To view the review, click here.
To view the book on Amazon, click here.
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1. I like to start off the interview by finding out more about how you are. What are your passions and pursuits outside of writing?
I love creating, whether it's art or movies (film school graduate!) or cakes or something else entirely. I'm also a huge fan of scuba diving, but haven't had the chance to go recently. I love gaming, but I'm not a huge fan of FPS games unless the story and world are really engaging, such as Fallout 4. Even then, I have to confess I play on god mode; I've no interest in the combat, only the story. I also love karaoke and singing, although I don't know if I'm any good at it! I also enjoy learning new things – it's kind of a given when you write any genre, but particularly sci-fi/fantasy – and I binge-watch Netflix and Hulu far more than is good for either me or my writing career.
2. How did you get started writing?
I've always written, ever since I could hold a pen. I used to have little notebooks all over the place in my room. My parents always sent me to bed at 7pm, which was far too early and so I'd wake up every night without fail at about 2-3am, my mind buzzing, and reach for the nearest notebook. Of course, getting up at those times meant that when 7pm rolled round again the next night, I really *was* tired, and so the cycle continued!
My biggest piece of work was written between the ages of 11-14. It took up about nine office shorthand notebooks, was entirely handwritten, and was a very long fanfiction featuring most of the characters from the movie Aliens. It began when I was on the train home from a school trip to visit York, and so my teacher Angela Cook and I always referred to it as the “York story,” and that's still how I think of it. (After I left that school, I tried to find Mrs Cook several times online to tell her I finally finished it, but so far no luck!)
My first big break (heh!) came when I was about 12. I was a subscriber to PONY magazine, and they did a serial photostory called Valentine Farm. At the end of the first episode, there was a note inviting readers to submit the next chapter. I wrote one, sent it in and got a letter back a week or so later saying that they “would love me to write Episode 5 for PONY.” I wrote it and later got a check for 30 pounds, which was great but caused a few complications down the bank as, not expecting any kind of money, I'd used a nom-de-plume; Peijazi (which was later misprinted as Peyazi).
After that, I took a bit of a break from serious writing – although I was still scribbling stuff every day – until I was 18. I joined the forum for
an actor, and started posting a story about him and other forum members (since it was me, it was sci-fi). When I finished it, I thought I'd like to keep it and so I copied and pasted it all into Word and ended up with about 65,000 words. I looked at it and thought, “Wow, that's a book!” So I tidied it up, changed the names and it went from there. I also wrote a lot of fanfiction and still dabble in that world occasionally.
3. Inquiring minds want to know' Typewriter, Hand-written, or computer?
I used to use a typewriter when I was a very little girl; my mother had one of those old (new at the time) electric ones, and she passed her old one onto me. These days it's split between computer and hand-written. Most of it's on the computer, but I travel around a lot, so I always carry a notebook and pen with me to continue my writing, and then type it up when I get home. For some reason, writer's block never seems to affect me when I write by hand, so if I'm stuck on a chapter, I just grab a notebook, write past the block and then go back to the keyboard.
4. Let's dive right into your book Project Tau. The book is about a young college student named Kalin Taylor who stumbles on a secret facility that is researching cloning technology. Where did you get your idea for the book?
It's weird, but you know, I never sat down and thought, “Right, I'm going to write a novel about cloning now.” I'm really not big on planning my stories chapter by chapter, and although I had a vague idea of what would happen, I had no idea how it would happen or what kind of book it would turn into. I had a literary agent at the time, who turned out to be lousy at her job, although I didn't know that then. She told me that sci-fi was a very hard sell, because publishers only wanted books that could be made into movies, and sci-fi was impossible to make into movies because you couldn't write any kind of sci-fi novel without aliens and weird planets and very expensive CGI.
As soon as she said that, the first thought that went through my mind was, “Oh yeah? Wanna bet?” So, I had the low-budget setting – hospital, gym, nondescript room – and the book's opening sentence - “Project Tau has escaped.” - came into my head, so I just wrote it and let the story flow from there until it was done. Then I cut a bunch of stuff at the beginning, rewrote chunks and added a whole lot more stuff to the middle and end
5. Having read the book myself, I know that this is one of those books that is shocking almost because, with the world today, you could
picture something like this happening. It's a book that will stick with you long after you finish. What did you want readers to take away
from the story?
For one thing, it's really *not* a dystopian setting (laughs) I was reading some of the comments made on the review, and some people seem to think that Bad Things Happening To Main Character + Futuristic Setting = Dystopian/Bleak Future.
I think the future is going to be a pretty cool place. As one character points out, wars and terrorism are a thing of the past, plus gender
equality and LGBT rights are a given and we've got a whole bunch of new planets to explore and play with. It only sucks if you're a clone, much like it sucks to live in this day and age if you're a battery hen.
That doesn't mean the future's going to be perfect, and if we're going to do these experiments and try and push the scientific bar further and further, we need to consider the long-term ramifications of not just failure, but also success.
6. One major theme in the book is human cloning. Do you believe that we will see human clones in our lifetime? What is your stance on the rights of clones?
If you mean like in the book, where you can grow a human clone from skin cells in a day or so, I don't think that'll happen in our lifetime, but I do think it'll happen. Cloning more along the lines of Dolly the sheep...yes, I think that's a real possibility.
I hope this doesn't sound too much like praising my own work here, but I do think that clone rights will end up more or less like they're depicted in the novel. It's all very well to clone a human, but what do you do with your clone once you've succeeded? The first human clone will probably end up as a lab rat, as the scientists will want to know how successful they were (and how to fix mistakes in future clones).
Clones are created, not born, so that opens up a whole new can of worms regarding nationality. If the clone is cloned from an American citizen, in an American lab staffed by American scientists, then the nationality is pretty cut-and-dry. However, if it's cloned from a French citizen in an American lab by Japanese scientists, what then? Is the clone French, because the DNA came from a French person? Is the clone Japanese, because the people who actually created the clone and brought it to life were Japanese? Or is it American, because it was created in a lab on American soil, built by and funded by the American government?
However it pans out, no birth means no family or childhood friends who are likely to kick up a stink if something bad happens. I think clones will initially be very popular in the medical industry, most likely for drugs testing (for example, give a clone Alzheimer's and try to cure it). The adult industry will probably be next in line. After that, anyone with enough money can have one, regardless of the reason. Want to replace your little one who tragically died in a car crash? Okay, no problem. Want a lookalike who can go to work for you, while you kick back and spend the salary? Sure. Do you believe that people of a certain gender/race are no better than slaves? Got you covered there too; you can have your very own (Insert-Race/Gender/Both-Here) to treat the way you think they should be treated. Want revenge on your childhood bully who made you or your child's life a living hell? Go right ahead; we can create a clone at any age for you and/or your little darling to chain up and torture just the way you like! All nice and therapeutic.
So although I think clones *should *have equal rights with 'natural' humans, I don't think they ever *will*. As one of the scientists points out
in the novel, creating and training a clone just to wave goodbye as he/she walks off into the sunset would be a pretty big waste of time, effort and money. I think the best that will happen would be an SPCA equivalent for clones, so at least they'd have some recourse. I also think that there will be a kind of “Free the Clones” movement and radicals who believe that human cloning is a crime against nature and clones themselves are abominations that need to be slaughtered.
7. While the major plot arc was wrapped up, some of the story was still open ended. Is there a sequel on the horizon?
There are several; I have five more books currently planned, and there may be more coming later. The next book in the series is called Homecoming and picks up more or less where this one finished. There are more details on my website if anybody's interested.
8. Is this your first book or do you have other stories under your belt? What is next on the agenda?
Not quite. My first published book was a terrorist thriller called Tsunami. It's since gone out of print, but I plan to re-release it as an ebook at some point.
I also have a completed sci-fi/fantasy trilogy and the first two books in a YA sci-fi series (think Lord of the Flies in space, only not as
depressing; like I said, I don't understand the obsession some writers have with the dystopian/bleak future style!), and I'm hard at work on a new comic fantasy series. Next to be released will either be the YA sci-fi, or the sequel to Project Tau. The cover for that last one has already been finalized and approved; I just have to finish writing it!
For the fun questions.
9. Since Yoda was brought out in Project Tau, I think I can guess the answer, but Star Wars or Star Trek?
Yeah, you got me. It's Star Wars. At least, it is if we're talking about the original trilogy; I'm not a fan of the Anakin Skywalker movies, and the newer movies even less so. I did think about watching Star Trek, but it's been going on for so long with so many remakes and reboots that, for a complete newbie like me, it's impossible to know where to start. I saw the 2009 Star Trek movie when on a plane, and I enjoyed it, but it didn't spark my interest enough to make me want to go and check out the rest of the franchise.
10. What kid's movie (or part of a kid's movie) scarred you when you were young?
To be honest, none of them. I saw all the typical Disney movies at the theater – Little Mermaid, Aladdin etc – and the classics on VHS (showing my age here!) and they were alright, but I found them very bland. I never really got into a movie until I saw Terminator at age eight or nine. Up until then, I didn't know there even were movies that could make you root for the characters or have you on the edge of your seat. Although I'm female, even as a young child, I was the definitive Anti-Princess. I thought Cinderella was a boring little drip who did nothing but sit and weep while the mice and fairy godmother did all the hard work. Most of the time, I was rooting for the villains, because at least they *did* something.
That said, there was one thing that really left a bad impact on me. I grew up in the UK, and there was a TV show there called 999 (number for emergency services). They used to reenact accidents and incidents as drama shorts, then replay them step by step to show what the person should have done in that situation, and what would happen if you didn't.
It must have been coming up to November 5 (Bonfire Night), because the school – for reasons best known to themselves – thought it would be a good idea to show the fire safety version. Cue a nice family with children and pets, just like mine and that of every other kid, eating dinner while blissfully unaware that a fire had just started in their living room...and cue the panicked rush for their lives, the mother running back into the house to save the dog and screaming as she burned, people choking to death on the smoke; basically, if it was a fire-related death, it was depicted there in all its technicolor glory.
Of course, what none of the teachers thought to tell us was that all the people there were actors. I mean, I think we kind of understood when we saw them in the “good” ending, but that's the only thing I've ever watched that gave me nightmares. It also had a pretty lasting effect on me; to this day, I'm really not comfortable handling fire. Lighting the Bunsen burners for science class at school was always a special kind of hell for me.
11. Pineapple on pizza, yes or no?
*gasp* You mean there are people who *don't *put pineapple on pizza?
12. What's your favorite amusement park or fair ride?
When I was a kid, it was definitely the Vampire Bat Ride at Chessington World of Adventures in the UK. Even queuing up for it was fun; I still remember the gothic castle with its chandeliers and creepy organ player. Sadly, I injured my back and legs in a horse-riding accident when I was 12 and I've had constant pain in various parts of that area ever since, so I can't ride the roller coasters anymore. These days, I stick to water rides.
My thanks goes to Jude Austin for the interesting answers and a different take on the future in the book Project Tau. I encourage everyone to check it out! Until next time...
