Arachniss by Shawn C Butler-Review & Guest Post

Arachniss by Shawn C Butler-Review & Guest Post

 

Amazon.com / Amazon.ca / Amazon.uk / Amazon.au /

Don’t own a Kindle? Download the FREE Amazon Kindle App for your mobile device or pc

ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date March 2 2022.

Who would you sacrifice to save what you love?

David just wants to write children’s books and spend time with his infant son Jason. The only problem is, something’s eating Jason.

Something’s eating everyone, bit by bit, inch by inch, and no one else notices. They have great stories about how they lost a limb here or a body part there, until they lose something they can’t live without and just…vanish.

Jason’s just missing a pinky today. No, wait, two. And a toe. His son is dissolving in front of him, and David will do anything to save him.

But how can David save his son from something no one can see?

•••••••

REVIEW: ARACHNISS by Shawn C Butler is a stand alone, adult, sci-fi, horror thriller focusing on children’s book author David Chambers in the months and years after a ‘viral pandemic’ has killed or maimed most of the world’s population. Known as the vanishing or erasure but formally called SHAS-selective human autosarcophagic syndrome-a virus of unknown origins, SHAS ‘eats’ away at body parts, sometimes eating away at the entire human existence.

WARNING: Due to the detailed and graphic nature of the story line premise including domestic abuse, there may be triggers for more sensitive readers.

Told from third person perspective (David ) ARACHNISS follows children’s book author David Chambers as he struggles in both his personal and professional life but a struggle that also includes years of potential hallucinations in which spider-like creatures are slowly or sometimes quickly devouring the people of Earth. David believes he is going mad. Every day millions of people are losing body parts from an unknown cause, memories erased without knowing what happened or why, but at some point David will discover that his hallucinations are real, a virtual albeit actual front row seat, into the demise of the human existence. The majority of Earth’s population have accepted their fate as a side affect of the SHAS pandemic but a few ‘lucky’ inhabitants, including David Chambers and his neighbor Franzia, bear first-person witness to the truth that lies beyond the veil of human acceptance and comprehension.

ARACHNISS reads like a study in social psychology; a sociological study of humanity and human nature; a psychological test of power and control bearing similarities to the Milgram Yale Obedience experiments of the 1960s. With a slight nod to more famous works of science fiction -War of the Worlds by HG Wells, Twilight Zone’s TO SERVE MAN episode, The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham, and Soylent Green by Harry Harrison-ARACHNISS is a graphic, detailed, haunting and complex story of artificial intelligence, alien invasion, human nature in opposition to everything around us, and the obliviousness of mankind. The thought provoking premise is dramatic and visceral; the characters are tormented, desperate, dismayed and vulnerable. ARACHNISS follows David Chambers as he must come to terms with those in charge, terms that would choose between life and death for the people he loves.

Heed my warning, ARACHNISS is a graphically detailed story line that will not be suitable for all readers.

Copy supplied for review

Reviewed by Sandy

Follow: Website / Goodreads / Amazon Author Page / Facebook  /Twitter

As a relatively new author, one thing I’m constantly focused on is how to build the most compelling worlds for my readers. This means not just things that are cool or make you say “Wow!” when you’re supposed to be sleeping, but all the details that make a story and its characters feel real and thus relatable.  So, here are some of the rules I try to follow

Ten Sci-Fi World-Building Rules

As with all systems, you can probably come up with a hundred rules for world building, some vital, some trivial, and spend the rest of your writing life making sure you’re doing things “right.” There is no absolute right in science fiction world building, but there are pretty basic rules that will help you avoid obvious issues that will cost you readers.

The following are ten of those rules, which are a bit random because they reflect where I am in my writing career and process. A year ago, I probably focused on more basic issues. A year from now, I’ll be worried about something else, like what to do with all this money (buy one gumball, or two?). These are the ten that most concern me in my current WIPs.

1 / Know why you’re building worlds in the first place

All of my published works take place on Earth within 100 years of the present, in locations you can find on a map today (or close). The world building for these books was therefore the minimum necessary to encompass new technology, politics and the occasional alien invasion. I wanted this proximity to reality because each book is clearly about today’s society and/or warnings for things to come. You, however, might want to escape the planet, solar system, universe and time-space continuum entirely. Which is great. Just keep in mind that the more you leave the known, the greater obligation you have to build a world the reader can understand…and appreciate.

So ask yourself, are you building a world because it’s a cool way to procrastinate, and it’s fun, or because that’s what you need to tell the story? Neither answer is correct, but the more time you spending building the less time you spend writing…unless you’re building a world that will be used for multiple works, in which case, build away.

2  / Be internally consistent

Whether you’re writing fantasy or science fiction, the structure and behavior of your world should remain consistent by whatever set of rules you’ve defined for that world. If they’re not, you’re going to lose readers and, if you care, get worse reviews.

In Dune, there are rules about (not having) computers and artificial intelligence that allow for the semi-religious power dynamic of the books (not to mention the dependence on spice for navigation in space). Frank Herbert can’t then have robots magically appear later on to solve some poorly thought-out plot issue.

In Star Wars, you can’t jump straight from one point to another in space without running into things, which at least retroactively explains why the Kessel Run record was expressed in distance and not time (using the shortest safe route). The same franchise runs into massive consistency problems in later installments when, for instance, we learn that you can fly any ship into another at “lightspeed” (which in Star Wars is much faster than the speed of light) and destroy it, making it obvious that you could have obliterated the Death Star or anything else just by ramming it with a small ship. This breaks the plotline of almost every Star Wars film.

So, if you give readers a rule, you need to follow it unless there’s a clear and rational reason not to, and all other rules should make sense in that context. To understand how hard this is, look at Marvel’s Avengers. It’s practically impossible to keep clear which superhero has which relative power because they keep changing according to the needs of a movie or scene. We overlook this because we love the movies, but you probably won’t be as lucky in your books…

3 / If it’s in the near future, there should be a clear path from here to there

In writing Run Lab Rat Run, I had in mind a series of prequels that explained how the world got to where it was (as a hierarchical genetic dystopia), and thus left a lot of this backstory out of the book. A few readers asked how all this madness happened, and I realized that (absent the prequels), I’d left the backstory too vague. I can’t fix that now, but in future novels, this will be a key checklist item for me. Meanwhile, the prequels are coming!

4 / If it’s in the distant future or after a disaster that breaks the connection between the past and present, that should be clear

This is rarely a problem, as authors love to write about disasters / end of the world / plagues / meteors / viruses / invasions / loud noises that result in the rapid decline of society so they can talk about a woman and her dog lost in the radioactive wastelands of wherever, but it’s vitally important that you as an author understand what happened, when, why and how it impacts the world of your story–and communicate enough of this to give the reader an anchor.

Don’t get me wrong; sometimes this horrific event is the very thing you want to hide. In Planet of the Apes, the surprise is that the planet of brainy but mean apes is …Earth! Spoiler? Hmm. Anyway, you might be intentionally hiding parts of the world’s history to allow for this type of reveal, but it should still be very clear how the world got from A to B (at least by the end). I’m assuming the apes drank too much Red Bull.

5 / No matter what the world looks like, your story should be more about people / beings and the obstacles they face than the technology itself

I remember reading Larry Niven’s short stories, including one about how someone died inside an allegedly impenetrable General Products hull. But even with a black hole, killer gravity, an invincible ship and concerns about warranty violations, the story is still about a guy trying to solve a problem before he dies. Which is basically the same story as The Martian, where we care about Mark Watney a lot more than the technology he’s trying to salvage.

6 / You should have a massive backstory that never goes in your book

Because this gives your world a feeling of fullness / richness that you don’t get if there’s just a skeleton and no flesh. In world building articles, they’ll often talk about this in terms of hard vs. soft world building, which is different from hard vs. soft science fiction. Hard SF concerns itself heavily with science and the details of technology, while soft SF tends to use technology and science as (important) background that’s not central to the story. Hard world building is about how much of the world you know and show to the reader (a lot), whereas soft world building means more is implied and less is shown. I tend to think that even if you’re writing soft SF and doing soft world-building, you should still know far more about the world than the reader does.

The challenge here is, of course, that you’ve built this cool world and you want to show it to everyone. Trust me, almost no one cares. Share the parts that move the story forward and hide the rest. If you want to add adjunct materials to your website, great (I have a massive glossary for Run Lab Rat Run), but leave it out of the book. The story will move faster, the reader will stay more engaged, and your books will do better.

Why develop all this if you’re not showing it? Because you need to know how, when, where and why things happen even if the reader doesn’t. Otherwise, you’ll have trouble fleshing out the story and remaining internally consistent (See #2).

7 / The same is true of characters

Meaning, you should know the backstory of your characters even if the reader doesn’t need to. Where did they go to space laser college? Did they graduate with a minor in Babble Fish? What’s the scar from? Is they cybernetic right arm haunted or just made by the lowest bidder? Do they have past trauma their working through, and how does it affect them in your story? Do they prefer Twizzlers or Red Vines (there is a right answer, and it rhymes with lead mines).

Whenever I read something by Margaret Atwood, for instance, I know she knows way more about the characters than she’s telling, and that brings them to life. You know, until they die horribly. And then you’re really sad about that.

8 / If you’re doing hard science fiction, get your science right

Let me correct that: If you’re writing anything that is based on fact, even if it’s only the facts in your world, get it right. Don’t leave the reader picking up your bad math, physics, chemistry, laser optics or (in fantasy) spells. That’s not their job. This is especially true if you’re writing in areas that have…hobbyists. Enthusiasts? For instance, never screw up military ranks, military history, guns (even space guns), gravity, relativistic math, time travel paradox magicology, genetics, etc. At least one of your readers is going to have a PhD in that thing, and they’ll let everyone know you screwed up.

9 / In soft SF, the feel of your world matters more than the details (but see #2)

And because the feel of your world and its characters matter more than detailed scientific exposition, I’d suggest changing the minimum number of things from present reality and culture to tell your story. If having nineteen genders isn’t relevant or important, then leave it out. If you’re not comfortable changing languages and dialects, don’t. Tell your story using the world you build; don’t let the world take over your story. For instance, I love the lingo in Clockwork Orange and Blade Runner, but I try to minimize linguistic quirks in what I write so I’m not constantly explaining what a word means. Change a few things that matter, and move on. A little goes a long way.

10 / Minimize jargon, abbreviations, acronyms, etc.

One thing I know is technically “wrong” about Run Lab Rat Run is that there will be far more changes in language than I present in the book (whether my predicted future comes to pass or not). The reason is simple; if you’re not a native of that future world, you’ll need a while to learn the language, culture, usage, etc., and you don’t have time for full-immersion language class in the middle of your book. Your novel isn’t Lord of the Rings (sorry), where you can spend time developing entire languages and the reader will go along for the ride. They probably won’t. They won’t even look at a glossary if you put it in the book. You’ll just frustrate and lose your audience. For instance, I used “WIP” in the intro paragraphs (for Work in Progress). Many probably knew what it meant, but many didn’t, and I didn’t gain anything by using the acronym.

11 / Have a Little Fun

World building is a blast, and a great way to procrastinate. Don’t focus just on the serious stuff. What changes / new things are in this world that your reader will find humorous, disgusting or both? Put some of that in there. Science Fiction is about imagining alternate worlds and futures, including all of their glorious absurdity. If your dominant species is dogs, there should be some butt sniffing and dry humping because that’s what dogs do. If it’s about genetic engineering, like some of my books, then there’s going to be some random, stupid, irresponsible genetic experimentation that’s worth a joke or two (e.g., the sex model references in RLRR). Include eleven items in a list of ten. Get crazy.

In Blade Runner’s infamous “I only do eyes scene,” a replicant eyeball is placed on a man’s shoulder. It’s disturbing, threatening, and darkly funny, but it also reveals how truly synthetic the replicants are. In The Martian, we learn that you can’t grow potatoes on Mars without poop, which is both funny and pretty essential to not dying. If you’re enjoying your world, your readers will too. Unless they’re Vogons, in which case, run before the poetry starts.

Other Resources

It might surprise you to know that I’m not the first one to write about world building in science fiction. Here are some other articles that do a good job, especially the John Fox one. Most of them conflate SF with Fantasy as if all speculative fiction is just one big blob, but the rules are pretty much the same (just replace magic with science or vice versa).

Thanks your time. I look forward to hearing about your new worlds.

Peace, Shawn

Share

Beasts of Sonara by Shawn C. Butler-Review & Guest Post

Beasts of Sonara by Shawn C. Butler-Review & Guest Post

Amazon.com / Amazon.ca / Amazon.uk / Amazon.au /

Don’t own a Kindle? Download the FREE Amazon Kindle App for your mobile device or pc

ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date November 12, 2021

They can save millions of lives, if she doesn’t kill them first

Tourist Raymond Molina finds the body of a young biologist in a Costa Rican bay—apparent victim of a shark attack—but no one knows how she got there. As Ray searches for what really happened to her, he stumbles onto the best kept secret in the natural world.

This is a secret hidden for centuries by residents of the coastal town of Sonara, protected by intelligent but violent animals unknown anywhere else on earth, and coveted by a massive biotech company that will do anything to discover the truth—no matter the cost.

And behind it all is a creature with the power to cure disease, all disease…or kill everyone on earth.

••••••

REVIEW:BEASTS OF SONARA by Shawn C Butler is an adult, speculative fiction, thriller focusing on surfing instructor Raymond Melina, and a small Costa Rican town, its’ population, and the sentient beasts with magical properties.

Three years after the death of his beloved, Raymond Melina finds himself living and surfing in the small coastal town of Sonara, Costa Rica, a town whose secrets run dangerous and deep but as the powers and people are called to perform, Raymond is pulled towards the past, a past closely connected to the family he never knew. The death of a young woman leaves too many unexplained questions, questions that can only be answered by the beasts involved, and Raymond is unwilling to sit back without first uncovering the truth. Meanwhile, Nomanity, a biotech firm out of San Jose, wants access to the beasts and their secrets but all is not well in the small coastal town of Sonara, as Raymond will discover, the past holds heartbreak and death, betrayal and guilt, and threats to the world’s population now and in the future, threats that Nomanity may want to control, for themselves.

BEASTS OF SONARA is a complex, detailed, haunting and captivating speculative-fiction story line of animal sentience, genetic manipulation, and immortality: a character driven twisted tale of family, tragedy, power and control. Shawn C Butler pulls the reader into a fascinating and intriguing tale of one small town where nobody grows old, and (almost) everyone lives to see another day.

Copy supplied for review

Reviewed by Sandy

Believability in Science Fiction is a Myth

Much has been written about believability in science fiction. We live in an age where everyone writes and publishes and there is no more gatekeeper to the digital world than a keyboard and momentary inspiration. There was nothing new under the sun long before the internet, and now a million people prove it every day. We live in the golden age of the derivative. So perhaps it’s time to dispel of one great myth about good speculative fiction–that it has to be believable. It does not and, honestly, I can think of nothing less interesting.

Speculative fiction traditionally comprises science fiction, fantasy and horror, and perhaps magical realism. All fiction is, in some sense a lie; you’re telling a story about something that never happened, never will happen, and probably couldn’t happen. With speculative fiction, the lie is bigger; in science fiction, you might have to accept that spaceships might someday span the vast space between stars; in fantasy, that elves exist and are magical; and, in horror, that monsters might be real.

What makes us read these deceptively woven threads of impossibility is not that they’re believable, but that we want to escape to a world that is far from this world–another place that does not exist, where different rules apply, and we can run through fields of man-eating plants as werewolves howl at the twin moons in dismay and confusion and alien satellites burn across the darkling sky. It is not believability we want, but a lie told with elegance and respect for our intelligence so that we feel transported rather than merely deceived.

This is pretty obvious if you think about it. No one watches Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien or even Arrival because they believe they’re based on scientific reality. The Force is just magic by another name, beaming is suicide combined with impossibility introduced for budgetary reasons (and don’t get me started on Tricorders), the face-eating alien might as well be a demon for all the logic of its behavior and indestructibility, and a language for time travel? Wondrous. Glorious. But as far from believability as feldspar is from gold. Also…spoilers?

Even if you read Hail Mary and love the hard-science wrappings, Mark Watney v2.0 is still flying around in a spaceship discovering new civilizations and saving them by being Space MacGyver. It’s cool, compelling, smart and fun reading. But believable? Not so much, and it doesn’t have to be because it’s brilliantly true-to-expectations. Which is more than good enough.

And that is really the truth of good speculative fiction; it delivers on readers’ expectations as framed by the genre and the promise made on the book cover and blurb. In the case of science fiction, this means a well-constructed world or universe based on at least passingly explained technology wherein characters behave in a manner consistent with that world. In other words, it’s not believability we seek, but consistency, credibility and wonder. Nothing is really explained in Annihilation, and who cares? It’s a wild freakin’ ride.

If you read hard science fiction, credibility is based on detailed explanations of technology and how it applies to the world occupied by our main characters (e.g., The Martian or Jurassic Park). In softer science fiction, it’s about the feel of a world defined by new but less laboriously explained technologies (e.g., Star Trek or The Broken Earth).

For sub-genres, credibility depends on more specific expectations. In time travel books, you’d better explain how traveling through time is possible and make at least a passing nod to paradoxes (e.g., Looper). For space opera, there needs to be vast political intrigue constrained by the limitations of future technologies (e.g., Foundation, A Memory Called Empire or The Interdepency). When you hear the term “true to genre,” it’s not about writing a formulaic novel by a set of rigid rules; it’s about delivering the reader what they expected, or close enough to feel you’re respecting their needs as a sentient human being. Or, and this is a rare thing, subverting those expectations with such grace and brilliance the reader is grateful for the ride (e.g., most Cormac McCarthy books, but especially No Country for Old Men or The Road).

If you look at the best science fiction of the past and today (The Time Machine, Frankenstein, Stranger in a Strange Land, Foundation, Childhood’s End, Dune, Ringworld, Broken Earth, Annihilation, etc.), literally none of it is even close to believable–it would be boring if it was–but it’s compelling, internally consistent and tells a great story. Credibility is a measure of how well you draw the reader in and keep them there, not whether you can explain how genetic engineering works in Blade Runner (hint: it makes no damn sense…and almost no one cares).

So stop trying to make your books believable. Instead, ask yourself what the reader expects, think of them as intelligent beings looking for escape and enlightenment, and then write a book that shows them respect, gives them joy, and every once in a while causes an exclamation of surprise or bark of laughter. Preferably both. If you do this with a compelling world and empathetic characters, you’re already delivering more than most speculative fiction today.

With regard to respecting your audience, nothing, and I mean nothing, will destroy your reader’s confidence in your world and writing more than inconsistency or blatant disrespect. Game of Thrones was never believable even as fantasy, but it was hella compelling as a TV series until the showrunners forgot about the rules of the universe–and the very spirit of George RR Martin’s books–and drove the show off a cliff. In contrast, The Expanse is (so far) consistent, the characters are real-ish people, and I’ve never once felt forced to swallow something absurd or ignore a glaring plot hole. Fingers crossed for the last book and season six (Please don’t screw it up. Please don’t screw it up. Please don’t screw it up). GoT lost its fans by the millions because HBO stopped caring about the story, and started caring more about how to suck money out of its nominally captive audience. So, you know, don’t do that.

Instead, write for the smart and curious child inside every reader that wants to escape to an incredible new world for a few minutes or hours, learn something new, imagine things never before seen, and generally not care whether it’s all believable or not. I don’t believe the sand worms in Dune are even vaguely plausible, but god I love that they exist on the page and in my mind. I’ll be forever grateful for that.

And my only hope is that sometimes I write well enough to make a few readers feel this same joy and gratitude for even a fleeting second of the time they’ve given me. When I wrote Beasts of Sonara, it never once occurred to me to that it should be realistic or believable. These things can’t happen. The world just doesn’t work like that. But wouldn’t it be awesome if it did?

~~Shawn C Butler~~

Share

Run Lab Rat Run (Modified 1) by Shawn C Butler-Review & Interview

Run Lab Rat Run (Modified 1) by Shawn C.  Butler-Review & Interview

RUN LAB RAT RUN
by Shawn C. Butler
Release Date August 11, 2021
Genre: adult, dystopian, sci-fi, futuristic

Amazon.com / Amazon.ca / Amazon.uk / Amazon.au /

Don’t own a Kindle? Download the FREE Amazon Kindle App for your mobile device or pc

ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date August 11, 2021.

Media’s eyebrows were once blue for nine weeks, her bones nearly dissolved and she spent a month smelling like salted pork, but no one ate her and she never died. She came close enough to require CPR and a genomic flush on several occasions, but she’s nearly indestructible. That’s what they told her on the bad days in the lab, but she knew it was a lie.

Genetic test subjects like her usually died by thirty, and they always died in pain.

But on her 21st birthday, she’s given a chance to escape the lab—she just has to run in the deadliest race on Earth so the company that owns her can do illegal off-book testing on her. If she finishes the race, and the tests work, she and her family will be safe and she might live forever. If she doesn’t, they’ll be deoptimized and dumped back, in natural slums to starve and die. In her world, the worst thing to be is merely human.

Or is it?

••••••••

REVIEW:RUN LAB RAT RUN is the first instalment in Shawn C. Butler’s futuristic MODIFIED sci-fi, dystopian series focusing on twenty-one year old ‘Baseline’ Media Conaill.

Told from first person perspective (Media) RUN LAB RAT RUN follows twenty-one year old ‘Baseline’ Media Conaill as she is invited to participate in the Modified Marathons, the most dangerous ultra-marathon in the world for enhanced runners but Media is not quite an enhanced human, our heroine is a human guinea pig; an embryonic lab rat sold by her parents to TTI, the TrumaniTech Corporation, in the aftermath of the Chrome Wars. Flagged for exceptional characteristics, Media would become the ward of TTI, a ‘baseline’ subjected to all sorts of entry level genetic modifications. As a Beta, Media would be the one of the few early-stage human subjects but in doing so, her lifespan would be greatly affected, not expected to live beyond thirty years. In an effort to release her brother and her family from obligations to TTI, Media accepted the invitation to the marathons, marathons that would prove to be more challenging and revealing than she could have ever imagined. With each successive leg of the marathon, Media’s endurance, speed and power increase, raising red flags with the officials, competitors, and ultimately the world outside.

RUN LAB RAT RUN is a story of both speculative and science fiction wherein the modification of human DNA becomes the norm for the rich and famous, and the old ‘normals’ or non-modified humans are treated with disdain and discrimination, relegated to the slums and less than optimal living conditions. Open to the best of the best, the Modified Marathons is akin to the ‘Hunger Games’™ such that to win means to save the lives of the people back home. Working together, each team selected has a mentor, a coach, and a various modified human competitors. Many will die; aggression and individual targeting the norm; success is the exception to the rule especially in a world struggling with the affects of global warming and environmental disasters.

Shawn C Butler pulls the reader into a world of genetic enhancements and mutations, artificial intelligence, robots and implants. There are examples of anthropomorphism, super human strength and speed, backroom deals, manipulations, secrets and lies all in an effort to create the ultimate warrior –for good or evil.

RUN LAB RAT RUN is a cautionary tale; a complex, thought-provoking and twisted story of specieism and discrimination, competition, power and control. My only complaint would be the lack of background information regarding the Chrome Wars, the environmental disasters, and the history as to how and why the world of enhanced human modifications came to be.

RUN LAB RAT RUN ends on a bit of a cliff hanger-you have been warned.

Copy supplied for review

Reviewed by Sandy

TRC:  Hi Shawn and welcome to The Reading Café. Congratulations on the release of RUN LAB RAT RUN.

Shawn: Thanks!

TRC:  We would like to start with some background information. Would you please tell us something about yourself?

Follow: Website / Goodreads / Amazon Author Page / Facebook Twitter

Shawn:  I’ve spent most of my adult life in the tech space, fascinated by what technology can do to improve business and human lives. But I’ve never really seen myself as a technologist. What I love are solutions; finding ways to fix things that have been broken for years. What I soon realized about the high-tech industry is that solutions are secondary to profit, and that search for profit (while a vital part of capitalism) tends to create as many problems as it solves. Sometimes more.

I think I started writing to express my frustration with this, first blogging and then long-form work. Maybe if I do this right, I won’t go back into tech…but we’ll see. When not working, I love to hike and run, travel and generally be outdoors. Also, I love ice cream. It’s a good thing I run a lot.

TRC: Who or what influenced your career in writing?

Shawn:  I’d guess the usual answer is that I read a lot of science fiction when I was young, and that got me started. And that’s true. But what I loved about SF compared to other genres was that it was usually focused on envisioning challenges and then finding solutions. It’s like the crime fiction of the future. Here’s the body or challenge. Here are the available tools. Here’s what happens if you solve the problem, or if you fail. The fact that the challenge is often existential—alien invasion, meteors, plagues, raging cyborgs, just makes it all the more entertaining.

In parallel, I blog about ultra-running and long distance day hikes. It was kind of inevitable that I’d try to blend science fiction with the outdoors at some point. Run Lab Rat Run is that point.

TRC:  What challenges or difficulties did you encounter writing and publishing this story?

Shawn:  Run Lab Rat Run is based on three things. First, advances in genetic engineering that I see deriving from CRISPR—leading inevitably to designer babies. Second, ultrarunning super-athletes. And third, the Barkley Marathons, a real race that drives incomprehensibly fit and fantastic athletes to miserable fates. Finding a way to combine all three in a way that would appeal to the average SF reader was difficult. Most of us don’t care much about lactate thresholds or fartlek training. And I didn’t want the result to be a caricature future where silly people do silly things just to make the story interesting. I think I got it right, but we’ll see.

TRC:  Would you please tell us something about the premise of RUN LAB RAT RUN?

Shawn:  Recent developments in genetic engineering mean that we’ll have the ability to eliminate many genetic diseases within a few years. Soon after that, it’ll be possible to genetically alter animals almost at will. And then human modifications will follow. The rich will travel to less regulated countries and come back pregnant with enhanced babies. Monetary class and genetic caste will be inextricably linked.

Run Lab Rat Run is about the resulting hierarchical world, where the “modified” rule over impoverished and nearly obsolete “natural” human beings. It’s like Gattaca, with a lot more rules and a deadly race in the middle—a race that gives one company CEO the chance to do illegal tests away from corporate oversight, and one runner the chance to earn her freedom. If she doesn’t die in the process.

TRC:  What kind of research/plotting did you do, and how long did you spend researching /plotting before beginning RUN LAB RAT RUN?

Shawn:  I don’t write hard science fiction, but realism is important to me. So I researched enough to have a general working knowledge of all salient topics, and then asked more intelligent people to read what I’d created so it didn’t sound ludicrous. RLRR research was more about the history of racial discrimination and caste systems than about genetics, but I spent a good deal of time on both. A few months, probably, with a lot of ongoing research as I wrote the book.

TRC:  How much of the story line is based in science fact vs science fiction?

Shawn:  When I sat down to write RLRR, I wanted a book that was science fiction only in the sense that it was a possible view of our near future. All of the technology and technical advances are meant to be predictions of what I think will happen. They are not fantastical, but all based on what’s occurring today projected forward. The world of RLRR is meant to be the real world, just 50+ years from now.

I believe we are headed toward a class system based on levels of genetic and technical modification, and that designer babies will be here much sooner than we think. This is the Pandora’s Box opened by CRISPR and related genetic engineering systems.

The sole exceptions to my rule about realistic technologies in the book are the Black Hole Drones, which rely on a flight technology that seems fanciful at best.

TRC:  Believability is an important factor in writing and reading science fiction / speculative fiction. How do you keep the story line believable in a genre that crosses the line between reality and fantasy?

Shawn:  I guess the question is what you mean by “believable.” Run Lab Rat Run is based almost entirely on projected technology, so it’s not hard in this case. Other things I’m working on are a little more fantastical, but to me believability is about internal consistency and respecting the reader. Build your world completely and honestly. Tell your story without factual lapses, leaps of faith and plot holes, and I think most readers will come along for the ride. I never thought the world of, say, The Expanse was objectively believable, but once I accepted the world as defined, I was on board for the duration.

TRC:  Is RUN LAB RAT RUN part of a series or a stand-alone. ?

Shawn:  RLRR the first in a trilogy about this particular protagonist and snapshot in future time, but it’s also part of a larger Modified meta-series that starts “today” with Beasts of Sonara (due out later this year). The trilogy of RLRR can be read on its own, or with other books in the Modified universe, but it doesn’t matter what order you read them in.

TRC:  Do you believe the cover image plays a deciding factor for many readers in the process of selecting a book or new series to read?

Shawn:  I do. I’ve bought a lot of books over the years, and with many of them the cover was definitely part of the decision process. I don’t know if I’d every have read Larry Niven as a kid if not for the fantastical PAJ cover art. It’s not everything, of course, but it undeniably helps.

TRC:  When writing a storyline, do the characters direct the writing or do you direct the characters?

Shawn:  I think this has a lot to do with the planner vs. pantser question. I’d like to be more of a planner, doing nice outlines like bumpers the characters obey. But honestly, I write almost randomly to see what happens (including what the characters do), and then see if there’s a plot there. It’s not the most organized model in the world, but I get really bored and distracted following strict outlines.

TRC:  The mark of a good writer is to pull the reader into the storyline so that they experience the emotions along with the characters. What do you believe a writer must do to make this happen? Where do you believe writer’s fail in this endeavor?

Shawn:  This is different for all of us, but to me it’s about getting readers invested in a character or situation so they feel a connection to them. The stakes must feel personal, like of the way people attach themselves to football teams or other sports. And that only works if you create realistic people with character and flaws in situations with real stakes.

I suspect some writers fail at this when they make something so unrealistic or poorly structured that it’s impossible to sustain believability, and thus lose their trust and connection to what’s going on in the book. I remember thinking this about the book It, when the kids end up having an orgy in the sewer system (spoiler?). It was just so bizarre and unnecessary that it ruined my confidence in the author, the story and the characters. Not like Stephen King cares, of course, but what the heck?

TRC:  Do you listen to music while writing? If so, does the style of music influence the storyline direction? Characters?

Shawn:  I have in the past—usually techno, EDM or classical. I find music with lyrics distracting and for some reason a bit melancholy. Now I primarily try to write in coffee shops with ambient noise to help me concentrate, and forego the music. Also seems a bit less lonely. I don’t think the music ever impacted the storyline, but it might have impacted the energy level in some passages.

TRC:  What do you believe is the biggest misconception people have about authors?

Shawn:  I don’t know. Maybe the modern one is that most of them make money. It seems like almost no one does unless they’re very lucky. A second misconception is that any one “type” of person makes a good or bad author. Anyone, man or woman, Black or white, straight or gay, can write a great novel in any genre. I love seeing more diversity in what’s coming out.

TRC:  What is something that few, if anyone, know about you?

Shawn:  I once ate an entire raw white onion and chased it with a quart of orange juice. The result was like Coke + Mentos, except in my stomach and with more acid. When I exhaled, it smelled like burning plastic. It was not a pleasant experience. Not my brightest moment. Also, I am the Highlander.

TRC:  Who or what influenced your path towards science fiction?

Shawn:  I don’t know if it was a specific person or thing. When I was a kid, I’d stay up all night on weekends watching horror movies and science fiction. Then I read all the SF I could get my hands on, meaning the usual classics like Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Niven, etc. It was just what I loved. When I started writing, it never occurred to me to write anything else. I read a lot of mystery back in the day, too, so I’ll probably try my hand at mysteries in the future.

TRC: On what are you currently working?

Shawn:  I’m polishing Beasts of Sonara, which is due out in November. This is the first book in the modified universe, and a very distant prequel to RLRR. After that is a stand-alone sci-fi horror novel that’ll be…different. I can’t wait to see that one in print.

TRC:  Would you like to add anything else?

Shawn:  I can pretty much guarantee you Run Lab Rat Run is the best ultrarunning science fiction novel you’ll ever read.

LIGHTNING ROUND

Favorite Food

Salt and things covered in salt, with guacamole. And salt.

Favorite Dessert

Ice cream, German chocolate pie or hot cinnamon rolls.

Favorite TV Show

The Expanse? Honestly, any great bit of art whether it’s social commentary like Flea Bag, fantasy like the first season of Penny Dreadful or the first six seasons of Game of Thrones, etc. My favorite changes daily.

Last Movie You Saw

The last good movie was Palm Springs. Lots of nonsense since then.

Dark or Milk Chocolate

Yes, as long as they’re European.

Secret Celebrity Crush

Anna Kendrick. Not really a secret. Anna!!! Such a nerd, I am.

Last Vacation Destination

Denali National Park in Alaska.

Do you have any pets?

I have several house plants with minimal needs—pathos, the house cats of the plant world.

Last book you read

Hail Mary by Andy Weir, like everybody else. That’s great science fiction. Before that I had a weird month where I read all of the Jack Reacher novels. Still not sure what that was all about.

TRC:  Thank you Shawn for taking the time to answer our questions. Congratulations on the release of RUN LAB RAT RUN. We wish you all the best.

Share