A native of Bergenfield, New Jersey, Donna Thorland graduated from Yale with a degree in Classics and Art History and then moved to Boston. For many years she managed architecture and interpretation at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, and wrote and directed the Witch City’s most popular Halloween theater festival, Eerie Events. She later earned an MFA in film production from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Donna has been a sorority house mother, a Disney/ABC Television Writing Fellow, a WGA Writer’s Access Project Honoree, and a staff writer on the ABC primetime drama, Cupid. Her screenwriting credits include episodes of the animated series, Tron: Uprising. Her short fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and Albedo One. The director of several award-winning short films, her most recent project, The Night Caller, aired on WNET Channel 13 and was featured on Ain’t It Cool News. She is married with one cat and divides her time between Los Angeles and Salem.

Kristin Centorcelli: Donna, will you tell us a bit about yourself and your background? Have you always wanted to be a writer?

Donna Thorland: I have always wanted to be a writer! I grew up on a steady diet of scifi, mystery, and adventure stories and particularly loved horror and sword and sorcery fiction.

After college I lucked into a terrific job at the Peabody Essex Museum, in Salem, where I managed architecture and interpretation and got to direct a Halloween theater program called Eerie Events. We wrote original ghost stories delivered by costumed actors in historic houses for an audience of 10,000 visitors over six nights. Salem is right in the heart of Lovecraft territory, of course, so we drew heavily on him as an influence, along with Hawthorne, Poe, Le Fanu, Dunsany, and M.R. James and contemporary short story master Gary Raisor.

Later I went to film school and had the opportunity to adapt one of Gary’s best stories, “The Night Caller”, as a short film that’s played at the Chinese and Egyptian theaters in Los Angeles and been broadcast on PBS.

I’ve also written for Disney’s animated series, TRON: Uprising.

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In 2001, When Jack Skillingstead entered Stephen King’s “On Writing” competition, King selected Jack’s entry as one of five winners. In 2003 Asimov’s published Jack’s first professional sale. “Dead Worlds” was a finalist for the Sturgeon Award and was reprinted in two Year’s Best anthologies. Since then Jack has sold more than thirty stories to professional markets. Golden Gryphon Press issued a archival quality hardcover collection of his stories in 2009. Also in 2009 Fairwood Press published Harbinger, a science fiction novel. Both books were nominated for Locus Awards.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Jack recently…

Kristin Centorcelli: Jack, your brand new novel, Life on the Preservation, will be out at the end of May! Will you tell us a bit about yourself and your background? Have you always wanted to be a writer?

Jack Skillingstead: Yes, May 28 is the pub date. Life on the Preservation is my third book (I’ve been publishing in professional markets since 2003), though it’s the first that will receive wide distribution. Of course, I’ve wanted to write since an early age. I remember thinking about it in a very conscious way when I was about twelve years old. It seemed like the only option, and it still seems that way. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to be a writer — you know, the guy with his byline in a magazine or on the cover of a book. I wanted to be able to do it. Find the good stuff, if there was any, and present my unique vision. I thought it would take a long time, and it did. I was raised in a working class environment, and that sort of defined my prospects in the mundane world. While my siblings were taking out loans and working jobs to pay for college degrees I was exclusively focused on writing and reading. What made it harder was that, despite all my efforts, I was a terrible writer in those days. But there was a spark. I came very close to selling my early efforts. In retrospect, thank God I didn’t. It would have ruined me. I wasn’t ready.
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Paul Gillebaard lived in Nassau Bay, Texas during the moon shot years, home for many of the Apollo astronauts. Living among these men who would make history inspired Paul to write this book. Paul received a Mechanical Engineering degree from the California State University at Fullerton. He resides in Orange County, California with his wife and two children.

Kristin Centorcelli: Paul, will you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?

Paul Gillebaard: I am a small business owner of Gillebaard Engineering Corp. I graduated from California State University, Fullerton with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. I coach track at the local high school. My wife and I have been married 20 years and have two wonderful daughters. We live in Orange County California.
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[Do you have an idea for a future Mind Meld? Let us know!]

Novels and stories about all things faerie have become extremely popular in the past few years, rather notably in young adult fiction. So we asked this week’s panelists…

Here’s what they said…

Faeries have always fascinated me. I love creepy tales and stories about things that go bump in the night, and I love the idea that there is this whole other world that exists right alongside ours, we just don’t see it. I think this is exactly why audiences are fascinated with the fey. They’re beautiful, seductive, mysterious, dangerous, and alluring, and we can’t help but be drawn to that.

For me, writing about the fey is like being turned loose in a fantasy playground. There are so many types of fey, so many myths and stories and legends. Nearly anything is possible when you venture into the faery world; not only do you have the denizens of Faery–goblins and piskies and kelpies and trolls–the very land can surprise you with how beautiful and dangerous it is. Trees are more than they appear. Flowers could very well be carnivorous. That bright red strawberry might turn you into a rabbit if you eat it, or put you to sleep for centuries. Nothing is safe, and anything can happen when you’re dealing with the fey. Creating the land of Faery, called The Nevernever in my books, was one of my favorite parts when writing The Iron Fey series.

My other favorite part was the cast of characters. From tiny brownies to deadly beautiful fey princes, to talking cats and faery queens, to bloodthirsty redcaps and brilliant faery tricksters, the world and legends of Faery has everything a fantasy lover could want. For authors and readers alike. They might be dangerous, they might be infuriating, seductive, devious and amoral, but when dealing with faeries, one thing is for certain. You might be eaten, seduced, made to dance forever or turned into a hedgehog for all time, but you will never be bored.
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Dana Fredsti is an actress with a background in theatrical sword-fighting, whose credits include the cult classic Army of Darkness. Her favorite projects, however, included acting alongside Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead) and Josef Pilato (Day of the Dead). She has been a producer, director, and screenplay writer for stage and film, and was the co-writer/associate producer on Urban Rescuers, a documentary on feral cats which won Best Documentary at the 2003 Valley Film Festival in Los Angeles.

Along with her best friend Maureen, Dana was co-producer/writer/director for a mystery-oriented theatrical troupe based in San Diego. While no actual murders occurred during their performances, there were times when the actors and clients made the idea very tempting. These experiences were the basis for her mystery novel Murder for Hire: The Peruvian Pigeon (Rock Publications, 2007). Dana also co-wrote What Women Really Want in Bed (Quiver Press) with Cynthia Gentry, their second writing partnership after Secret Seductions, for which Dana used the pseudonym Roxanne Colville.

She has written numerous published articles, essays, and shorts, including stories in Cat Fantastic IV, an anthology edited by Andre Norton (Daw, 1997), Danger City (Contemporary Press, 2005), Mondo Zombie (Cemetery Dance, 2006), and Hungry for Your Love (St. Martin’s Press, 2010). Her essays can be seen in Morbid Curiosity, Issues 2-7, as well as the anthology Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues (Scribner, 2009). She also writes spicy genre romance under her nom de plume Inara LaVey.

The first book in the Ashley Parker series, Plague Town, came out in 2012 from Titan and the 2nd in the series, Plague Nation, will be out April 9th, 2013.

Kristin Centorcelli: Dana, your second novel in the awesome Ashley Parker zombie series, Plague Nation, is out on the April 9th. Will you give us a bit of a teaser and tell us a little about the series for those that haven’t read Plague Town?
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REVIEW SUMMARY: River Marked is a solid entry in the Mercy Thompson (shapeshifter and mechanic extraordinaire) urban fantasy series, rich in magic and Native American lore.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: When Mercy and Adam head off to their honeymoon, they get more than they bargain for in the form of an ancient river monster that’s out for blood.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Showcases Mercy’s growing maturity and her bond with Adam; the final showdown is one of the best in the series.
CONS: While Adam and Mercy’s romance is one of my favorite parts of the series, I missed the rest of the wolf pack as well as other various friends and allies.
BOTTOM LINE: Six books in, Patricia Briggs proves she’s still got the touch, and introduces some new magic to the series as well in the form of Native American lore. Kept me reading and certainly got me looking forward to the next book, Frost Burned.

(Spoiler alert: Please keep in mind this is 6th in a series, but there’s nothing much here that you won’t find on the back cover copy. However, if you’d like to remain in the dark until you’ve caught up, this is a friendly warning…)
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[Do you have an idea for a future Mind Meld? Let us know!]

Recently, a group of futurists predicted that artificial intelligence is a deadlier threat to humanity than any sort of natural disaster, nuclear war, or large objects falling from the sky. In an article by Ross Anderson at AeonMagazine.com, David Dewey, a research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute says, concerning the human brain and probability “If you had a machine that was designed specifically to make inferences about the world, instead of a machine like the human brain, you could make discoveries like that much faster.” He stated that “An AI might want to do certain things with matter in order to achieve a goal, things like building giant computers, or other large-scale engineering projects. Those things might involve intermediary steps, like tearing apart the Earth to make huge solar panels.” He also talked about how programming an AI with empathy wouldn’t be easy, that the steps it might take to “maximize human happiness”, for example, are not things that we might consider acceptable, but to an AI would seem exceedingly efficient.

Of course, this leads into much more complex discussion, and the possibilities with AI are vast and varied.

We asked this week’s panelists…

Here’s what they said…

• If you make an intelligent being, you must give it civil rights.
• On the other hand, you cannot give the vote to a computer program. “One man, one vote” — and how many copies of the program would you need to win an election? Programs can merge or can generate subprograms.
• Machines can certainly become a part of a human. Our future may see a merging of humans and machines.
• Or all of the above. Keep reading science fiction. We always get there first.

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REVIEW SUMMARY: A kick-ass opening to what I hope will be the first of many featuring Siobhan Quinn.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Siobhan Quinn is a junkie with a reputation for supernatural badassery that exceeds her actual skills, but after she’s attacked by a were and a vamp, she’ll have to pull together whatever skills she does actually possess if she’s going to keep her life (or unlife) intact.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Quick and dirty urban fantasy with a very flawed, but very likable, anti-heroine.
CONS: While quick and dirty can be fun, sometimes things went a little too quickly for my taste (the ending was rather abrupt).
BOTTOM LINE: Quinn’s voice is no-nonsense and angst-free, and Blood Oranges shoots a big dose of adrenaline into a genre that’s been in danger of going stale.

Her name is Siobhan Quinn, but don’t call her Siobhan. Quinn will suffice. She has a reputation as a pretty fierce demon hunter, but that reputation isn’t altogether true. The truth is Quinn is a heroin addict who’s been rather lucky when confronted with supernatural baddies. Most times, when they’ve died, it’s been quite by accident, but some well-timed, and well-placed, PR by her dealer Mean Mr. B has given her a fierce reputation, and has also served his purposes quite well in the process. Not many folks are going to mess with someone with a ferocious demon hunter in their pocket, right? So, it’s a win/win. Unfortunately, the crappy apartment he rented for Quinn isn’t exactly a win (it smells pretty bad, and there’s a hole in the kitchen floor big enough for a couple of bodies), but the bags of heroin that he keeps her supplied with are, and that’s really all she cares about at the moment. Anything else is icing.

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Richard Parks lives in Mississippi with his wife and a varying number of cats. His fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, Realms of Fantasy, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Fantasy Magazine, Weird Tales, multiple times in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and in numerous anthologies including Year’s Best Fantasy and Fantasy: The Best of the Year. The first Yamada novel, To Break the Demon Gate, should be out from PS Publishing around November of this year, with Prime Books set to do the reprint in 2014.

Richard was kind enough to answer a few of my questions about the new book, and much more!
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The author of the hit Undead series featuring fan-favorite Queen Betsy, MaryJanice Davidson is a regular on the New York Times Bestseller list. Her riotous, quirky wit shines through again in UNDEAD AND UNDERWATER, an anthology of three original paranormal novellas, including a Betsy Taylor/Fred the Mermaid crossover, a brand new character with unusual superpowers, and an original Wyndham Werewolves novella. Fans of the Sookie Stackhouse and Anita Blake novels will rave about this sexy, laugh-out-loud compilation and its all-star cast of heroines.

MaryJanice has written in a variety of different genres, including contemporary romance, paranormal romance, erotica and non-fiction. She lives in Minnesota with her family. Visit her at maryjanicedavidson.net and on Facebook.

Kristin Centorcelli: MaryJanice, thanks so much for joining us! You already have 11 titles under your belt that feature Betsy Taylor, and your newest book, Undead and Underwater, a collection of three novellas, not only has a story about Betsy, but also stories with superheroes and werewolves! Will you tell us a little bit about these three stories?

MaryJanice Davidson: I won’t, frankly, and you can’t make me. I’m sick of you coming around here with your veiled threats and your constant attempts to force-feed me grilled cheese sandwiches—oh. Wait. Um…yeah, sorry. I had you mixed up with my late grandma…
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Weston Ochse is the author of nine novels, most recently SEAL Team 666. His first novel, Scarecrow Gods, won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in First Novel. He’s also had published more than a hundred short stories, many of which appeared in anthologies, magazines, peered journals and comic books. His short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Weston holds Bachelor’s Degrees in American Literature and Chinese Studies from Excelsior College. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from National University. He has been to more than fifty countries and speaks Chinese with questionable authority. Weston has studied martial arts for more than 30 years, including Tae Kwon Do, Ryu Kempo Jujitsu, Kali, and Kuai Lua.

His last name is pronounced “oaks.” Together with his first name, it sounds like a stately trailer park. He lives in the Arizona desert within rock throwing distance of Mexico. For fun he races tarantula wasps and watches the black helicopters dance along the horizon.

Weston took time out of his very busy schedule to chat with us about his newest novel, SEAL Team 666!

Kristin Centorcelli: Weston, thanks so much for joining us! Will you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?

Weston Ochse: Sure. Here’s the Cliff Note Version. Born just south of Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. Moved around a bunch as a kid following my English Professor father, until eventually settling down to life in Eastern Tennessee. Flunked out of two colleges and joined the army. After a twenty year career with time spent in infantry, special operations and special mission units, I retired and went to work for the U.S. military in a civilian status. Eventually received a Bachelor’s Degree in American Literature and Chinese Asian Studies, then a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. Have written ten novels, more than a hundred short stories and an equal number of non-fiction. Won awards. Have a beautiful wife. Three Great Danes to curl around my feet. And a fine home in southern Arizona.
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Debbie Viguié is the New York Times bestselling author of two dozen novels, including the Wicked series and the Crusade series, both coauthored by Nancy Holder. Debbie also writes thrillers, including the Psalm 23 Mysteries and the Kiss trilogy. She has a degree in creative writing from U.C. Davis. Debbie grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. She and her husband Scott live in Florida with their cat, Shrödinger. You can visit Debbie at her website, Facebook, and Twitter.

Debbie was kind enough to answer some of my questions about her new book, her writing, and much more!

Kristin Centorcelli: Debbie, thanks so much for joining us! Will you tell us a bit about yourself and your background? Did you always want to be a writer?

Debbie Viguié: Thanks for having me! I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was about twelve, but I started writing years before that. When I was 12 I read The Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey. When I finished the last page I knew I wanted to be a writer because I wanted to make people feel exactly like I did right then. I now have two dozen books in print. I tend to write thrillers and dark fantasy. I’m thrilled to say that a production company in Hollywood has actually optioned the rights for The Thirteenth Sacrifice, the first book in this series. Fingers crossed! I’m married to a fantastic guy and I have an incredibly needy cat.
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[Do you have an idea for a future Mind Meld? Let us know!]

We asked this week’s panelists…

Here’s what they said…

In some ways, post-apocalyptic stories are Cinderella/Horatio Alger variants. It’s always fun to identify with the person who has nothing and ends up triumphant over those who have more.

Of course Cinderella had her fairy godmother and Alger’s heroes were generally befriended by wealthy older men, and neither had to deal with zombies. But they still struggled against great odds and ended in a much better place.

Cinderella and the Alger hero started out in poverty and their problems arose from that. But the popularity of post-apocalyptic stories has grown while the United States has been in recession. I’m willing to believe those floods and plagues and even the zombies are in some ways stand-ins for unemployment, a weak housing market, credit card debt, outstanding college loans, and shrunken retirement plans.

In better times, you’re more likely to have romantic vampires!
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Brian D’Amato has written for magazines, including Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and Artforum, and he has taught art and art history at the City University of New York, Ohio State, and Yale University. His sculptures and installations have been shown in galleries all over the world.

You can keep up with Brian at his website and on Twitter.

Kristin Centorcelli: Brian, you have a background in art and also wrote for numerous publications before publishing Beauty in 1992. Did you always see yourself as a writer? Will you tell us more about yourself and what inspired you to write your first novel?

Brian D’Amato: The first draft of Beauty was practically written on a dare, and I didn’t tell anyone I was doing it except my Mom – who suggested doing something on cosmetic surgery in the first place. I do think I had an advantage over most other beginning writers because I never took a creative writing course, or any kind of writing course. So I didn’t think I had to start out by sending Chekhovian-realist short stories to the Quagmire Review, or whatever. If I’d done that, I’d be pumping gas right now, if pumping gas were still allowed. Conversely, I did study art and art history, and majored in painting in school, so my visual stuff started out in a slower way – I was almost about to say a worse way, but that’s not quite right – but anyway I’m still picking up the pieces.
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GUY GAVRIEL KAY is the #1 internationally bestselling author of ten previous novels and an acclaimed collection of poetry, Beyond This Dark House . Today, he shares with our SF Signal readers, an excerpt from his new novel, River of Stars.

What is it about?

In his critically acclaimed novel Under Heaven, Guy Gavriel Kay told a vivid and powerful story inspired by China’s Tang Dynasty. Now, the international bestselling and multiple award-winning author revisits that invented setting four centuries later with an epic of prideful emperors, battling courtiers, bandits and soldiers, nomadic invasions, and a woman battling in her own way, to find a new place for women in the world – a world inspired this time by the glittering, decadent Song Dynasty.

Ren Daiyan was still just a boy when he took the lives of seven men while guarding an imperial magistrate of Kitai. That moment on a lonely road changed his life—in entirely unexpected ways, sending him into the forests of Kitai among the outlaws. From there he emerges years later—and his life changes again, dramatically, as he circles towards the court and emperor, while war approaches Kitai from the north.

Lin Shan is the daughter of a scholar, his beloved only child. Educated by him in ways young women never are, gifted as a songwriter and calligrapher, she finds herself living a life suspended between two worlds. Her intelligence captivates an emperor—and alienates women at the court. But when her father’s life is endangered by the savage politics of the day, Shan must act in ways no woman ever has.

In an empire divided by bitter factions circling an exquisitely cultured emperor who loves his gardens and his art far more than the burdens of governing, dramatic events on the northern steppe alter the balance of power in the world, leading to events no one could have foretold, under the river of stars.

Alex Scarrow used to be a rock guitarist, then he became a graphic artist, then he decided to be a computer-games designer. Finally, he grew up and became an author. He has written a number of successful thrillers and several screenplays, but it’s Young Adult fiction that has allowed him to really have fun with many of the really cool ideas and concepts he was playing around with when designing games.

He lives in Norwich with his family.

You can follow Alex on Twitter @AlexScarrow

Kristin Centorcelli: Will you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?

Alex Scarrow: Well, I’ve been a bit all over the place really. I spent the first ten years out of school chasing a record deal with loads of different rock bands, all of them unsuccessful! In my later 20′s I finally decided it wasn’t going to happen and had to get myself a job. And I got really lucky. I found myself working for a computer games company doing pixel art. I spent ten years in the computer games industry finally ending up as a senior games designer. But then, I found myself getting quite bored with that, eventually migrating to writing short stories, then novels….and eventually getting my first novel published in 2006. Been writing ever since!

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H.E. Goodhue is an author and educator. Zombie Youth: Playground Politics is Goodhue’s first published novel. It is the first installment in a new series from Severed Press that has been called “unrelenting”, “thrilling and exciting” by both fellow authors and literary critics. Since its release in April, Zombie Youth has posted sales throughout the US, Europe and Australia. H.E. Goodhue currently resides in New Jersey with his wife, daughter and two hardheaded pitbulls.

H.E. was kind enough to chat with SF Signal about his book, zombies, what scares him the most, and more!

Kristin Centorcelli: Will you tell us a bit about yourself and your background? Did you always see yourself becoming a writer?

H.E. Goodhue: For the past nine years I have been a teacher. Currently I teacher 6th grade math. I began writing at an early age as a means to deal with recurrent nightmares. My parents suggested that writing down these dreams might help them not to continue night after night. This worked, but had the inadvertent effect of engendering a love of horror within me from an early age.

I began writing various types of stories, but always found myself returning to the genre of horror. Oddly it just feels the most comfortable and enjoyable to me. Go figure? Most of the stories I wrote were simply for my own enjoyment, though at the tender age of 10 or so I tried to sell some of my nightmares to a well-known children’s horror anthology. They passed due to the nature of the stories, but it completely floored and inspired me to receive an actual response from them, not just a form letter.

A few years ago I completed my first full-length novel, which was overwhelmingly rejected, but this caused me to reflect upon my intent and purpose. So when I began Zombie Youth: Playground Politics I decided to return to what I had learned as a child – just write something for me and if others get behind it, great. If not, so be it because I had written for me anyway. Though I will admit I was elated when Severed Press decided to release Zombie Youth as a series.

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Betsy Dornbusch‘s fantasy novel, Exile: The First Book of the Seven Eyes came out on Feb. 5th from Night Shade Books. Betsy is the author of a dozen short stories, three novellas, and two novels. She also is an editor with the speculative fiction magazine Electric Spec and the longtime proprietress of Sex Scenes at Starbucks. She was also kind enough to take the time and chat with us about her new book, writing in multiple genres, and much more!

Kristin Centorcelli: Betsy, thanks so much for taking the time to chat! Will you tell us a bit about yourself? Have you always wanted to be a writer?

Betsy Dornbusch: Thanks for having me!

I’ve written stories since I was in fourth grade, but stopped for a decade after college. But it’s not surprising that I turned to writing seriously; I’ve always viewed people and events in the framework of “story.” And I’ve always been a big reader.

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GUY GAVRIEL KAY is the #1 internationally bestselling author of ten previous novels and an acclaimed collection of poetry, Beyond This Dark House.

Kay was born in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, and raised in Winnipeg. In the 1970′s he was retained by the Estate of J.R.R. Tolkien to assist in the editorial construction of Tolkien’s posthumously published The Silmarillion. He returned to Canada from Oxford to take a law degree at the University of Toronto and was called to the Bar in Ontario.

Kay became Principal Writer and Associate Producer for the CBC radio series, “The Scales of Justice”, dramatizing major criminal trials in Canadian history. He also wrote several episodes when the series later moved to television. He has written social and political commentary for the National Post and the Globe and Mail and for The Guardian in England, and has spoken on a variety of topics at universities and conferences around the world.

In 1984, Kay’s first novel, The Summer Tree, the first volume of The Fionavar Tapestry, was published to considerable acclaim in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, and then in a number of countries and languages. In 1990 Viking Canada’s edition of his novel Tigana reached the national bestseller list, and his next book A Song for Arbonne debuted at #1 in Canada.

Translations now exceed twenty languages and Kay has toured and read on behalf of his publishers and at literary events in Canada, the United States, England, Poland, France, Russia, Croatia, Serbia, Mexico and Greece, among others, with his next international appearance being slated for June 2010 in Shanghai and Beijing. He has been nominated for and has won numerous literary awards including the World Fantasy Award and is the recipient of the International Goliardos Prize (presented in Mexico City) for his contributions to the literature of the fantastic. Guy Gavriel Kay’s work has inspired artists and writers around the world to create original music, verse, and art.

Kay lives in Toronto with his wife and sons. You can also find him at BrightWeavings.com and on Twitter

Guy was kind enough to take some time and chat with us about his upcoming novel, River of Stars!

Kristin Centorcelli: Guy, you have an extensive list of credits and your name is synonymous with quality fantasy. Have you always wanted to be a writer? Will you tell us a bit about your background?

Guy Gavriel Kay: First of all, thank you. Nice way to get on an author’s good side (I do have one) from the outset of an interview! I usually say I became interested in writing around when I collided with the grim truth that I was never going to make the NHL or play second base in MLB. In fairness to me, this shattering self-awareness arrived around the age of nine or so. I am, however, currently working with a trainer to mount a late push to make it to the Bigs in baseball. Stay tuned.

Um, no. A little more seriously, writing always appealed as an interest, but I never thought I would be able to make a living at it. As an oldest son I prudently took a law degree (criminal law fascinated, Clarence Darrow was a hero) and my call to the bar, for the classic ‘something to fall back on’ … no idea what people thought would happen if I fell forwards. I never practised law. Became involved in radio and then television drama here in Canada while the first books found their readers and I dropped most of the media work around the time Tigana became a commercial break-out. I wake up every morning feeling genuinely fortunate that I can write the books I want to write, at the pace that lets me do them as well as I can.

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SF Signal is pleased to present this exciting excerpt from Ex-heroes, a novel by Peter Clines, who we interviewed yesterday.

Here is the book synopsis for Ex-heroes:

Stealth. Gorgon. Regenerator. Cerberus. Zzzap. The Mighty Dragon. They were heroes, using their superhuman abilities to make Los Angeles a better place.

Then the plague of living death spread around the globe. Billions died, civilization fell, and the city of angels was left a desolate zombie wasteland.

Now, a year later, the Mighty Dragon and his companions protect a last few thousand survivors in their film-studio-turned-fortress, the Mount. Scarred and traumatized by the horrors they’ve endured, the heroes fight the armies of ravenous ex-humans at their citadel’s gates, lead teams out to scavenge for supplies—and struggle to be the symbols of strength and hope the survivors so desperately need.

But the hungry ex-humans aren’t the only threats the heroes face. Former allies, their powers and psyches hideously twisted, lurk in the city’s ruins. And just a few miles away, another group is slowly amassing power…led by an enemy with the most terrifying ability of all.

After the jump…the excerpt!

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