigmatic…

Jude Houghton

Jude, YOU find yourself cast adrift in deep space, your colony pod’s life support is failing, your only chance of survival is a distant habitable world…

What 5 essentials would you choose to help you survive?

In this order:

1. Coffee (preferably Nespresso machine with lots of capsules, no mess, no fuss)
2. A vegetable patch.
3. A comfortable fleece jacket which doubles as a three person tent with handy bathroom extension. (Okay, a bit of artistic license taken with that particular “device”).
4. Music, audio books and a kindle reader courtesy of a solar powered iPhone*. (One is bound to come out sooner or later. You have to assume the planet has a big bad sun though…)
5. A sort of crystal thing that provides a light in dark places when all other lights go out.

*Because the iphone’s light will go out once I’ve accidentally dropped it into the puddles of primordial soup a few times. Inevitable I’m afraid.

What 5 personal items would you salvage from your crashed ship before it explodes?

The above. Assuming of course there are no other life forms on the ship. In which case they would be number 4 or 5 in the queue.What? No. Kidding. What I meant is: The above. Assuming there is not another ship, carefully stored within the ship, that can be wheeled out just before the whole thing goes poof…Does it have one of those? I can’t remember seeing any on Star Trek, but then again, I kind of didn’t watch it after Deep Space Nine. I mean what was that…?

Would you seek life-forms for help or go it alone?

“Dtay Tola! Dtay wonna wanga? Dtay wonna wan go.” Sorry random Bib Fortuna quote. You know, the guy with the pallor and weird snaky neck extension. Well that’s how aliens speak. But anyway… I’d smile sweetly, but keep the blaster cocked and ready. Yes, blaster. I did say I was going to salvage a blaster right? Well, it’s in the second ship actually, in the glove compartment, just by the warp speed lever.

What 5 fantasy/sci-fi books would you have to keep with you and why?

Well…I don’t often read books twice (too many good books, too little time) so the ones that would be with me would likely be the fantasy/sci-fi on my ever growing To-Be-Read list.

However, in this specific case, I would take a couple of trusted books for insurance, just in case the new ones turned out to be stinkers. So Dune, which also seems to be a Grimbold “must have” favourite novel and…is Shakespeare, fantasy? Can we sneak in his complete works? I mean A Midsummer Night’s Dream? The Winter’s Tale? They’re pretty out there. The Tempest is the definition of early fantasy fiction… so yeh, I’m having it. Kill all the lawyers.

So… (he turns quickly to the TBR list, crosses off everything that is not fantasy and sci-fi) the next items queued on the phone and in paperback are:

Isaac Asimov, Pebble in the Sky – it’s been 12 months in the TBR pile. It’s time has finally come!

Sophie Tallis, White Mountain – I realise that is a tad convenient, but I’m telling you the books in the queue right now! So there. Beauty is truth.

Kate Coe, Green Sky and Sparks – Another Indy I’m looking forward to.

Ernest Kline, Armada – Okay so the reviews have been terrible but I liked Ready Player One. If it turns out to be a stinker then… well… I’ll go back to re-reading Dune.

That’s six isn’t it? Well, I don’t know if I’m allowed the Complete Works. If I am, alas poor Ernest, I knew him, Horatio.

What 5 songs or albums could you not live without?

Why pick a song, when you can have a whole album? (very true!) So:

Nirvana, Nevermind – A cliché but…oh never mind.

The Stone Roses, The Stone Roses – Good for listening to in the baking sun if it is like the desert planet of Dune!

Massive Attack, Blue Lines – Because I believe in the one love.

Debussy, Nocturnes – More Alien than thou.

Ella Fitzgerald, Greatest Hits – For the alien moonlit nights, the whisky drinking nights, and for the times the rain comes down on the fleece-like man-tent.

You are all alone on a distant world with little chance of being rescued…do you choose water, vodka or coca-cola to drown your sorrows?

Vodka. Sorry, is that even a serious question?

Random comet question: Gandalf or Dumbledore?

One defeats Balrogs, the other has a sorting hat… hmmm… tough one…

You have 30 seconds (max 100 words) to tell the alien approaching you about your latest book. Remember this is more pressurised than an elevator pitch – screw up and he’ll eat your brains! Go!

Aghhhhhh! You’re going to eat my brain…. Aghhhhh! Unless…

Autonomy.

It’s about two strangers, born on opposite sides of the world, on the same day in 2035. It’s about Balmoral Murraine, the maimed daughter of a struggling Battery worker, and Pasco Eborgersen, the pampered son of a Sector 1 Elite. It’s about the discovery of a truth so potent, that it will rip mankind apart. And it’s about a world lived through the intermediary of iNet, of the devotions of the Faith and the temptations of the Pleasure Houses, and about the single commodity that has become more plentiful than any other. Man.

Welcome to your future.

How would you choose to spend your time on this distant world?

If I am alone; reading, writing, kicking a few of the softer alien rocks around. Maybe set up a couple of goals, and practice finishing with my left foot.

What 5 things would you miss most about Earth?

1. Family. – Everything else is way, way, way behind. No, I mean WAY behind. There you go.
2. Friends. Another yawning gap.
3. The green and blue hues peculiar to earth.
4. The feel of the wind as it whips up from the sea.
5. The dog.

I know what you’re thinking. The dog should be MUCH higher. But I don’t want her getting a big head. She’s insufferable as it is.

What 5 things would you NOT miss about Earth?

Okay, this list is in reverse order. Just to mix it up.

1. Is one allowed to say Facebook? Yes? Oh good. You are a one.
2. Bugs that whine in your ear and then bite you!
3. Cars of all types, especially when not moving.
4. Money and what it does to people.
5. Wars of religion.

Time-traveller questions (for Dr. Who fans): What is the one thing you wish you could turn back time and change?

Turn back time and change? Historical or personal? Because there was the time I wore that… No, no…can any single thing really be changed without changing everything? Where would it end? Not with a sonic screwdriver and red-lined coat I can tell you.

So if I had a time machine, I’d just observe. What? Well that is the question.

As much as I could before time caught up with me. I’d want to see Cassivellaunus and his charioteers fend off Caesar’s Romans, Henry VIII joust at the Cloth of Gold, sit in the Globe before it burned down, walk through Victorian London with a couple of coppers in my pocket for the match makers and boot blacks (hopefully that wouldn’t change too much).

If you had the chance again to go on this deep space adventure, would you take it?

I have so many unanswered questions about this adventure that it is impossible to tell. The mad, bad and dangerous to know part of me says Yee Haa! The, where’s my life gone part, says um… let’s get in the ship, the other one, and go home and pick up a few things like…the family, the dog, a few open minded friends and pioneers, and don’t forget the droids.

What 5 indie authors and books you would recommend to any carbon based lifeform – and why?

Anything published by Grimbold Books. Seriously. I have now read: Dollywagglers, The Sea Sword Stone and In Search of Gods and Heroes and I really liked all of them. Queued I have…well all the rest. So that’s about fourteen to go. My self-imposed deadline to finish them is the end of this year. So I’m living that particular recommendation and enjoying every minute of it.

What advice can you give to fellow space travellers (writers and readers) out there?

The future is a series of nows, so don’t wait for tomorrow.

Before we leave you and blast into another parallel universe, please tell us about yourself, your inspirations and your publishers!

Jude Houghton in his own words…

Jude Houghton developed a love of fantasy from a relatively early age after realising an innate talent for making stuff up could result in something other than detention. A somnambulist, insomniac, lover of letters, Jude writes late into the night, most nights, tumbling down the rabbit hole to dream of other lives. Jude currently lives in Pennsylvania with an over-enthusiastic family and absurdly entitled dog. And he sometimes talks in the third person.

Inspiration:

Everything around me, particularly the people I love, the books I read and the music I listen to.

Publisher:

Tenebris Books, part of Grimbold Books. www.tenebrisbooks.com

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Songs of Seraphina blurb:

Some battles bleed so much, and for so long, that the earth never truly forgets their dead. Some battles are born of oppression, and some of greed, and some simply because it was written in the stars. Three sisters—Charlemagne, Cairo and Pendragon Agonistes—are sent from America to England to live with their eccentric grandparents after their mother disappears and their father falls to pieces. But before the girls have time to find their feet, Charlemagne is married off to a dead man, Penny takes a nap and wakes up as a boy, and Cairo is swept into a dangerous romance with a man who wants her for more than her considerable charm. With the girls wrapped up in a conflict they barely understand, they don’t notice that their grandmother is transforming, or that the two demigod assassins who took their mother are now coming for them—if one of them can get over his crisis of conscience. In this richly painted tale, at whose heart is the unbreakable bond of family and blood, the world of Seraphina collides with our own as three unique girls are dragged into twilight lives past, fighting for vengeance, retribution, and the survival of their exiled people.

***

Thank you, Jude. Congratulations, you are survivor! A passing intergalactic transport has honed in on your distress beacon, you’re going home!!!

 Happy Horizons! 😀 xx