Episode 160: Breakfield & Burkey – Enigma Tracer

A chat with the writing team of Charles Breakfield and Rox Burkey about their long-running techno-thriller series, Enigma, and Enigma Tracer, first book in their new Enigma Heirs trilogy.

Website
enigmabookseries.com

Facebook
@TheEnigmaSeries

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@EnigmaSeries
@1rburkey

Instagram
@enigmabookseries

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Amazon Links for Engima Tracer
Amazon.com
Amazon.ca

About the Book

The clock is ticking … can Gracie uncover the truth?

Phillip Pliant is the wealthy opportunist plastics dealer, and CEO of Pliant Industries. He’s also a master thief—creating a pervasive threat to the manufacturing infrastructure in the Caribbean islands. With the cartel as his stealth client, the naïve city leaders have been seduced, enabling the production of more than 3-dimensional building materials.

And set the stage for massive chaos and destruction.

Pliant has locked up contracts, assets, and control of any future expansion. His contacts and clients salivate over their probable financial reward—the expected profits are monstrous.

Is the R-Group, now led by Gracie and the family heirs, strong enough to win against this predator? Can JJ’s CATS (Cyber Assassin Technology Services) act on the root-cause analysis in time?

  • Will the R-Group and CATS sabotage Pliant’s plan before it’s too late?
  • Can Jeff and Keith use their covert skills to put the bad guys away for good?
  • Will Gracie be able to squash Pliant and the cartels?

Can the chain of islands survive the underhanded tactics and threats? 

Gracie never considered their lives would hang in the balance between winning and losing. Will the devious plot be uncovered in time? The clock is ticking. Five … four … three …

About Breakfield & Burkey

Charles Breakfield works for a high-tech manufacturer as a solution architect, functioning in hybrid data/telecom environments. He considers himself a long-time technology geek, who also enjoys writing, studying World War II history, travel, and cultural exchanges. Charles’s love of wine tastings, cooking, and Harley riding has found its way into the stories. As a child, he moved often because of his father’s military career, which even helps him with the various character perspectives he brings to life in the series. He continues to try to teach Burkey
humor.


Rox Burkey works as a business architect who builds solutions for customers on a good technology foundation. As a child, she helped to lead the kids with exciting new adventures built on make-believe characters, was a Girl Scout until high school, and contributed to the community as a young member of a Head Start program. Rox enjoys family, learning, listening to people, travel, outdoor activities, sewing, cooking, and thinking about diversifying the series.

Together, they started writing non-fictional papers and books, but it wasn’t nearly as fun as writing fictional stories. They found it interesting to use the aspects of technology people are incorporating into their daily lives more and more as a perfect way to create a good guy/bad guy story, with elements of travel to the various places they have visited either professionally and personally, humour, romance, intrigue, and suspense, and a spirited way to remember people who have crossed paths with them. They love to talk about their stories with private and public book readings.

Burkey also conducts regular interviews with Texas authors, which she finds very interesting. Her first interview was, wait for it, Breakfield. You can often find them at local book fairs or other family-oriented events.

Episode 159: Steve Truitt – The Mindset Chronicles

A chat with author and former television host Steve Truitt about his new science fiction novel series, The Mindset Chronicles.

Website
stevetruitt.com

Facebook
@AuthorSteveTruitt

Amazon Links for The Deletion
Amazon.com
Amazon.ca

Steve Truitt’s Amazon Page

About the Book

In a world where artificial intelligence has become an integral part of daily life, the sudden death of all AI sends society into a tailspin – a disconnected, surreal post-AI period known as The Deletion. As the world struggles to come to terms with the loss, bad boy genius, Peter Eriksson, has invented a new form of interconnection called MindSet to reconnect the world in this strange new time. Conceived from a century-old concept, “Crowd Wisdom,” this revolutionary device links the minds of all of those who possess the necessary implants, becoming the only hope for humanity to rebuild and recover from the loss of AI.

But Bethany Okoyé—Peter’s part-time lover/part-time rival—remains leery of Peter’s devices and isn’t shy about making her opinion known.

It is only when humanity encounters a global challenge unlike any other, that the two must find a way to work together to address a threat that could endanger the very nature of reality itself.

With action, suspense, and thought-provoking themes, this science fiction novel explores the dangers of our reliance on technology and the possible consequences of a world without it, while also delving into the potential benefits and dangers of a mind-connected society.

About Steve Truitt

Steve Truitt has been hooked on science, science fiction, and the future since he was three years old and his mother sat him down in front of the TV to watch the launch of Apollo 11. An avid space enthusiast, NASA history buff, and flown-in-space memorabilia collector, he’s a proud member of the National Space Society and the Planetary Society and boast the impressive fact of having met five moonwalkers.

Steve has served as a Los Angeles TV news anchor and hosted such acclaimed science & technology programs as National Geographic’s The Human Edge and Discovery Channel’s Cool Stuff: How It Works. He’s also hosted Dream DecodersGround Rules!, and Sony Playstation’s annual coverage of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). He co-created and co-produced the renowned Discovery series Born Schizophrenic, which earned him and his team the CINE Foundation’s Golden Eagle Award for Excellence in documentary television. 

An avid Star Trek fan, he is also the co-creator and co-host of “Energize! A Star Trek Podcast,” which breaks down episodes of current Star Trek series. He even (after a determined letter-writing campaign) made a one-line appearance on Star Trek: Enterprise (Season 3, Episode 21).

Now a successful coach, trainer, and motivational speaker, Steve was awarded with the Reader Views Prize for Best Motivational Book of the Year for Stop Waiting For Permission!

His bestselling first novel, The Deletion, which examines life in a post-artificial intelligence world where a disconnected society scrambles for a solution thorough new form of interconnection called MindSet, came out last February. Book 2, The Spill,comes out this May.

He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and four daughters.

Episode 154: David Nabhan – Thinwalker

A chat with David Nabhan, author of the new far-future nanotechnological science fiction thriller Thinwalker from Stairway Press.

Website
earthquakepredictors.com

X/Twitter
@DaveNabhan

Facebook
@David.Nabhan

Amazon Links
Amazon.ca
Amazon.com

Publisher’s Book Page

About the Book

Eight hundred years from now and a hundred light years from Earth, at the periphery of a vast interstellar civilization, humanity itself is changing—each individual injected at birth with ‘nanites,’ marvels of nanoscale technology that function in ways that are indispensable for almost every important transaction in life. This nexus between biology and technology is at the point of transforming the core of what it means to be human, with the next generation of nanites to impinge on the very thoughts of Homo sapiens.

Not everyone acquiesces to this vision of what humanity is becoming. The Free Range—at the far fringes of the colonized Spiral Arm and settled by individualists, free-thinkers, humanists—opposes this biomechanization of the spirit, to the death. Their struggle to preserve their own identity, their faiths, to prevent the hivemind from overcoming their culture as well, has given rise to a terrific resistance which, unfortunately for the free rangers, is ending badly.

One young free ranger, Enguerrand Duprey, has been abducted and compelled to act as bounty hunter for one of the most powerful men among hundreds of billions. The impossible realm into which Enguerrand is sent and the unfathomable quarry he is forced to seek sets off a series of events that strains the very fabric of the cosmos itself, daring to put effect before cause and setting into motion the most frightening event imaginable, one that will change not one universe, but two, and exposing something age-changing about the very nature of nature itself.

“A far-future, nanotechnological ‘vaccination’ tale like none other—some thousand years from now and a hundred lightyears away.” — Times of Israel

“Terrifying, unpredictable, intelligent sci-fi ending not so much with a whimper but with an unfathomable bang.” — WOBH, Auckland, New Zealand

About David Nabhan

David Nabhan is a science and science fiction writer who has been featured on the air or in print on a remarkable number of news fonts in the US and elsewhere–television, radio, and newspapers. The airtime and/or column space was garnered on some of the most recognized media venues in existence many, many hundreds of times: CBS News, Popular Science, Inside Edition, RT Television, London Daily Mail, Thom Hartmann Show, UK’s Naked Scientists, Howard Stern Show, Drudge Report, MSNBC/Sirius Joe Madison, Los Angeles Daily News, San Francisco Examiner, etc.

He is the author of four books concerning earthquakes, peer-reviewed papers on the subject, and many, many scores of newspaper and magazine op-eds regarding earthquakes, hydraulic fracking, dams and mining, climate issues and other important topics published on three continents and in two languages.

Thinwalker is his second novel; his first, The Pilots of Borealis (Skyhorse Publishing/Talos Press) came out in 2015.

Episode 153: Mark Morton – The Headmasters

A chat with author Mark Morton about his new young adult dystopian science fiction novel, The Headmasters, published by Shadowpaw Press.

Website
markmorton.ca

X/Twitter
@NotromKram

Facebook
@Mark.Morton.Author

Amazon Links
Amazon.ca
Amazon.com

Publisher’s Book Page

About the Book

How do you learn from the past if there isn’t one? 

Sixty years ago, something awful happened. Something that killed everyone except the people at Blue Ring. Something that caused the Headmasters to appear. But Maple doesn’t know what it was. Because talking about the past is forbidden.

Everyone at Blue Ring has a Headmaster. They sink their sinewy coils into your skull and control you, using your body for backbreaking toil and your mind to communicate with each other.

When someone dies, their Headmaster transfers to someone new. But so do the dead person’s memories, and if one of those memories surfaces in the new host’s mind, their brain breaks. That’s why talking about the past is forbidden.

Maple hates this world where the past can’t exist and the future promises only more suffering. And she hates the Headmasters for making it that way. But she doesn’t know how to fight them – until memories start to surface in her mind from someone who long ago came close to defeating the Headmasters.

But whose memories are they? Why aren’t they harming her? And how can she use them to defeat the Headmasters? Maple has to find the answers herself, unable to tell anyone what she’s experiencing or planning—not even Thorn, the young man she’s falling in love with.

Thorn, who has some forbidden secrets of his own . . .

Praise for The Headmasters

“Mark Morton’s The Headmasters is a brilliant science-fiction debut from one of Canada’s best-loved nonfiction writers. This compelling YA novel is a spot-on updating of Robert A. Heinlein’s classic The Puppet Masters for the new millennium, with intricate world-building, a great science-fiction puzzle, and — ironic for a novel about suppressed memories — a main character you’ll never forget. I loved it.” — Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of The Downloaded

About Mark Morton

Mark Morton is the author of four non-fiction titles: Cupboard Love: A Dictionary of Culinary Curiosities (nominated for a Julia Child Award); The End: Closing Words for a Millennium (winner of the Alexander Isbister Award for nonfiction); The Lover’s Tongue: A Merry Romp Through the Language of Love and Sex (republished in the UK as Dirty Words), and Cooking with Shakespeare. He’s also written more than fiftycolumns for Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture (University of California Press) and has written and broadcast more than a hundred columns about language and culture for CBC Radio.

Mark has a PhD in sixteenth-century literature from the University of Toronto and has taught at several universities in France and Canada. He currently works at the University of Waterloo. He and his wife, Melanie Cameron, (also an author) have four children, three dogs, one rabbit, and no time.

The Headmasters is his debut novel.

Episode 152: Nir Yaniv – The Good Soldier

A long chat with author Nir Yaniv about his new humorous, satirical military science fiction novel, The Good Soldier: “M*A*S*H meets Starship Troopers in outer space,” published by Shadowpaw Press.

Website
niryaniv.com

X/Twitter
@TheNirYaniv

Instagram
@nyfiction

Amazon links
Amazon.com
Amazon.ca

Publisher’s Book Page

Nir Yaniv’s Amazon Page

About the Book

The Imperial Navy has long been at war. It is a well-oiled machine, a mighty galactic power in which nothing can go wrong.

Enter Pre-Private Joseph Fux, self-proclaimed Idiot, Second Class.

When Fux arrives on board the light frigate UPS Spitz, things immediately begin to go wrong. It’s not Fux’s fault. It never is. Accidents just happen when he’s around, despite the best intentions.

And as the always-cheerful Fux bungles his way through one job after another, he throws the whole ship and its orderly crew into chaos. No one is left unscathed: not the responsible and lonely Lt. Lipton, grieving for his lost love; not the mercilessly logical Doctor Nightingale, who may or may not be Lipton’s current romantic interest; not the overzealous Ensign Berseker, or the pompous political officer, Commander Kapust. Not even the hidden, monstrous Captain.

Knowingly or not, Fux is an agent of resistance, his blind stupidity the only sane response to the insanity of war. Something’s gotta give, and the tiny spanner-in-the-works that is Fux threatens at last to destroy the entire machinery of the Galactic Empire . . .

“In this amiable satire of the gung-ho heroics of military sci-fi, Yaniv (coauthor of The Tel Aviv Dossier) sets a seeming simpleton against an immense empire, and the contest is hardly fair . . . (A)n amusing alternative to the usual run of martial marvels and battle-tested warriors. Military SF fans will enjoy this gentle roasting.” – Publishers Weekly

“Drawing on a tradition of anti-war fiction and his own military experience, Nir Yaniv meshes together classical American gung-ho SF with the delightful absurdism of European literature to create an unforgettable far-future fable for our times. Think M.A.S.H. in space, and you’ll come closest to capturing the spirit of The Good Soldier, but you’ll have to enmesh yourself in the (mis)adventures of Idiot-First-Class Fux and company of the good ship Spitz to find out for yourself. This is one explosive novel you do not want to miss!” – Lavie Tidhar, award-winning author of Central Station and Neom

“A madcap dystopian satire that shoulders its way into the ranks of Bill the Galactic Hero and Catch-22, then stands sloppily at attention as it smirks in the face of an apoplectic political officer.” – Alex Shvartsman, Award-Winning Author of The Middling Affliction and Eridani’s Crown

“I really enjoyed this: a rattling, SFnal updating of The Good Soldier Švejk via Starship Troopers (as it might be: Švejkship Troopers): funny, pointed, readable, a subversive depiction of the futility of war and a satire on the perennial logic of the military mind and the structures of the army. Fux is a wonderful anti-hero: a buffoon and an idiot (‘second class’) but also an everyman. Highly recommended.” – Adam Roberts, award-winning author of Jack Glass

About Nir Yaniv

Nir Yaniv, author of The Good Soldier, is an Israeli-born multidisciplinary artist living in Los Angeles. He’s an author, a musician, an illustrator, and a filmmaker. He founded Israel’s first online science fiction magazine and served as its chief editor for ten years, after which he moved on to editing a printed genre magazine. He collaborated with World Fantasy Award-winning author Lavie Tidhar on two novels, including the “deranged sci-fi extravaganza” (per The Jewish QuarterlyThe Tel Aviv Dossier, and his English- language collection The Love Machine & Other Contraptions was published by Infinity Plus in 2012. His most recent Hebrew novel, King of Jerusalem, was published in Israel in 2019. His short stories have appeared in Weird TalesApex, and ChiZine, among others.

Nir’s musical career includes soundtracks for film, dance shows, and theater. His most recent work is the voice-and-drums animated album The Voice Remains (LifeArt Music, 2021). Nir has also directed several short films and music videos, both live-action and animated.

Episode 151: Robert J. Sawyer – The Downloaded

A chat with Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Robert J. Sawyer about his latest novel, The Downloaded, now available as an Audible original audiobook and coming in print from Shadowpaw Press on May 7, 2024.

Website
sfwriter.com

Amazon links
Amazon.com
Amazon.cahttps://youtu.be/H5pURHwuGg0

Publisher’s book page

Robert J. Sawyer’s Amazon Page

About the Book

The new novel by Canada’s top Science Fiction writer

In 2059 two very different groups have their minds uploaded into a quantum computer in Waterloo, Ontario.

One group consists of astronauts preparing for Earth’s first interstellar voyage. The other? Convicted murderers, serving their sentences in a virtual-reality prison.

But when disaster strikes, the astronauts and the prisoners must download back into physical reality and find a way to work together to save Earth from destruction.

The Downloaded debuted in a six-month exclusive window as an Audible Original narrated by Academy Award-winner Brendan Fraser promoted by national TV and radio ad campaigns. This print edition is coming out immediately after Audible’s exclusivity ends and is being supported by a six-city cross-Canada author book tour.

“The Downloaded absolutely sizzles with fascinating ideas. You want space travel, a ruined Earth, virtual worlds, a cast of relatable characters, and a glimpse into the labyrinth of human destiny? Look no further: this book has all that and more.” —Robert Charles Wilson, Hugo Award-winning author of Spin

“The Downloaded is a wonderful demonstration of Sawyer’s deep understanding of — and compassion for — people, regardless who or what they are, or even what they have done. It’s a rare and potent humanity that elevates his work high above the rest.” —Julie E. Czerneda, Aurora Award-winning author of To Each This World

“In The Downloaded, Sawyer proves he’s not just a master at using science fiction to address social issues but also a master at portraying diverse characters.” —James Alan Gardner, Theodore Sturgeon Award-winning author of Commitment Hour

“The Downloaded is a wicked-smart thrill ride from start to finish. I loved it.” —Sylvain Neuvel, bestselling author of A History of What Comes Next

“One of the best SF novels I’ve read in years.” —Allen Steele, Hugo Award-winning author of Coyote

About Robert J. Sawyer

Photo by Carolyn Clink

Robert J. Sawyer–“the dean of Canadian science fiction,” according to the CBC, and a Globe and Mail and Maclean’sbestseller–is the only Canadian to have won all three of the world’s top awards for best science-fiction novel of the year: the Hugo, the Nebula, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. A member of both The Order of Canada and The Order of Ontario, Rob has won more Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards (“Auroras”) than anyone else in history. The ABC TV series FlashForward was based on his novel of the same name; The Downloaded is his twenty-fifth novel.

A popular TEDx and keynote speaker with over 700 radio and TV interviews under his belt, Rob physically lives in Mississauga, and in cyberspace, he’s at sfwriter.com.

Episode 141: Hayden Trenholm

An hour-long conversation with Hayden Trenholm, award-winning playwright, novelist, and short-story writer and member of the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association Hall of Fame.

Website
haydentrenholm.com

X
@HaydenTrenholm

Hayden Trenholm’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

Hayden Trenholm is an award-winning playwright, novelist, and short story writer. He has also been a public servant, an actor, a bartender, a freelance researcher and consultant, and a telemarketer for Alberta Ballet.  His short fiction has appeared in many magazines, including Analog Science Fiction and Fact, anthologies such as The Sum of Us and Strangers Among Us, and on CBC radio.

His first novel, A Circle of Birds, won the 3-Day Novel Writing competition in 1993; it was later translated and published in French. Each book in his trilogy, The Steele Chronicles, was nominated for an Aurora Award. Stealing Home, the third book, was a finalist for the Sunburst Award.

Hayden has won five Aurora Awards – three times for short fiction and twice for editing anthologies. He purchased Bundoran Press in 2012 and was its managing editor until the press closed in 2020.

He lives with his wife and fellow writer, Liz Westbrook-Trenholm, in Ottawa, having retired in 2017 after fifteen years as a policy adviser to the Senator for the Northwest Territories. In 2022, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association Hall of Fame.

Episode 138: Evan Graham

An hour-long chat with Evan Graham, author of the Calling Void series of science fiction stories and the new novel Tantalus Depths.

Website
evangraham.org

Facebook
@AuthorEvanGraham

Twitter
@evanmgraham

Evan Graham’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

Evan Graham consistently refuses to seek help for his lifelong sci-fi addiction. Since there are not enough stories currently in existence to satisfy him, he had no choice but to start writing his own. His Calling Void stories “celebrating the wonder and terror of the Unknown” have been featured in multiple anthologies. Tantalus Depths is his debut novel, set in the same world.

He has a bachelor’s in Education Studies from Kent State University and resides in rural northeast Ohio.

Episode 137: M.C.A. Hogarth

An hour-long interview with M.C.A. Hogarth, prolific and award-nominated science fiction/fantasy author and artist.

Website
mcahogarth.org

Twitter
@mcahogarth

M.C.A. Hogarth’s Amazon page

The Introduction

Daughter of two Cuban political exiles, M.C.A. Hogarth was born a foreigner in the American melting pot and has had a fascination for the gaps in cultures and the bridges that span them ever since. She has been many things—web database architect, product manager, technical writer, and massage therapist—but is currently a full-time parent, artist, writer, and anthropologist to aliens, both human and otherwise.

Her fiction has variously been recommended for a Nebula, a finalist for the Spectrum, placed on the Tiptree long list and chosen for two best-of anthologies; her art has appeared in RPGs, in magazines, and on book covers. M.C.A. Hogarth also served as Vice President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) for three years.

Her current focus is new business models for artists and independent marketing and distribution innovations. Her first crowdfunded fiction project kicked off in 2004 before the word was even coined. M.C.A. has experimented with everything from “choose-your-own-adventure” style serials online to kickstarting creative projects and is looking forward to future experiments in using technology to bring art directly to the audience.

You can find her bio pages on WikipediaTVTropes and WikiFur.

A Selection of Book Covers

Episode 130: James S. Peet

An hour-long chat with James S. Peet, author of the Corps of Discovery science fiction series, set in the multiverse.

Website
jamespeet.com

Facebook

James S. Peet’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

James S. Peet is a modern-day Renaissance Man. He’s lived on four continents in six countries and visited countless more. He’s been a National Park Service Ranger, a police officer, a tow-truck driver, a college instructor, a private investigator, a fraud examiner/forensic accountant, an inventor (the Simple Shower–sold on Amazon!), and an entrepreneur. He’s walked the Camino de Santiago (two short ones and the long one from St. Jean Pied de Port to Muxia), a walkabout he highly recommends (and wrote a cookbook for his second Camino walk–it’s also on Amazon).

He lives on the top of a small mountain in the foothills of Washington’s Cascade Mountains with his wife, dogs, barn cats, and whatever adult daughter returns to the nest. He’s attended ten colleges and universities, two law enforcement academies, and has three degrees (all in geography) and multiple certificates (he really likes learning).

His Corps of Discovery series is set in the multiverse. His other writing endeavors include several articles on modern sea piracy, economics, and the private investigation of fraud.