Interview between Keira Kroft and Edward
McKeown
Welcome to Keira’s Corner...again :) What can
I say...you are my favorite Sci-fi Guy :D
Keira: A date has
not yet been selected. However you have
a story coming out though the very awesome Hellfire Publishing, if I do say so
myself, lol pretty soon entitled, Fearful
Symmetry. What is that about?
EFM: Let me quote
a little from the blurb we worked on for it...
Fearful
Symmetry is the second of three novels concerning Robert Fenaday’s search for
his wife Lisa, and his companion and sometime lover Shasti Rainhell’s search
for her humanity. The trilogy is written so the reader can pick up any of the
books and have a complete SF adventure in hand, yet all three form the
overarching story of Robert’s quest and Shasti’s emotional voyage of
self-discovery. Robert Fenaday, reluctant privateer, and the genetically
engineered, but emotionally crippled, Shasti Rainhell have survived the terror
of the doomed planet Enshar. Fenaday, now wealthy, returns to New Eire to
restart his life. Something unexpected has grown between he and Shasti. Love?
Perhaps, Shasti cannot tell. Her hard, cold life has little prepared her for
such feelings, which both exhilarate and terrify her.
On a mission to Earth, Shasti is intercepted by the Confederate spymaster,
Mandela, who offers her one of her heart’s desires, revenge on her abusive
creator, Jalgren Pard, leader of a guild of assassins on her homeworld of
Olympia.
Torn between a new life and an old hate, Shasti falls back on what she knows
best, death. She joins a Confederate team dropped on Olympia to assassinate
Pard. But disaster overtakes the team. Shasti and the survivors must flee and
hide on a world rife with murder and intrigue. Fenaday learns of the mission
and launches a rescue, gathering old friends and new, as well as an old enemy,
the cyborg, Mmok, who serves only Mandela.
Keira: What made you choose that title?
EFM: Jalgren Pard, the antagonist of this book is one
of the largest and most powerful of the genetically engineered. He is a frankly terrifying figure suggestive
of the poem by Blake Tyger, burning
bright / In the forests of the night, / What immortal hand or eye / Could frame
thy fearful symmetry?).
Keira: Where did the idea for your story come
from?
EFM: A discussion of divorce by a friend of mine! In the first part of the trilogy, Was Once a
Hero, it was revealed that Shasti, our powerful and deadly female assassin, had
been in what I hoped came a complete surprise, the creation of Jalgren Pard. She was a concubine built to order and
suffering the sort of abuse that too many women may have experienced or seen
among their friends. As powerful as she
was, she was not immune to someone more powerful still. Shasti’s life has been a constant battle to
escape Pard’s minions and triumph over her brutal past. But as with so many abused, she will not
recover without facing her nemesis, Pard.
So she signs on to assassinate him.
Larger military and political issues surround their fight and escalate
it into a world-wide cataclysm but it has its roots in an abusive “marriage.”
Keira: Please share a particular detail about
one of the new characters, please.
EFM: Telisan, the ace fighter pilot of the first book, comes to Shasti’s aid
in this book, but he brings his two fiancées, Arpen the empath, a “true”
female, and Sharla, a “demi-female.” His
species has three genders and the interplay between the three of them is one of
the more fascinating aspects of the book as it deals with issues of cultural
roles for “females” and the multiplicity and flexibility of gender roles in
such a culture.
Keira: You also have a prequel to Was Once A Hero and Fearful Symmetry that was recently with Hellfire Publishing,
Regrets and Requiems that was…free… Is practically free at .99 cents and will
be a free again. *wipes sweat from brow
and runs away crying* Can you tell us anything about that?
EFM: I know it’s hard to give away your words away for free but it’s a chance
to reach out to a lot of people with a story about Robert Fenaday and Shasti
Rainhell in one of their early adventures when they were just getting to know
each other. The current plan is for a
free Kindle download on Amazon and Smashwords, maybe to have it added as a
bonus to the first Kindle book, Was Once a Hero. Hopefully the freebie will wet people’s appetite
for the whole trilogy and make you and I just a little bit more secure in
life. Well that’s the theory anyway.
Let’s get personal…
Keira: You’re very
diverse activities such as kung fu, ballroom dancing and sci-fi, tell us that you
have an artistic spirit, your wife too, I understand she is an artist. Are there
any other artistic activities or hobbies that you partake in?
EFM: What that’s not enough for
you? J My writing is my primary creative
outlet. I draw a little, usually
airplanes or pretty women, and I occasionally indulge my old hobby of building
plastic models but writing is the focus.
I have written SF, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, crime stories and the
occasional literary piece along with some non-fiction. I do see myself primarily as spec fic writer
since I do both SF &F.
The martial arts and ballroom are to keep the body up
with the mind. Otherwise there is a
danger of spending too much time in front of this shiny box of pictures.
Keira: Why sci-fi? Good
sci-fi is so hard to find and we have found it :)
EFM:
Science Fiction is the literature of the imagination, in that is has
supplanted or at least supplemented the old legends. The Odyssey is essentially a speculative
fiction tale of its day, then came the other tales of gods and genies and
Grimm’s fairy tales. The SF tale takes
up this challenge in the form of a story more grounded in our present world of
empirical science, whereas the fantasy tale comes out of the older tradition
where nature was observed and its powers attributed to larger and more powerful
variants of ourselves the gods, the elves, the goblins ect.
SF is the genre of ideas. It is cliché to say that today’s SF is
tomorrow’s science, but true. We handle
our cell phone and tablets that outdo in some respects the tricorders and
communicators of Star Trek. The world of
Gattaca, where one’s prospects in life are determined by one’s DNA is coming
true now. If a genetic test can foretell
your Alzheimer’s or other disease, what are your employment and insurance
prospects? That is a real issue in the
courts now.
The world of the anime, Ghost in the
Shell, where elite teams of special forces hack their way through networks in
search of unseen enemies who lurk in cyberspace, is coming true around us. We hunt terrorists with drones, fight Chinese
hackers with back hacks. The days of
armored divisions clashing may be gone as we clash more and more in cyberspace
and only in limited fashions on battlefields.
The assassin and the SEAL Team may replace the battalion as the measure
of a nation’s fighting strength.
So in what genre is the future and
its issues of strained resources and populations, its future conflicts and
solutions being tried? Science
Fiction. Maybe it merits some more serious
consideration. Or sometimes it is just
about alien princesses in metal bikinis and go-go boots. You have to have fun too.
Keira: I see that
you are proud of North Carolina. Go Panthers! Woot woot! Have you always been
from there?
I am actually from NYC originally, yes the Big
Apple. However I have now lived here
longer than there. I love both places
and write two series based in them. One
is the Lair of the Lesbian Love Goddess Series set in the 24th
century spaceport of NY with a very noir-comic sensibility. The other is the Jeremy LeClerc series about
a Knight Templar living in present day Charlotte North Carolina, with his
incarnate guardian angel, Shadowheart.
It allows me to have a lot of fun at the expense of certain institutions
down here, in a good natured way. One of
which is the Renaissance Festival.
Keira: Do you do a
lot of traveling? Where have you gone so far? (are there any pics you can share)
EFM: I
have been to Canada, Mexico, Ireland, Spain, France, (Paris and rural southern
France which are very different experiences) and most recently Italy (Verona,
Lake Guarda and my beloved Venice. I
love Europe with its mélange of cultures.
The French are truly the angels of food, there is no bad food that I
ever found in France, even mediocre food was largely a myth. I found no place in the world so beautiful as
Venice and wish I had spent more time there.
My promise to myself is to return.
Schelly
and I with a lion of Venice
Venice with
Schelly Keefer, Michael Church who did the cover of Was Once a Hero is a
talented photographer and our friend Sandy Heisey.
With Author
Tim McLoughlin (Heart of the Old Country, The Narrows (movie) Brooklyn Noir,
his wife Renette Zimmerly, writer and musician, my wife Schelly Keefer artist
in Caramany, Southen France
One lucky
commenter will win a free e-copy of Was Once a Hero
You can find Edward
McKeown at :
http://edwardmckeown.weebly.com/
http://www.facebook.com/edward.mckeown
You can find Was Once a Hero and other great stories
by Edward at: http://www.amazon.com/Hellfirepublishing
Hugs,
Keira Kroft
www.keirakroft66.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/keirakroft
http://twitter.com/#!/KeiraKroft66
