Small Spec Book Awards - Semi-Finalist Feature #3
Today is my third post featuring the semi-finalists of the Small Spec Book Awards! Check out the first and second posts!
I've done a feature on horror authors and one on fantasy authors, so in this post, I will be focusing on three of the science fiction semi-finalists: K. C. Aegis, author of Her Gilded Voice, Rosie Oliver, author of A Truth Beyond Full, and Terry Jackman, author of Worlds Aligned.
Each author has been asked the same questions:
1. What inspired you to write this book?
2. What was your favourite part of writing it?
3. Where can we find you and your work? (socials, blog, website)
Her Gilded Voice by K. C. Aegis
Lacey has a woman living inside her head … or is it the other way around?
Decades from now, technology has advanced, and everyone has a ‘neuro-net’ wired into their brain. This provides each person with a ‘voyce’ inside their head that offers advice that guides and ostensibly protects them; as teen Lacey Clarke puts it: “Voyces help us all make the right decisions. They give us reason, protect us from outside chaos. And in some cases, they protect us from ourselves.”
In this republic, Lacey and her older sister, Yadira, barely make ends meet. Their lives are made worse when they discover they must pay off their late father’s debt and that Lacey has been marked to become a Puzzler in a brainteaser competition in which losers are killed. Alina, Lacey’s voyce, reassures her everything will be fine if only they follow the rules, but when an encounter with Ogden Oliver, a powerful Elite, ends with Alina being temporarily deactivated, Lacey is left alone with her own thoughts. For the first time in her life, she is able to perceive the world as it actually is – without augmented-reality illusions.
As Lacey navigates the competition, she realizes she may be a pawn but one that has hitherto unknown power..
Buy the book here!
1. What inspired you to write this book?
I began writing this story during the covid pandemic when we were all still on lockdown. Isolated in our homes, we had to rely on our smart devices more than ever.
Unfortunately, it became clear early on that this technology was being used by some to spread manipulative misinformation. I teach teenagers, and I have three teenage children of my own, so when they all started parroting the same bizarre/false information (for instance, many of them would tell me birds were not real—that they were all, in fact, spy drones), this showed the power technology has in shaping our reality.
So, I started to write Her Gilded Voice because I wanted to make sense of the kind of world we are all sliding into. Also, I wanted to explore ways we might fight back against this sort of reality.
2. What was your favourite part of writing it?
The riddles were fun. The story is full of puzzles, and I enjoyed the challenge of turning ordinary objects into riddles to be solved.
Aside from that, I loved getting to know the characters and developing the relationships they have with each other. I was surprised several times when the characters revealed something about themselves I wasn’t prepared for. Because that’s the joy of writing. No matter how meticulously I plan out the story, the characters are the ones behind the wheel, and you can never be sure where they’ll decide to go.
3. Where can we find you and your work? (socials, blog, website)
Check out K. C. Aegis' website and blog. As well, he is on Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, and Threads as kcaegis.
A Truth Beyond Full by Rosie Oliver
Don’t dig deep lest you regret what you find!
Miranda,
an ice and rock moon of Uranus, has been a thriving mining colony. But
recently there has been a rise in fatal accidents. Kylone has an ability
to extrapolate patterns behind a rock face to determine where and how
to dig. When his fiancée died in another accident, he blamed himself and
his ability; a wreck, no longer able to mine, he became a priest with
limited duties in the locally developed Priesthood. Assigned to
officiate at a hero miner’s funeral, the widow asks Kylone to
investigate the spate of accidents and, along with some help from an
unexpected source, he starts to suspect that they may have a more
sinister cause, a suspicion which puts his own life in danger.
Buy the book here!
1. What inspired you to write this book?
We were given an exercise in a creative writing class to describe a place. As I felt anywhere on Earth had been described by writers better than me, I reached out into the Solar System. There was a photograph taken way back in January 1986 by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft of a strange moon, Miranda, that orbited the seventh planet Uranus.
It was intriguing. Why did it end up with those crazy large chevron cliffs in its ice and why has it got such a large chasm (bottom of the photo below at about 5 o’clock)? No wonder it was nicknamed the Frankenstein moon. By the time I finished the description I was hooked to delve much deeper.
2. What was your favourite part of writing it?
Finding out about Miranda and doing the world-building based on it.
Let me give you a straightforward example. On Earth we can hear the snaps of small gas bubbles in the ice when they collapse under pressure, the noise reaching our ears via the air. Miranda’s ice will also have collapsing gas bubbles. However, there is hardly any atmosphere on the moon, so we would be deaf to them even in specially adapted spacesuits. The sound still travels through the ice and if we have very sensitive fingers we would feel the vibrations Those vibrations will vary depending on how many gas bubbles are trapped and what types of ice they travel through. So I have people, the iceborne, who have a special talent of being able to ‘hear’ the ice-song. Certainly useful if they can warn others of the imminent collapse of nearby ice.
From noticing the impact of Miranda on individuals, I was able bit by bit to develop a whole differently functioning society that lived there. In fact it became so intricate I could only start to describe it in a novel, A Truth Beyond Full, that Elsewhen was kind enough to publish.
3. Where can we find you and your work? (socials, blog, website)
You can find Rosie on her website - https://rosieoliver.wordpress.com/
Worlds Aligned by Terry Jackman
In Harpan’s Worlds, Harp faced his own personal history and its repercussions. In Worlds Aligned, he must deal with the results. Providing of course that he survives them.
So Worlds Aligned is a second glimpse of the humans who survive long after OldEarth is abandoned.
Buy the book here!
1. What inspired you to write this book?
I guess basically book one, Harpan's World, where I met 'Harp' (later Maxil Harpan) and knew his story was only just beginning.
To clarify, Worlds Aligned is book two of the Worlds Apart Collective, a history of future humanity and the evolution (or is that mutation) that results from scattering humans across the stars. Each story focuses on a different world (planet), its society, and the individual experiencing changes that will alter human futures.
2. What was your favourite part of writing it?
I think the first fun moment was in book one when Harp realises his spaceship crewmates have tricked him into being treated as a member of the ruling family when he volunteers to help with the aftermath of a pirate attack! But in book two it's maybe the moment he discharges the energy lighting up his arms into the rock face of the mountain he's survived to conceal the power he has used to save his escort before any rescuers arrive.
3. Where can we find you and your work? (socials, blog, website)
If you want to learn more about Terry Jackman, you can check out their work on Amazon or directly from Elsewhen Press.
Thanks for reading!
Want to keep in touch? Sign up for my newsletter or Find me around the web
Want to support my writing? Buy my collection: Thin Slices: A Collection of Horror Flash Fiction
Or: Help me buy more books on Ko-fi
Thanks for reading!
Want to keep in touch? Sign up for my newsletter or Find me around the web
Want to support my writing? Buy my collection: Thin Slices: A Collection of Horror Flash Fiction
Or: Help me buy more books on Ko-fi
Comments
Post a Comment