Fridays 5 with Savio Dawson

Savio is a resident of Mumbai, India, who grew up on everything sci-fi. Science Fiction has its own charm of unravelling mysteries, boldly going where no man has gone before [yeah I know it is from Star-trek :)] and to seek and find explanations for the unexplained. This is more or less what excites a true sci-fi enthusiast.

Savio is one of the enthusiasts too and he is presenting his own version here. Mystery surrounds us in many ways and it is mammoth in proportion to what we know. No one knows what lies beneath the ocean; no one knows what lies beyond our solar system; no one knows how vast the universe is; no one knows if any other extra-terrestrial form exists, but still the pursuit of knowing the unknown will continue unabated and will continue to excite us. This excitement is what Savio attempts to bring out in his books.

Savio is blessed with a supportive family and has a day job in India. Writing is his passion and he also writes for many blogging sites. When not writing and not working, which, of course, happens a lot of time, Savio likes to while-away and watch sci-fi movies.

1.) When did you first get serious about writing?

A.) Actually, it was quite an interesting episode. I was working with a telecom company where there was an offsite program planned for the senior leadership team, and as part of the offsite program, a logical reasoning game had to be designed. I was part of the planning team and one of the members suggested that I should come up with two stories to make the game work. I gave it a shot and it ended up being quite a hit. That was the first realization that I could write a story. Thereafter, I started with blogs for three years and understood the nitty-gritty of online writing and that was followed by my novel. So, the novel came by a lot later from the time I really started writing and now I believe this a passion which will continue for a lifetime.

2.) What is the hardest part for you about writing?

A.) The hardest part about writing is to stay committed to writing. It is quite easy to put away writing to another day when there are things happening around us. The problem is when I have such breaks it usually extends beyond one day. I find more and more reasons to stay away or continue to delay further. Getting back is then a herculean task. You have to get yourself back in the groove, re-read the plot, understand the flow and then write. This is much like warming up before starting the book. Precious time is lost in such “getting back” to writing episodes. So, I usually try to avoid them. The mantra I follow is to write at least 100 words a day, even if they are too little for a novel length book. That way I make this a habit and stay in touch with the characters.

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Synopsis:
 
A chance discovery leads to unearthing a plot against humankind; a plot to steal the very fabric of human creation.

Mark is in the middle of a spate of abductions by two different sets of extra-terrestrials. Around the same time, the U.S military unwittingly discovers few alien vessels in Earth’s atmosphere while testing a new technology called GAM. The knowledge of the alien vessels around the periphery of Earth drives a team comprising of Mark, an agency called XTRA-T and the security agencies to unearth the intentions of those aliens.

In the pursuit of truth, some bone-chilling revelation of Earth’s history comes to the fore. Unexplained events like Tunguska Explosion and many others are answered but nothing compares to the one that is in store for Earth. Mark and team have to find a way out and in many ways invoke the assistance of unexplained powers to redeem them at the time of need.
3.) How did you feel upon publication of your first completed project?

A.) The most important victories in life often have very few words or at times no words to describe them. My book falls in that category. Joy was obvious, feeling of accomplishment was obvious, proud of having created something was obvious, but then there were many more mixed feelings; all the good ones, that is. So even today I would find it quite difficult to speak about. That said, my wife was always around during this journey. She was the only one who knew about my writing side. All my family members and then friends came to know about the book only after it was released. My dad was shocked to know that I could even write a book.

4.) What is more important to you, story, or character? Why?

A.) These two are usually related. The best way to visualize the link between a story and character is through movies. You decide the genre and think of a movie you like the most. Chances are you like the story and the character. My favourite is Terminator – 2 (Judgement Day). I like the movie because of the story - of how the world was saved from the Terminators - and the fact that a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) saved the day for the humans. Now, which one of the two do I like the most? Hard to tell. Of course, there are permutations and combinations of some stories being really good and would do well despite the characters and the other way round too (very rarely). But the best of the best will have a strong story and one or more strong characters. To answer your question, both matter to me and I give them equal importance.

5.) What is a typical day like in your world?

A.)  Well, I am yet to become a full-time author. I still have a day job, then my time with my family and then the writing. Now you probably can relate why I see my commitment to writing as the biggest challenge. Chances are that I am quite busy with work and, therefore, postpone writing. Here my wife plays a crucial part, and she kind of takes care of things at home, leaving me enough time to write. Let’s not forget that she herself is working too. My Dad was always there and helped in ways he wouldn’t have known. I did mention that he did not even know about my book until it was released.

Mostly, I prefer writing in the morning before getting on with things or a bit late in the night. During weekends, I can give more time to write my book. So, that’s in a nutshell about my day.

Author Links:

Amazon Author Page:  www.amazon.com/author/savidawson  

CreateSpace:  https://www.createspace.com/5537237

Smashwords:   https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/573762

Blog: http://spiritraiders.blogspot.in/ 

Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7YqZzqVNv4

Fridays 5 with Morris Graham

I have always loved to read. I am an avid reader and Amazon reviewer, present ranking 107,262. I've been married for 34 years, father of four, from Central Arkansas, USA. I was born in Coldwater, MI. My father moved us back to Central Louisiana when I was a boy, and I finished High School at Boyce High School in Boyce, LA. I have worked as a welder and later as a telecommunications worker. My faith is important to me and I attend Trinity Church of Hot Springs, AR. I am nearing retirement age for my day job, and when that day comes, I hope to spend my days writing, reviewing, and editing. I plan to return to writing in 2016 and finish book two of my Warzone series, entitled "Warzone: Operation Wolf Hunt."

http://www.morrisegraham.com/

1.) When did you first get serious about writing?
A.)  I co-authored a 30 page booklet in 1974, but didn’t get serious until 2004 when I started my debut novel, “Warzone: Nemesis.”

2.) What is the hardest part for you about writing?
A.)  Since I work full time for a major telecom, and in transit to work two hours a day, I would say making time to write. I started my writing career by writing before work started and during lunches and breaks, and occasionally in the evenings and weekends, but not typically.

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Synopsis: The space race was a lie, and the cold war wasn’t as cold as you thought. While we were playing spy versus spy, conducting an arms race and a space race on Earth, things were heating up in the solar system.

In 1959, an alien vessel crashed on the Navajo reservation, ushering forth a colonial space race in the solar system between the two superpowers. The prize is the mysterious metal known only as alloy-x and the alien technology that promises to make one nation or the other the dominant superpower in the arms race. The American commander finds himself fighting with the toughest antagonist of his career. He had finally met his nemesis. The stakes are high. Losing the struggle could tip the balance of power on the Earth, giving the Soviets the advantage in Earth’s cold war.

3.) How did you feel upon publication of your first completed project?
A.)  Ecstatic! I started the project in 2004, and published in 2013. It was a very long road.

4.) What is more important to you, story, or character? Why?
A.)  That’s a tough one. I would have to say the story, because a good story sets the framework for the character development. It draws out the good and bad in the characters, and their humanness.

5.) What is a typical day like in your world?
A.)  Get up at 5:15 am, get ready for my day job. I usually pop an audiobook in the CD player for my long commute. (I currently have an Amazon reviewers ranking of 107,262) Then I get to work, check my email and respond to anything pertinent to do with my writing career, and then I either edit another author’s book or write on my own projects until work start. Then I do it all again at lunch. I am going to turn 60 this Friday, and getting closer to my retirement and my dream job—full time editor and author.

Fridays 5 with Bryan Romer

I was trained as a Charted Accountant. I've been a CFO, General Manager, and Project Director for a multi-national corporation. Now I am a full time writer, living in Bangkok, Thailand. I'm single, never married. I love reading, especially classical SF and Military SF, as well as Historical Warfare.

I've always loved science fiction. From H.G. Well's "First Men In The Moon", to David Drake's "Hammer's Slammers" and Keith Laumer's "Bolo", with a particular emphasis on military SF. But I enjoy a good hard boiled thriller too, in the vein of Donald Hamilton's "Matt Helm" and Larry Correia's "Monster Hunter". So you can guess where my books will be headed.

As the GM and CFO of a private military contractor, I've walked in war zones armed with nothing but a camera and calculator. I'm multi lingual, I've worked on tiny Pacific Islands that were being ripped apart by hurricanes, and prowled the crowded streets and nightspots of the Far East. But during all of that, I've always written stories. Sometimes for free and for the heck of it, other times for money.

While I have over 30 novels published and on sale, "Vampire-Tech" is my first Science Fiction book.

Want to talk to me? mr.bryan.romer@gmail.com
My website is www.vwsinger.com 

1.) When did you first get serious about writing?

A.) I've been experimenting with writing fiction for a very long time, but I never wanted to be

an author for a major publisher and be required to write according to house rules and be under the control of their editors. It was only with the Internet that I began to write short stories and posting on the Net to gauge public response. I set up my first website of stories around the 1990s, and my first book was a compilation and expansion of one of these stories. This was published under a different pen name. I published my first SF/Horror novel, Vampire-Tech in 2014 followed by a sequel in 2015. Both reached the Amazon Top 100 for Vampire novels and stayed there for about three months.

2.) What is the hardest part for you about writing?

A.) I'm a natural story teller. I really enjoy writing and creating fictional worlds. Being an accountant, research and detail isn't a problem. I have done a lot of photography and CDI art, so visualisation and world creation isn't a problem either. I never get "writer's block" and because I write to satisfy my own muse, I never doubt what I am doing either. That isn't arrogance or a surfeit of self confidence. When I write, I do my best to create a worthy piece of work, but I don't much care what others thing if it. I know what I have to say, and I know how to say it. Anyway, you can't hope to please everyone.

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Synopsis: The accidental discovery of alien artifacts have brought werewolves back to modern day Britain. But through that same accident, test pilot Tara Harker was turned into a vampire. Even more incredibly, she discovers that Dracula is very real and is her only ally against her enemy and newly turned werewolf, Viktor Tiranul.

Now in the second book of the series, Tara is forced to embrace her vampire status as the existence of werewolves becomes a plague, spreading out of control and into the streets of a terrified Britain, drawing the Government and its agencies into the struggle. But powerful human interests who desire to control the technology that created both werewolves and vampires present just as much of a threat to herself and everyone she loves, including her father the brilliant scientist Rowland Harker. Can she battle and survive these multiple threats while still remaining human? And will her most powerful ally, Dracula himself, prove to be a blessing or a curse?

The gripping science-fiction horror adventure that started in the novel Vampire-Tech brings ancient legends into the present and right into the future. No magic, no curses, just technology – vampire technology.

3.) How did you feel upon publication of your first completed project?

A.) It was amazing, as if I suddenly was able to fly. Income was secondary to me at that point. I just wanted to see if anyone shared my world view and would like the tale I had to tell.

4.) What is more important to you, story, or character? Why?

A.) The story definitely comes first. It defines the world and situations in which my characters will have to operate. I write plot heavy stories, so it never works to allow the characters backgrounds, skills (or lack of them), and personalities to drive the progress of the book since the actions of both heroes and villains have to bring them into conflict at the right time and under the right circumstances for each plot point.

5.) What is a typical day like in your world?

A.) Most of my time apart from the necessities of life are spent on my computer, writing, researching, participating on forums and groups, not just for publicity but often to share and help other authors.

This Weeks New Releases: July 15, 2015

New this week on Amazon. Click on any cover for more info.

Action / Adventure: Dragonvein
 

Synopsis: With new friends and allies fighting by his side, Ethan Dragonvein must find a way to overcome the might of the Eternal Emperor Shinzan. As the voices of the dragon’s call to him, he is driven to seek them out in the faint hope that they can help him fulfill his destiny and save the people of Lumnia. But he must hurry. Shinzan has not been idle and moves swiftly to crush this fledgling mage before he can become a challenge to his power.
Contemporary Fiction: Father of the Gods

Synopsis: A traumatic day in the orphanage in London throws two 17 year old boys into a quest for the unknown and a fight for survival. While being chased by dangerous people, they travel to India, and then to Japan and to the lap of the origin of civilization in Europe, discovering age old mysteries like the secret of the Yeti of the Himalayas and the secret of the Daruma Dolls in Japan. They encounter teleporters operated by humans from a parallel earth whose human citizens declare themselves to be ancient Norse Gods, and are caught up in a web of four millennia of hidden history which could destroy Earth as we know it. Will they be able to make their way to the other dimension? Will they find their fathers and in the process discover the all-consuming secret of the Father of the Gods which is an integral part of every myth and culture across the world? THE DIMENSIONS BOOK ONE STARTS AN ADVENTURE WHICH THREATENS TO UNRAVEL THE ORIGIN OF HUMANS ITSELF.

Horror: The Shadow Aspect: The Harvesting Series Book 2

Synopsis: When Layla took the final step through the labyrinth, she thought she was saving the ones she loved.

She couldn't have been more wrong.

Layla and the other survivors now find themselves caught in a war for our world, the unwitting victims of a grudge seething for eons. Surviving the zombie apocalypse has become the least of their worries as they come up against vampires, shapeshifters, and fae. When she uncovers an unspeakable horror, whom can Layla trust? The carnie girl? The doctor searching for a cure? The tarot reader? The stranger with alluring gold eyes? Or the man she loves?

The wrong choice could doom them all.

When the world burns, mankind’s shadow side rises. Do we deserve to survive?

Continue this award-winning zombie/dark fantasy genre mash-up series in Book 2, The Shadow Aspect.

Literary Fiction: My Father Is an Angry Storm Cloud: Collected Stories

Synopsis: A film studies major gets a meat-processing job supervising the systematic dismemberment and disembowelment of chickens. A troubled loner finds the man of her dreams in a shoebox of horse figurines; a depressed mother is riddled with anxiety about her toddler daughter's eerily coded accounts of a "ghost." The short stories in Melissa Reddish's newest collection, My Father Is An Angry Storm Cloud, reconfigure the boundaries between victim and aggressor--and between complicity and innocence--in exhilarating prose that is at once sensibly deadpan and mysteriously hallucinatory. College-educated, creative, and faced with no prospects to speak of, Reddish's hapless postmillennial protagonists stoically eke out monotonous existences as factory workers, retail sales clerks, and homemakers, staring down their limited lives even as the desperation of everyday life spirals into the no man's land between fantasy and psychosis. Yet they are also clear-eyed and conscious, calmly aware of--and uncannily receptive to--the most devastating of life's horrors. Elegant, perfectly controlled, and confidently weird, these brilliantly imagined short stories reveal the strangely satisfying world of a superbly talented practitioner.

Romance: I SEE YOU

Synopsis: I watch you, I see you in ways no one else can, and through my lens I create a life of you for someone to dissect. I capture you in your vulnerability; that smile, your laugh, those tears. I document you and sell your secrets.

When I watch you through my lens you’re mine until I pass you to the buyer. I, like most people, have a fetish for pretty things and in my job I get to be around a lot of pretty things. They pay me to watch them and capture them in a frame for many purposes, and sometimes I like my profession a little more than I should.

I took a job to capture her… I wanted to capture and keep her in more than just the image. This time I will take myself away from the lens and become the client because I cannot resist her, she reminds me too much of my first, I need to have her.

Traumatised from a vicious attack, Nina Drake finds herself shut off from the world until her neighbour brings her out of more than just her nightmares. Even after moving and changing her name, she still can’t shake the feeling of being watched. The memories are so close.

And so is the shadow of the creator of them all.

Sci-Fi: Space Cowboys & Indians (Cosmic Cowboys Book 1)

Synopsis: How can the chance of a lifetime go so horribly wrong?

Mining Engineer Cole Hudson signed up for NASA astronaut training, but after washing out short of getting his gold wings, he retreats to Alaska where he stakes out a gold claim. When billionaire entrepreneur Duncan Janson offers him an opportunity to join a mining team on an asteroid, Cole jumps at the chance.

But nothing is as it seems. Former NASA reject and rival classmate, Tessa Hernandez, is also a member of the team, and from the beginning of the mission test flight, things go wrong. They soon discover they’re not the only ones on the asteroid. As they try to escape, they are pulled through a wormhole and back to the early 1800s New Mexico desert where aliens and Apaches may be the least of their problems.
Thrillers: Missing

Synopsis: Haunted by her best friend's disappearance, always practical Rowan Quaide lives a life of cold logic. As an intelligence analyst, her world is ruled by who has the best strategy and Ro's reasoned control makes her Queen.

A Chance encounter with a man from her past stretches the bounds of reason and throws her into a game of dark deception and danger. With the past creeping from her nightmares into her reality, Ro pits herself against the monster determined to destroy the new love she's found.

As the intel gets more and more disturbing and events begin to spin out of control, she must rely on her instincts and cling to an unreasonable truth, or allow logic to tear her apart.

This Weeks New Releases

New this week on Amazon.
Click on any cover for more info.

Action - Adventure: The Plantation (Payne & Jones Book 1)
 

Synopsis: One by one, in cities across America, people of all ages are taken from their homes, their cars, their lives. But these aren't random kidnappings. They're crimes of passion, planned and researched several months in advance, then executed with a singular objective in mind. Revenge.

Ariane Walker is one of the victims, dragged from her apartment with few clues to follow. The police said there's little they can do for her, but that isn't good enough for her boyfriend, Jonathon Payne.

With the help of his best friend, Payne gives chase, hoping that a lead in New Orleans somehow pays off. Together, they uncover the mystery of Ariane's abduction and the truth behind the South's most violent secret.

Contemporary Fiction: Prophets of Eternal Fjord: A Novel
 

Synopsis: Idealistic, foolhardy Morten Falck, the hapless hero, is a newly ordained priest sailing to Greenland in 1787 to convert the Inuit to the Danish church. He's rejected the prospect of a sleepy posting in a local parish and instead departs for the forsaken Sukkertoppen colony, where he will endeavor to convert the locals. A town battered by unremittingly harsh winters and simmering with the threat of dissent, it is a far cry from the parish he envisioned; natives from neighboring villages have unified to reject colonial rule and establish their own settlement atop Eternal Fjord. A bumbling and at times terrifically destructive mix of Shakespeare's Falstaff and Nathaniel Hawthorne's Arthur Dimmesdale, he's woefully ill prepared to confront this new sect. Torn between his instinctive compassion for the rebel congregation perched atop Eternal Fjord and his duty to the church, Falck is forced to decide where he belongs. His exploits in this brutal backwater include an accidental explosion after a night curled around a keg, a botched surgery, a love affair with a solitary and fatalistic widow, and an apprenticeship with an eager young scholar that ends in tragedy.

Horror: The Pretty Ones

Synopsis: New York, 1977. The sweltering height of the Summer of Sam. The entire city is gripped with fear, but all Nell Sullivan worries about is whether or not she’ll ever make a friend. The self-proclaimed “Plain Jane” does her best to fit in with the girls at work, but Nell’s brother, Barrett, assures her that she’ll never be like them. When Nell manages to finally garner some much-yearned-for attention, the unthinkable happens to her newfound friend. The office pool blames Son of Sam, but Nell knows the awful truth…because doing the devil’s work is easy 
 
Literary Fiction: A Hanging at Cinder Bottom

Synopsis: The year is 1910. Halley’s Comet has just signaled the end of the world, and Jack Johnson has knocked out the “Great White Hope,” Jim Jeffries. Keystone, West Virginia, is the region’s biggest boomtown, and on a rainy Sunday morning in August, its townspeople are gathered in a red-light district known as Cinder Bottom to witness the first public hanging in over a decade. Abe Baach and Goldie Toothman are at the gallows, awaiting their execution. He’s Keystone’s most famous poker player; she’s the madam of its most infamous brothel. Abe split town seven years prior under suspicion of armed robbery and murder, and has been playing cards up and down the coast, hustling under a variety of pseudonyms, ever since. But when he returns to Keystone to reunite with Goldie and to set the past right, he finds a brother dead and his father’s saloon in shambles—and suspects the same men might be responsible for both. Only then, in facing his family’s past, does the real swindle begin.

Romance: Easy Charm (The Boudreaux Series Book 2)
 

Synopsis: Gabrielle Boudreaux, the youngest of the Boudreaux clan, is a single mother of her young son, Sam. Running a Bed and Breakfast at the family plantation house at the edge of the Mississippi River, Gabby loves her inn, her boy and her family. She meets new people every day, and takes pride in the house and land that has been in her family for more than five generations. Blessed beyond measure, she’s also lonely, although she would never admit that to anyone. Until Rhys O’Shaughnessy walks through her door, brooding and wounded and the sexiest thing she’s ever laid eyes on.

Rhys has been at the top of his game as a major league pitcher for the Chicago Cubs for more than ten years. Baseball is in his blood. But when he tears his rotator cuff and has to sit a season out, he retreats to Inn Boudreaux at the recommendation of his cousin, Kate, to heal and work toward building his shoulder back to perfect shape with only one goal in mind: to return to the game he loves. But he didn’t plan on being utterly charmed by a devastatingly beautiful woman and her baseball-loving son.

When Rhys’ shoulder has healed and he’s given the chance to return to his team, will he leave the family he’s come to love behind, or will he stay with Gabby and Sam?

Sci-Fi: Devil's Daughter: Lucinda's Pawnshop, Book One

Synopsis: Lucinda is as old as humanity itself, yet perpetually young, beautiful, and endowed with supernatural powers. She lives a double life—human and immortal. Born out of a betrayal of trust between the first woman, Eve, and father, Lucifer, Lucinda has worked covertly and subtly for millennia to be true to her mother’s love by subverting her father’s schemes. In her human guise, she manages Lucinda’s Pawnshop & Antiquary, the doors of which can open to any street anywhere in the world at any time. Mortals who have arrived at a moral or spiritual crossroads are drawn into the mysterious shop. If they acquire one of its cursed artifacts, they may find themselves drafted into Lucifer’s service. And if the Devil's daughter will not love a man he can control, can Lucifer control the man she loves?

Mystery - Thrillers - Suspense: Pieces Of You (A Stan Brookshire Novel Book 4)

Synopsis: Some cases are hard to let go of, even haunting. Detective Stan Brookshire knows this better than anyone - he still relives a particularly brutal unsolved case from his past in his darkest dreams. A young girl gone and her murderer never brought to justice…

There’s a serial killer who removes pieces of his victims until they succumb to his game and then skips town, without a trace. He's already left his mark on Lake City and Stan himself but he's back and has his eyes set on Stan; this time it’s personal.

It's Stan against the clock as he and the entire Lake City Police Force race once more to catch the one that got away. Will another innocent die in the process or will Stan get to her in time?