A.L. Butcher's Blog, page 55

Swift Six Author Interview

Name: Thomas KastPlease introduce yourself (250 words or so):

Hello, I’m Thomas Kast, and I write absurdist philosophical science fiction. I’m also the author and illustrator of Bablah’s Odyssey — an upcoming comic book series.

Tell us about your book(s) – title, genre etc (short)

The Great Convergence: science fiction and social satire. Two competing academics living ten million years in the future travel back in time to 2022, wrecking reality in the course of their investigation into a mysterious event — the Great Convergence.

When did you start your writing adventure? What was the inspiration for it?

Frankly, I don’t even remember how did it start. The Great Convergence took me about ten years to complete until I was happy enough with it to release it into the wild. It went through several editors and iterations.

I wanted to create a book that can be enjoyed, read and re-read and could give the reader a memorable experience. I’ve noticed that most contemporary sci-fi often ventures into the strictly commercial territory. Not entirely happy with this trend, I wanted to use science fiction as a vehicle to highlight many social and philosophical problems, but with a healthy dose of humour.

There are several recurring themes in my book, which result from observing and analysing the world around me. One of those inspirations would be stupidity. It’s a subject that has always fascinated me. All of my characters make inexplicably unwise and shortsighted decisions despite being exceptionally smart (some of them). Superheroes are great but, often being no more than mere archetypes, they often lack humanity. It’s the crazy ones who provide all the fun.

Another recurring theme in my book inspired by real-world observation is miscommunication. My characters are all stuck in uncomfortable situations. Constantly missing the point, they don’t understand each other’s motives, and they’re unable put themselves in someone else’s shoes. They oscillate between being inordinately overconfident or hopelessly insecure but can never think on two feet. Above and beyond, they’re blinded by their personal goals they consider of great consequence and which are insignificant and trivial. As irony would have it, they all have a profoundly important part to play on the universe’s stage — something they’re never to discover.

What writing plans do you have for the future?

Currently, I’m working on the humorous and philosophical comic book series Bablah’s Odyssey, which is scheduled for release in August 2022. Bablah’s Odyssey features a mad scientist, lord Bablah as he traverses the universe, mansplaining the ‘wonders of progress and civilisation’ to his unassertive yet perceptive mutant sidekick, the Pet-Thing. It’s colourful, psychedelic and contains a lot of irony and dark humour. I’m both a writer and illustrator.

I’m also working on another sci-fi mystery: Apoptosis. But this will take me another year to complete.

What piece of advice do you wish you’d had when you’d started your writing adventure?

Someone asked me once: ’Is there a market for what you write?’ To which, I replied: ‘I hope there isn’t’. I believe the writer should create demand rather than try to fit into an existing trend. This is what all successful writers do. The unsuccessful ones will advise you to ‘write for the market’. There’s a strong need for original content that breaks the rules instead of following them. Write a good book, get your tea-box out and yell about it.

Bio:

Thomas Kast is an award-winning independent photojournalist and illustrator based in Zurich, Switzerland and has published a number of photography art books. Thomas spent a big part of his life in Israel, where he taught design, photography and illustration at the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design and other Israeli colleges.

A long time in the making, his debut novel — a philosophical science fiction piece, the Great Convergence — evokes many of the author’s real-life experiences fused with his unhinged fantasies.

Synopsis:

10.000.002 A.D. A cantankerous scholar slipping into obscurity is out for revenge. He time-travels to the year 2022 to stop his nemesis, Scott — a successful scientist at a competing university — from thwarting his research into the origin of a mysterious phenomenon, the Great Convergence. Cunning and ruthless, Scott will stop at nothing to defend his tenure track. The feud quickly spins out of control, and the damage to reality grows unchecked.

Caught in the crosshairs are three characters responsible for triggering the Great Convergence: an art-hating professional art critic who, unbeknownst to him, spontaneously switches between universes wreaking havoc as he goes; a talentless artist whose sculptures act as trans-universal portals; and a schizophrenic astrophysicist trying to avert the invasion of alternate versions of himself from different realities. As their paths converge, the apocalyptic event takes place, and the inescapable tragedy of human existence unfolds. 

Links:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B099Z5KH33

Personal website: https://thomaskast.com

Writings: https://thomaskast.space

Comic Books: https://thomaskast.space/bablahs-odyssey

FB: https://www.facebook.com/Swift.Bromba

Swift Six Character Interview – The Unnamed #ScienceFiction

Character Name:

My name isn’t mentioned anywhere.

Which book/world do you live in?

I live in the year 10.000.002 in a small house we share with my wife Trudy and our pet frog Rupert. Like everyone else, I keep a battered time machine in our garage. Since I’m constantly busy with work, we don’t travel much.

The university I work at is run as a for-profit corporation, where science and progress are just side-effects of a cut-throat fight for personal advancement and prestige. At the university, there’s a lab where scientists grow universes to experiment upon. There’s an old, baroque-like fountain spewing streams of time instead of water in the university’s courtyard. There is also a site with portals connecting different universes, much like the Four Corners Monument in the US. It’s frequented by tourists taking selfies with a hand in one universe and a leg in another. Everybody keeps a time machine in a garage.

I relate the time travel history in one of the appendixes.

Tell us about yourself:

My name is not important. Neither is what I do — I’m an investigative ontology researcher. It’s a field you’ve probably never heard of, at a comparatively undistinguished university you’ve definitely never heard of.

In my line of work, I periodically declare scholarly pronouncements in the form of scientific articles no one has any interest in, except my fellow academics who cursorily thumb through and subsequently evaluate my work based on their ever-fluctuating level of pettiness and professional jealousy.

Long story short, I’m an alcoholic …

What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?

I’m persistent, I’m an idealist, and, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary — I’m exceptionally good at what I do. You’ll have to take my word for it. As for weaknesses, I’ve none. I do have a nemesis, though — Scott — my ex-PhD fellow student, currently a quantum semantics investigator at the Bauer-Richter Academy of Speculative Sciences — our direct competitors.

Here’s Scott’s short bio. Not long ago, Scott bursts out of an abyss of ignorance and joins the ranks of our university as a PhD student. He spends his time doing absolutely nothing apart from toadying to our supervising professor. All the while, he turns my life into an unendurable Gehenna. The reason? No reason at all. Eventually, Scott defects to Bauer-Richter, taking with him many collectively developed ideas, which he then claims as his own.

Now I’m left to fight for the scientific truth, which I will, whatever it takes.

Name three important people/creatures/institutions in your world (such as lovers, pets, government institutions, leaders, gods etc).

Here are the three characters living in 2022 who caused the Great Convergence.

Larry: a highly-regarded professional art critic who projects his frustrations onto the artworks he doesn’t even bother to see. Unbeknownst to him, Larry is a singular. A singular denotes an object or a person that can only inhabit a single universe at a given moment. In other words, only one version of Larry exists in the whole multiverse. Larry often switches between several universes wreaking havoc as he goes. Larry’s spontaneous flings between different realities are exacerbated by the crude creations produced by a tormented sculptor — Geoffrey.

Geoffrey: an aspiring — yet essentially talentless artist living in denial. Geoffrey’s sculptures, he cranks out to impress a girl he fancies, act as interdimensional portals, swapping things and people between realities. All of this happens without Geoffrey’s knowledge. A series of seemingly-random occurrences culminate in creating a perfect inter-dimensional portal connecting all the universes in existence. Geoffrey’s perfect portal brings about the most dramatic transformation of the multiverse — the Great Convergence.

Timothy: a genius astrophysicist suffering from severe schizophrenia. Timothy fights a host of his versions from alternate realities — who want to take over his universe. It remains unclear whether Timothy’s versions are real or exist in his imagination. One way or another, Timothy’s actions bring about a real-life catastrophe no one could have prevented.

What does ‘heroism’ mean to you?

Perseverance in the face of adversity. I’m not afraid of hard work, however daunting the task at hand. I believe in the triumph of science and that it’s possible to learn the principles governing the Great Convergence. To master the quintessence of existence. Unearth the building blocks of nature. Look into the eyes of the beast. Hypnotise it. Discover … everything!

What do you think of your ‘creator’?

What creator? I’m not a character in a book. Unlike fictional characters, I control the reality around me. Everything I do has a real impact on the real world.

Give us your favourite piece of advice:

Keep fighting the good fight. You’re always right, and everyone else is wrong. If you do, the truth will prevail!

Links to the book:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B099Z5KH33

*****

Book Spotlight – The Great Convergence – Thomas Kast #Sci-fi #Satire

Title: The Great ConvergenceAuthor: Thomas KastGenre: Science fiction, satireMain character description (short):

The unnamed narrator lives ten million years in the future. Stuck in a dead-end academic position, he time-travels to the year 2022 to find proof validating his research, but mainly to prevail over Scott — his arch-nemesis and a researcher at a competing university. The rivalry between the scientists quickly spins out of control. The Narrator and Scott remain focused on being right, even if this means endangering the universe’s fate.
Through the narrator’s flashbacks, the reader gets a glimpse of the world ten million years from now. It’s a world in which technology is indistinguishable from magic. It is also a world ruled by stupidity, jealousy, pettiness and shortsighted spite — much like our own.

Synopsis:

10.000.002 A.D. A cantankerous scholar slipping into obscurity is out for revenge. He time-travels to the year 2022 to stop his nemesis, Scott — a successful scientist at a competing university — from thwarting his research into the origin of a mysterious phenomenon, the Great Convergence. Cunning and ruthless, Scott will stop at nothing to defend his tenure track. The feud quickly spins out of control, and the damage to reality grows unchecked.

Caught in the crosshairs are three characters responsible for triggering the Great Convergence: an art-hating professional art critic who, unbeknownst to him, spontaneously switches between universes wreaking havoc as he goes; a talentless artist whose sculptures act as trans-universal portals; and a schizophrenic astrophysicist trying to avert the invasion of alternate versions of himself from different realities. As their paths converge, the apocalyptic event takes place, and the inescapable tragedy of human existence unfolds. 

Brief Excerpt 250 words:

There is an old legend which originated in the Lacerta Cantus Nebula. It explains how most universes got their shape. It goes like this:

A long time ago, there was a school for young Gods. At the beginning of each learning season, each God would get his universe to study and play with under the keen eye of the instructor. On balance, the universes were sturdy pieces of work. They could take a lot of damage, often reversible, but not always. And there was a lot of damaging going on, because not all the Gods treated their universes well.

The school programme was brief and much to the point. Gods graduated quickly and moved onto different matters with far-reaching consequences. They’d leave their universes behind, to be studied and played with by the next generation of deities. This would go on and on until the universes would become altogether unusable. What would happen to the battered, pass-me-down universe nobody wanted anymore? The legend doesn’t say.

Why should readers buy this book (50 words max)?

A subversive philosophical science fiction and social satire, the Great Convergence will take you out of your comfort zone, exposing the absurdity of many ethical and intellectual ideals. If you like the wry humour of Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams or the philosophical insights of Stanislaw Lem, you’ll enjoy it too.

Links:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B099Z5KH33

Personal website: https://thomaskast.com

Writings: https://thomaskast.space

Comic Books: https://thomaskast.space/bablahs-odyssey

FB: https://www.facebook.com/Swift.Bromba

Summertime Blues #Audiobook Event 7-9th July #Giveaway

A select group of authors has joined forces with me

To bring you amazing stories, beautifully narrated.

Looking for your new favorite story? 

Come listen to our audiobooks 

And join us as a GOING guest for a chance to win it:

https://www.facebook.com/events/3226923984292472

Excerpt – So Many Nights, So Many Sins – A Vampire’s Tale

Excerpt – So Many Nights, So Many Sins – A Vampire’s Tale

From Dark Tales and Twisted Verses (c) A. L. Butcher

Amber firelight flickered in the small grate, casting a dancing pattern on the grubby walls of the cellar-bar known as The Cavern. It was, some said, hypnotic; others said the fire heard and saw all – for even in summer it was never truly out, merely banked to embers. Fire had been the friend and enemy of man since Prometheus snatched it from the gods, and this particular blaze had been smouldering for years. Some said decades, even centuries, and that it watched all that went on. Whether this was true Wolfgang had no idea, but it was not a normal fire, and such tales served his purpose.

The Cavern had stood on this spot for at least three hundred years, and before this, various structures from longhouse to army tent to inn had been in the vicinity. This land was old, saturated with history. And blood. Battles had been fought, lives taken, lost and even given and through it, all the Cavern stood in one form or another, and its fire burned. Creatures who lived in the twilight world of the undead were drawn to this place. Perhaps it was the blood, perhaps there was something special here. Life was a lure, to those who possessed a parody of it, but in truth, no one really knew or dared to discover. It was the sort of place no one asked too many questions or expected honest answers and so those patrons with things to hide and enemies aplenty caroused in The Cavern in an uneasy truce. The fire saw all, and so did its current keeper. For now, both the fire and The Cavern had Wolfgang’s undead patronage, and both knew it.

Wolfgang Feuerleiben turned his bright hazel eyes despondently towards the blaze and shivered; as usual, he could not seem to get warm even close as he was to it. This place, generally, was cold, as old buildings often were, even with the impressive blaze. Wolfgang had no internal heat, nor did any of his kind; but habits are hard to shake and even a vampire likes to be warm. Bodies with no inward heat found themselves stiff and slow and it wasn’t like a vampire could bask in the sun. Wolfgang surmised it was a throwback to his human past. Memories faded, became corrupted or were forgotten; it was a curse and a blessing – an elder had told him. Wolfgang considered this – ‘memories went with morality. One could not be haunted if one had no memory of past sins and past transgressions’ the Elder had said. Yet almost all his kind suffered nightmares – or rather daymares and the Vampire Scholar who’d propounded his theory had died raving in a fire of his own making. Driven mad by the guilt of split blood. It was hard to be a monster. And much, much harder to be a monster pretending to be a man.

Synopsis

Dark tales of ghosts of war, blood from the Autumn of Terror, the wrath of nature, an unusual murder and a cynical vampire. Twisted poetry of loss and mayhem.
Some adult themes and language.

Winner of the NN Light Book Heaven Award for Short Stories 2021

https://books2read.com/DarkTalesTwistedVerses

Excerpt – The Abode of Woe – Mystics in Hell

From the Abode of Woe – A. L. Butcher featured in Mystics in Hell

Cassandra, daughter of a king and prophetess of Troy, whose visions had foretold the fall of the city-state, pronounced, “I see mayhem on our doorstep. And death. Everywhere I look I see death, but it does not take a seer to foretell that.”

She stopped, gazing into the distance, and her voice went low. “That building will fall, and if it does, we will be the gainers, Calchas. I see it as a shell, nothing more, a giant hell-stone monster sinking into the mud. And one that will bring the customers our way. No one will dare attack or question us again. We will find some sanctuary with the spitter-of-fire and the bringer of death.”

Calchas shrugged, “It’s hell, we are all dead, child. And that fool Henry Prince will bring strife to our door, without a doubt. Why the Department of Disassembly and Destruction granted him that misplanning permission I have no idea, but it’s ruining our business. No one wants to game with that noise melting the eardrums. Look at the damned place . . . it’s ugly. That’s not even a real temple.

“It has no finesse; temples are here for those brave enough to venture down that particular route.” Calchas was not convinced the temple would be easy to get rid of and shook his head.

He called to a figure scurrying past their door in soiled monkish robes. “Assisi –– what think you of yonder building? It shall kill business, think you?”

The monk paused and kicked at something near his foot. “That it will – and bring the rats, and the hell-cats and all manner of beasties. I hate animals, but they love me,” the old man grumbled. He glared at the partially built monstrosity. “Tis ugly. Everything in Hell is ugly.”

“Probably, but what is there to do, Assisi?” Calchas asked his neighbor, eying the man with some pity.

“Buggered if I know,” responded the old fallen saint, and went on his way, shivering at the thought of all the hell-creatures on his doorstep.

Synopsis

Join the doomed on their vision quests in eleven stories by the damnedest writers in Perdition: Janet Morris; A.L. Butcher; Joe Bonadonna; Andrew P. Weston; Gustavo Bondoni; Seth Lindberg; Tom Barczak; Michael H. Hanson; Louis Antonelli; Christopher Crosby Morris.

https://books2read.com/MysticsInHell

N. N. Light’s Book Heaven Celebrate Audiobook Month

Are you an audiobook addict? June is audiobook month and there’s a huge event going on at N. N. Light’s Book Heaven Celebrate Audiobook Month. 31 audiobooks featured plus a chance to win a $75 Amazon US or CA gift card.

I’m thrilled to be a part of this event. My audiobook, The Light Beyond the Storm Chronicles, will be featured on 7th June. Wait until you listen to my audiobook clip. My narrator nails the characters and I’m so proud of it. Trust me, you won’t want to miss it.

Bookmark this festival and tell your friends:

https://www.nnlightsbookheaven.com/celebrate-audiobook-month

Excerpt – The Watcher – A.L. Butcher #Horror #Darkfantasy #HistoricalFiction

Excerpt The Watcher – A Jack the Ripper Tale (c) A. L. Butcher

There she was, that whore. Once more. There she was.

Beneath the flickering gas lamp at the corner of Dorset Street, Whitechapel, she strode, grinning a seductive smile at a passing sailor, just ashore and looking for company. He, as bad as the bitch whose breasts he felt and whose ear he nipped with yellowing teeth, the unseen Watcher thought. With eyes burning hatred and a menace previously unseen and misunderstood. It was, he thought, a righteous hatred, and they blaze all the brighter for it. The beast within told him so. For he was the beast and he was its creature, at once the same.

She could have been twenty or forty; the Watcher neither knew nor cared. She’d not see another year, another week, another night. The dim streets grew ever wickeder to those of her sort spreading around their sin, their poison. Defiling this town, this land, defiling HER. The Watcher shook his head; no more whores and this place would rise like the jewel it was. Not jaded and dull but glorious and fit for a queen. The beast within whispered in his head. “Cleanse this town, make it fit again.” And so he did. A knife in the darkness, once more.

Geneva liquor and poverty aged a person far better than mere passing of the years. In the greatest Empire on Earth, they blighted the land. Gin palaces, opium dens, and hash houses aplenty gave heaven and hell to those with money, and those without. Life was cheap, and oblivion cheaper. The Watcher knew these unfortunates dropped their drawers for a taste of it, panting and moaning beneath the bridges and in the alleys, with their grunting men, and their penny a tumble.

The sailor moved on. He’d had his pleasure with another of her kind and spent his last pennies in the tavern, and she was here to work.  Nothing was free in her line of employment. Except for death.

So there she was, alone. Death walked these streets – and tonight it watched the red-haired whore, who sang and smiled and patted her new bonnet. There she was. The whore. Alone.

The minutes passed, creeping towards death; ebbing away from heaven and him ever closer to immortality. The whore did not know it. Of course, she’d heard the tales, everyone had. Screamed by newsboys on every corner “another ‘orrible murder” but rent still needed to be paid. And so she plied her trade. Afraid. Denying it would be her turn this night. A whore, alone.

Another night, another customer. Fear curled in her belly; these streets were streets of blood, four of her sisters slain in just a few weeks. But hunger was the greater force. Desperation made Mary-Jane brave – so she walked the streets, as she had often done. It wouldn’t be her, she thought. As they had. It couldn’t be her. Besides the police watched the alleys and the thoroughfares. The streets were largely empty, save the desperate and the foolhardy, and those too much in drink or lust to know or care.

The Watcher stood, beyond the pool of light from the gas lamp. This night was his. She would be his. This woman wasn’t as much a drab as some of her sisters-in-sin. Lust rose, entwined with his loathing. Two joined as one, desire and disgust, powerful and compelling. He’d never understood why they went together, but then he was a simple man, not one of the mind-doctors who had been so influential of late. The beast within did not care. Lust and hatred, pain and desire…bound so close he could experience little else when the darkness overtook him. Now, however, he watched.

The hunt was almost as enthralling as the kill; the knowledge of their fear, their desperation, and yet still they strutted themselves, offering a screw in the alleys and passages of the East End, and more if the customer had money and the taste for it. Filthy strumpets, he’d said to any who’d listen. Never did he consider the terrible choices they made. Never did he consider their choice was no real choice. What cared he for desperation and poverty? Respectable women did not sell their bodies. They kept sex for the marriage bed. SHE did – his icon, the woman he loved above all others.

The whores’ sins, the watcher thought, was what damned them. And they would pay, in this world and the next. He’d save London. He’d save it for HER. Blood would cleanse the streets.

Synopsis

The year is 1888, and the place is Whitechapel, in the very heart of London. But the heart is bleeding. A mysterious killer is stalking women of the streets – his true name is unknown, but his legend will go down in history. This is a short tale of Jack the Ripper.

18 rated for scenes of violence.

https://www.books2read.com/TheWatcherJTR

Eggo’s Van ‘N Lied

Legaat van die Masker Verhale

Waansin, obsessie en die legaat van die verlede verweef hul towerspreuke in hierdie kort, tragiese verhaal gebaseer op die Phantom of the Opera.

’n Dosyn onstuimige jare ná die dramatiese gebeure by die Paryse Operahuis word Raoul, Comte de Chagny steeds deur die misteriese Operaspook gespook – die skepsel van legende wat personeel by die Operahuis onder sy knegskap gehou het, Raoul se minnares ontvoer en sy broer vermoor het. In Raoul se onrustige verbeelding is die spoke van die verlede oral, en vreemde en kragtige musiek besoek steeds in sy drome.

#FIKSIE #FantasieHistories , #Kortverhale (enkel skrywer), #HistorieseFantasie, #PhantomoftheOpera, #Fantoom, #Kortfiksie
https://books2read.com/Echoes-Afrikaans

Swift Six Character Interview – Trish Penchant

Character Name: Trish Penchant

Which book/world do you live in? Penchant for Trouble

Tell us about yourself: There’s a lot about myself that I can’t tell just anyone. Although more and more people are finding out. Freaks me out a bit, but there’s nothing I can do about it. As for what I can tell you… I’m 16. Just moved in with new foster parents. I’m sure they’re going to be great. Not. But you never know, maybe these will be the ones.

What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses? I’m independent. Some people would probably say that’s both my greatest strength, and my greatest weakness.

Name three important people/creatures/institutions in your world (such as lovers, pets, government institutions, leaders, gods etc). You’re going to think I’m crazy, but plants and I have a history. And also the fae, but you didn’t hear that from me. As for people, it’s back to that whole independent thing. Sure, these foster parents seem great on the surface, but I’ve been there before.

What does ‘heroism’ mean to you? It means you’re crazy. Other people wouldn’t stick out their neck for you, why would you for them? I mean, I’ve seen some people do it, in history class or whatever, but I just don’t know… What would it take to make me a hero? That’s something I don’t have an answer to.

What do you think of your ‘creator’? She’s okay, I guess. Gave me some pretty epic abilities, so I’m okay with her.

Give us your favourite piece of advice:

I’m not one to listen to advice unless it’s from someone I respect. And at the moment, I don’t have any of those.