My guest today is Gerald Brandt, nominated in the Best Novel
category for the 2018 Prix Aurora Award for Canadian
Science Fiction and Fantasy published in 2017.
Gerald Brandt is an International Bestselling Author of
Science Fiction and Fantasy. He is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy
Writers of America. His current novel is The Rebel – A San Angeles
Novel, published by DAW Books. His first novel, The
Courier, also in the San Angeles series was listed by the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation as one of the 10 Canadian science fiction books you
need to read and was a finalist for the prestigious Aurora Award.
Both The Courier and its sequel, The Operative, appeared on
the Locus Bestsellers List. By day, Gerald is an IT professional. In his
limited spare time, he enjoys riding his motorcycle, rock climbing, camping,
and spending time with his family. He lives in Winnipeg with his wife Marnie, and their two
sons Jared and Ryan.
How long have you been writing SFF, and what forms have you
explored besides the one you’re nominated for?
Like most writers, I started when I was young by copying
what I was reading. I still have a notebook somewhere with a carefully drawn
map and pages of awful prose. Unfortunately, I stopped writing in high school
and concentrated on a career in computers.
Besides my novels, I have a couple of short stories out
there. My first sale was in the Aurora Award winning anthology Blood &
Water from Bundoran Press. It was quite a few years after that before I sold my
first novel.
Is this your first nomination? If not, what other title/category have you been nominated for (past or present)?
The Courier, the first book in the San Angeles series was
released in 2016 by DAW Books, and was up for best novel last year. The second
book in that series also made the long list, but not the final ballot.
Tell me about your process of creating this work: how long
did it take to write? Speed bumps along the way?
I made a few mistakes writing the second novel in the
series, The Operative – all of them my fault – which ended in a brutally short
timeline of four months to write it. That resulted in burnout, and I had to
push back the release date of The Rebel twice. DAW was very accommodating, and
the novel was released six months late, one year after The Operative.
The process I used has been the same for most of my books,
starting with colour coded post-it notes (one color per point of view
character), and a large 4x8 foot whiteboard. Each post-it gets a one line
description of a scene. I rearrange the post-its until I’m happy with what I
have, and then I move the information to a spreadsheet, also colour coded, and
add detail. Then I write the novel sequentially. Once I hit the halfway point,
I usually go back and redo the outline for the final half of the novel. Things
always change when drafting, and those changes need to be reflected in the
spreadsheet.
I also tend to write fairly short. First drafts can be
anywhere between 70,000 to 80,000 thousand words, and the final novel over
100,000. My main goal is to get the novel finished, and flesh it out later.
What’s your favourite thing about this nominated work: a
character, a scene, a setting/world?
Besides finishing the series and closing all the various plot
threads in an almost neat fashion?
Honestly, it’s a difficult question. It’s like asking which
of your children is your favourite. Let’s call it an impossible question. Even
though I finished writing the novel in 2016, I still feel too close to work to
stand back and look at it that way.
I guess… without giving away too much of the plot… I’m
really happy that I was able to bring back some people from Kris’ (my main
character) past and create sense of family at the end of the novel. It’s an
important step for Kris, and completes her journey.
That, and I really like blowing things up in space!
Name a couple of authors you find inspiring, and tell me
what calls to you about their works.
Another tough question! There are so many authors I enjoy
reading across multiple genres, that it’s tough to pick just a couple. I’ll
give it a try though.
I have to start with Neal Stephenson. Snow Crash is a
phenomenal read, and I’ve been told you can see echos of it through my San
Angeles series. That book came out when personal computers were still new(ish),
and the sky was the limit, and that really grabbed at me – not only back when
it was released, but now as well.
The next one is more difficult, do I choose David Eddings,
Jaqueline Carey, Lee Child… The list goes on and on. If I think about it, I
think it’s their ability to just suck me into their worlds and their stories
and their characters lives that makes reading them so enjoyable. As a writer,
it’s difficult to turn off my internal editor when reading, and when an author
can make me do that, I’m hooked.
Book blurb
Kris Merrill has lost everything. Her family when she was
thirteen, her identity when she joined the anti-corporate movement, and now the
man she loved. Living in a small room the resistance gave her, she feels alone.
Abandoned.
A year ago, Kris’s life was torn apart when a delivery went
wrong. The last year spent training with the anti-corporate movement had been
the closest she’d ever gotten to normal.
Now, war has broken out between the corporations, and the lower
levels of San Angeles are paying the price. Water and food are rationed. People
are being ripped from their families in massive sweeps, drafted to fight. Those
remaining live in a wasteland. The insurgents are trying to help, but Kris is
being left out, given menial tasks instead of doing what she was trained for.
She is torn between working with the insurgents as they
become more like the corporations they are fighting, and helping the people of
the lower levels.
Caught in one of SoCal’s draft sweeps and being hunted by an
enemy who will stop at nothing to have revenge are just the tip of the iceberg.
Kris is pregnant, and she might have to choose between bringing down the
corporations that destroyed her family or saving the life of her unborn son.
Facebook: Gerald Brandt – Author
Twitter: @geraldbrandt
No comments:
Post a Comment