H.A.L.F.: The Makers Book Trailer

H.A.L.F.: The Makers launched May 10 and wow! It's like overnight people have found this series!

 

There are multiple aspects to The Makers. Readers will follow new adventures of characters they loved (and hated!) from book 1, The Deep Beneath. But there are also lots of new characters - and worlds - to discover.

 

In this trailer, I focus your attention on the aliens of The Makers. Think you know all there is to know about those bulbous-headed, little grey aliens?

 

Think again!

 

And alien abductions may be the least of our worries ...

 

Did you enjoy the trailer? Does it make you curious? You can learn more about The Makers on its dedicated web page here. And you can purchase the book in the format of your choice here.

Exploring Modern Mythology: Aliens are the New Gods

When writing fantasy and sci fi stories, writers often tap into the great and glorious world of time-honored mythology to anchor their books in the fantastic. I accessed this ancient well of story fodder in my first series, The Akasha Chronicles, steeped in Celtic mythology and lore. It was great fun to research ancient myths and legends and explore how they still speak to us in our modern world.

But when I set out to write a new science fiction series (H.A.L.F.), I decided to focus on modern myth, legend and lore by focusing on alien mythology and the government conspiracies related to it. When writing H.A.L.F., I assumed that the myths surrounding the Roswell crash event were true. What if a flying saucer crashed in the desert on a ranch near Roswell in 1947? What if the military did, in fact, recover not only crash debris but also alien bodies?

It’s against this “mythical” backdrop that H.A.L.F.: The Deep Beneath is set. I chose not to create wholly new myth, but to add my own spin to some of the now nearly universally known stories of alien encounters.

I’ve been fascinated with all things mythical, paranormal and supernatural since childhood. I read every book in my school’s small library in the “Supernatural” section. I think I read A Wrinkle in Time two or three times.

Roswell Crash, Roswell UFO Museum

It’s no surprise that as an adult I’m intrigued by alien mythology (and my own sighting of the “Phoenix Lights” in 1997 fueled this further). As I read books on the UFO phenomenon, MUFON newsletters, toured the Roswell museum, and watched every documentary I could find about ET’s and UFOs, the more fascinated I became with the idea that a new mythology has developed over the past seventy years or so. Aliens have become our new “gods”. The idea that we were created not by a divine being or merely by the process of natural selection, but that we exist due to ancient aliens meddling with the gene pool on Earth has grown from fringe thinking to reality for many people. This thinking has been popularized and perpetuated by writers such as Erich von Däniken (Chariots of the Gods), Zecharia Sitchin (The 12^th Planet and other books), and by the show “Ancient Aliens” on the history channel.

Keeping with the idea that aliens have become our new “gods”, ETs almost always have “supernatural” powers of some kind. The idea that a being from out there – from the heavens – will descend to our plane, possess powers beyond our own and become a savior is a popular theme of legend and myth. The continued popularity of characters such as Superman and Thor (both aliens) attest to the idea that humans look to “out there” to help us solve our problems. We can’t seem to get enough of these humanoid characters that are relatable yet better than we are. They’re smarter, stronger, and have abilities we can only dream of. Perhaps these characters fulfill our wishes, dreams and desire to be bigger and better than ourselves. Or maybe it’s our fear of the dangers that plague our world – from natural disasters to war and terrorism – that fuels our unquenchable need for superheroes to descend from the heavens and help us out of this mess.

H.A.L.F.: The Deep Beneath, Audibook 

I had all of this in mind when writing The Deep Beneath. The story centers on a human main character, Erika Holt, and a human-alien hybrid character, H.A.L.F. 9 (aka Tex). In the first draft, Tex was a bit cute. He was more a mix of E.T. and Paul than like the murderous aliens in “Independence Day”. But as I got deeper into the project, I realized that a “cute” alien-human didn’t work. He was, after all, created (in my fictional world) to be a weapon. He’d been intentionally deprived of normal social interactions with humans and his education and access to information limited to what his creators deemed relevant. He needed to be more dangerous and less cute.

While reworking the character, I endowed Tex with telekinesis. It seemed a logical ability for him to have as he has far greater intelligence than a typical human (and a trait often linked to the greys which is where Tex’s alien DNA comes from). Tex has access to regions of his brain that most humans aren’t even aware they have. Tex has some other abilities but I’ll leave those as a surprise for the reader!

But I think the overarching reason that I write –and read – science fiction is to examine, through “alien” eyes, what it means to be human. Through alien characters, we can look at ourselves. Maybe this is what makes them so much fun to read, watch – and to write.

Sci Fi Friday: If Sigourney's In, I'm In

Movie Poster for original Alien, 1979

When I first heard that there was going to be a reboot of the movie Alien, I yawned. Reboots are always ... Well, reboots. If a remake is faithful to the original product that we love so much, then it is predictable because we've already been there, done that. If it's not faithful to the original, then we complain because it changes the thing we love so much.

And then there's the magic of a first. Some movies, like music, have a synergy that only exists the first time around. Any art that become phenomenon has this synergy. It's complex and is about more than the artists but also includes the audience.

When Alien appeared back in 1979, it came on the heels of the comparatively childlike Star Wars. Hans Solo, the bad boy of the film, is a cartoonish space pirate compared to Sigourney Weaver's Ripley. 

If the two were in a fight, I'd put my money on Ripley to kick Solo's ass.

Star Wars gave us R2D2, C3PO and Ewoks. Cute, sometimes cuddly characters.

Alien gave us this:

Alien art from Neill Blomkamp's Instagram

Alien ushered us, not so gently, into an age where all kinds of things come out of the sky, hellbent on destroying humankind (Thor, Transformers, Independence Day, Mars Attacks ... just a few that came to mind - please add to the list in the comments section). Star Wars was our age of innocence. Alien was our coming of age.

I saw the original Alien in the movie theatre when it first came out and can still remember yelling out with surprise (as did most in the theater) when that alien popped out of the guy's stomach. I've seen it several times since and I still jump at that moment - even though I know it's coming. The movie has a pervading dark tension that builds and builds up to that moment. You know bad shit's going to happen. You just don't know what or when.

And then there's Ripley. Smart, sassy, mother of all bad mother f***in women who will kick your sorry ass ... Ripley.

Sigourney Weaver on the set of the original Alien movie, 1979. Corbis

Sigourney Weaver pretty much invented the strong female lead for Sci Fi media. Sure, there are plenty of strong female characters in the world of story before Ripley. But I can't think of one in film prior to Alien that had a female character that could kick ass the way Ripley did.

Linda Hamilton (with cut arms to die for) in Terminator II:Judgment Day (19991) owes her bad assedness to Weaver paving the way for this type of character.

In fact, Weaver paved the way for a lot of us. Seeing Ripley on the screen back when I was a kid allowed me to see that a woman can save herself. Ripley looks that alien bitch with two sets of teeth in the face and says eat it.

So Neill Blomkamp wants to give us his take on Alien? And media touts it as from the director or Elysium and Chappie. Well, that made me snore. I wouldn't exactly call those two movies a great sci fi pedigree (some of you may disagree and if you do, feel free to tell me so in the comments).

But somehow or other, Neill convinced Sigourney to come along for the ride.

If Sigourney's in, I'm in. I look forward to seeing how she'll fit into the Alien world (re)created by Blomkamp nearly 40 years after the original (damn, that's a long time!).

Just please, Neill, don't try to make her more "feminine" - more likable - like they did in the second film, Aliens. So typical of Hollywood, they had to give her a kid to take care of (1986 Aliens, written and directed by James Cameron). So many Hollywood stories give us female characters that have a kid slung to their hip, even if they're toting a gun with the other hand (and typical of Hollywood too to put kids, dogs, and  yes, Ewoks, into movies to cuteify them, perhaps thinking it will make the franchise appeal to a larger audience).

So go forth, Neill Blomkamp, and revision Alien. But please, while your re-envisioning what Alien can be, don't take away from us the strong, self-reliant Ripley that we love.

Premier of the Video Trailer for H.A.L.F.: The Deep Beneath

Recently I posted a poll about whether or not readers paid attention to book trailers when interested in a book. The poll question was simple: "Do you view video trailers for books?" 

Interestingly, the poll came out in favor of book trailers. The final vote was 67% in favor of trailers to 33% who do not view trailers for books.

My ulterior motive for the poll was to help me decide whether or not to create a book trailer for my newest release, H.A.L.F.: The Deep Beneath. The majority rules! A book trailer has thus been created.

So without further ado, here is the trailer for H.A.L.F., created, produced and edited by yours truly. 

Make sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think.

How will I procrastinate writing the next book now that the trailer is done?! ;-)

Call for Participation in a new ParaNORMAL Project:

Have you had an experience that you can't explain? Ever seen a ghost? A UFO? Are you psychic or know someone who is? Have you had dreams that came true or premonitions?

I want to hear YOUR STORIES about experiences with the unexplained, the mysterious, the magical, metaphysical, spiritual, other-worldly . . . you get the picture.

If you have a story - or know someone who has - that you'd like to share, please contact me. I'll set up an interview and if your story is one that I think will be of general interest, I'll post your story on a new YouTube channel and here on my blog. 

E-mail me your story to: natwritesya (at) gmail (dot) com.

Why This Writer Won't Deliver Four to Six e-Books a Year to the Reader

Creating a novel is a long,
winding road

As e-books flourish, self-publishing is exploding and some writers are pumping out a new e-book ever 2-3 months (some even faster).  I’m going to tell you why you’ll probably never see me deliver 4-6 books to the reader in a year.

My brain works on what I call the “Saturate and Distill” method.  Maybe all the beer I drank in college influenced my brain cells to act like a liquor still or maybe I was just "Born this Way."

But for whatever reason, I take in loads of information, then let it tumble around inside my head for a while. When the info is sufficiently distilled, I get inspired and puke up stuff onto the page.  In this stage I’m working fast and furious, trying to get it all down.  I try not to think or second-guess or question myself.  I try to shut my conscious self down and allow all that stuff I learned to mix with my own life experiences, the collective unconscious, my own unconscious self and maybe even what some call divine inspiration.  Mix well and out comes a story.

In the first go round I’m just looking to get a beginning middle and end.  A lot of what happens in this first draft will be cut. Some of it is dialogue that I, the writer, need to hear but you, the reader, would get bored and thrown off track if I leave it in.  Or maybe its just wrong turns the characters take.  That’s cool, the characters need to figure out who they are and what they’re about.  But you, the reader, don’t want to read what sometimes reads back like someone’s diary.

The first draft, the beautiful period of imagination and discovery, is only the beginning.  Some writers have said that the first draft is about figuring out what the book is about.  You write a first draft, put it away for a while, then pull it out and read it through.  And hopefully you have that “Aha” moment when you say, “So that’s what it’s all about!”

Cover art for "Emily's House"
Coming Late Fall, 2011

I have re-worked, revised and re-written “Emily’s House” for a year now!  Granted, it’s my first novel and since I didn’t have much of a clue what I was doing when I started, my editing process was at times a re-write process.

But man, what a difference it makes.  The “Emily’s House” I just turned over to the editor bears little resemblance to the “Emily’s House” it was last August at the end of the first draft phase.

The other reason that I’m not going to promise readers a new book every three months is because my books tend to require a lot of research.  Why?

Because I create new takes on existing mythologies.  In “Emily’s House,” my starting point was pre-Christian Celtic mythology.  But my early research revealed the tantalizing fact that the Celts originated east of modern-day Europe and they were influenced by Vedic traditions out of India.

Add a little Celtic mythology with some Buddhist philosophy, stir in some Vedic thought, and voila!  A new mythology is born, one that feels familiar but is not exactly like anything else.

Screech!  This past week I’m like a car factory re-tooling for a new model.  My brain has to dump faeries and torcs and enchanted wells and particle colliders.  Now I’m streaming “Ancient Aliens” on Netflix and reading about the 1947 crash in Roswell and about alien abductions.  I’m filling up on alien mythology now as my brain sifts and filters and distills it, creating its own alien mythology.

In my current work in progress, “H.A.L.F.”, the main character Erika Holt will meet up with Tex, an alien-human hybrid who is traipsing through the desert trying to escape from the U.S. government facility where he was created.  What starts as Friday night good times in the desert for Erika and her friends, Ian and Kyle, ends up being a nightmare of three teens and a hybrid against the might of the U.S. government.

I’m a huge sci-fi fan and thought I already knew a lot about alien mythology.  I was wrong.  As I began reading articles and books, I realized there was a whole lot more to the alien mythology than I realized.  Then I began watching episode after episode of “Ancient Aliens” streaming on Netflix and I realized that not only must Giorgio Tsoukalos be an alien because there’s no other explanation for how he can get his hair to do that, but that this alien mythology thing is expanding so much, it is in fact replacing Judeo-Christian religion for a lot of people.  Ancient alien theorists have replaced God the Creator with Alien the Creator.  This is BIG mythology being made right now, today.

What is coming out of this research are twists and turns I didn’t initially see coming for “H.A.L.F.”  And what started out as one book I now see as three because the alien mythology and government conspiracy theory are just too big – and too much fun – for only one book!

Time to get back to writing.  I’m excited to get “H.A.L.F.” into your hands so you can meet Erika and Tex and their nemesis, Commander Sturgis, a bad-ass military scientist with a chip on her shoulder and something to prove.

Have you had an encounter with a UFO?  Anything strange ever happen to you that you can’t explain? 

And if you haven’t had an encounter but enjoy alien sci-fi stories and movies, why do you think we can’t get enough of aliens?

Review of Cowboys & Aliens

Daniel Craig as Jake Lonergan in "Cowboys & Aliens"

Clint Eastwood

"Cowboys & Aliens" isn't going to win an Oscar for best picture, but if you enjoy westerns or action movies, you'll like this one.  Daniel Craig channels Clint Eastwood to give us a modern version of the old-fashioned cowboy outlaw with a chance at redemption.  It's a risky movie melding the western with science fiction.  But the melding of the two genres is fun and "Cowboys & Aliens" is mostly a hit with a little bit of a miss.  I enjoyed the first 2/3 of the movie the most as it had that feel of the best of spaghetti westerns like "The Good, the Bad & the Ugly."


The movie starts with a close-up of Craig, beat up, dirty and bloody while still managing to look hot.  He's shoeless and confused, clearly unable to recall why he's in the desert or why he has a metal bracelet on.  The mystery of who he is, where he comes from and why he has the strange but powerful metal bracelet is revealed slowly.  And while the aliens make appearances on screen in wasp-like metal flying machines, the true nature of the aliens and their reason for being on Earth is also revealed bit by bit.


Daniel Craig is the stand out and he stays true to his stoic character throughout.  Harrison Ford is the weak link of the cast.  He plays Colonel Dolarhyde (a rancher - get it - dollar-hide), a grumpy, hard-ass former soldier who now is the big-cheese in town rancher.  Ford starts out strong but can't help but curl his lip from time-to-time in a Han Solo-esque sneer and by the end he's playing it sappy.


Daniel Craig's not afraid to get gritty in his role.  In one of the most bad-ass scenes ever, Craig's character beats a man to death with his bare hands, the blood splattering all over him.  He doesn't even wipe the blood splatters off his face as he takes the boots off the dead guy and puts them on.  Stone cold bad ass.  Next to Craig, Ford looks like he's uncomfortable in his skin as he struggles to portray a less than desirable character.  He ends up resorting to a mix of Indiana Jones and Han Solo, a cartoonish cliche.


But back to the good news.  The special effects are top notch.  One of my beefs with the later Star Wars movies is that the CGI takes over and the acting becomes stilted and ineffectual (George Lucas clearly preferring to work with computers over people).  In Cowboys & Aliens there are no lines of thousands of CGI aliens marching across the screen.  Instead they did a great job of interspersing the CGI aliens amongst the sagebrush, sand and rock to make it more lifelike.  There's plenty of hand-to-hand combat with the bad guys oozing gooey green blood.


If you enjoy a gritty western or action movie, you'll enjoy this offering.


Some of you may know that I have a particular interest in this movie because I have a work in progress that was originally titled "Cowboys & Aliens" (before I saw the trailer for this movie!).  See my previous blog post on the WIP here.  I was glad to see that the movie has nothing in common with my forthcoming novel except some aliens (and mine are very different).


If you've seen "Cowboys & Aliens," let us know what you think by posting a comment below or on my Facebook page.

Sarah Conner vs. Ripley vs. Trinity: Tough Chicks Kicking Butt - Whose Your Favorite?

Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2

I'm a huge fan of female characters that can hold their own and kick some butt.  No waiting in a tower to be rescued.  So a few weeks ago I had to take a night off of writing when Terminator 2 was on.  Sure, Arnold's easy on the eyes (as least when that movie was made!).  And yeah, Robert Patrick is great as T 1000, the molten metal shape shifting machine posing as a cop.  But I'd watch that movie over and over just to see Linda Hamilton doing pull ups while she's in the crazy can.  Click on the link to see Linda scenes from T2.


Watching Linda kicking butt made me think of Sigourney Weaver in the Aliens movies.  In Aliens 2, her maternal instincts kick in and its mother vs. mother when she's battling the alien queen.

Then there's Carrie-Anne Moss, kicking serious butt in all three Matrix films.  I'm not sure there's ever been a character that looks this great while fighting for her life.

So what do you think - which one wins the prize for chick you'd most want watching your back if malevolent aliens were trying to take over the world?  Vote by posting your comments below.