Swift Six Author Interview – Forrest E. Morgan
Name: Forrest E. Morgan
Please introduce yourself (250 words or so): In short, I am twice retired and still working. My first career was as a U.S. Air Force officer, where I served for 27 years, first as an intelligence analyst, then as a space operations officer, and finally as a professor at the Air Force’s strategy school: the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. I started my military career at the bottom, enlisting as an airman basic, and ultimately reached the rank of lieutenant colonel. After retiring from the Air Force, I worked for 16 years as a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation doing strategy and doctrine research for the Air Force and other national security clients. Now I am a senior lecturer in the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology, Carnegie Mellon University. I also write fiction and non-fiction. It was while doing research in military applications of artificial intelligence for the Air Force that I was inspired to write my latest novel, The Synthetic Woman.
I was born in High Point, North Carolina, but grew up in a blue-colar neighborhood outside of Detroit, Michigan. My father was a factory worker in the auto industry. Having done a career in the military, I have lived in many places. I currently live outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Tell us about your book(s) – title, genre etc (short) I am the author or co-author of numerous non-fiction books. My first book, Living the Martial Way, was published in 1992 and sold over 125,000 copies. It has been described as a classic in martial arts philosophy. As a national security researcher and academic, I have numerous other books and published papers to my credit. None have sold like my first book, but some have influenced U.S. national policies with excerpts appearing in the Department of Defense Space Strategy and the latest U.S. National Space Policy.
I have also written two novels. The first, Waking the Snow Leopard, is an international thriller about a man caught in a tug-of-war between rival sects of a secret religious order that controls the world. The second, The Synthetic Woman, is a near-future science fiction about a the relationship between a man and his romantic partner, who is a sentient android.
When did you start your writing adventure? What was the inspiration for it? As mentioned above, my first book was Living the Martial Way, a treatise on martial arts philosophy. I wrote it after practicing and teaching martial arts for many years. My students had long urged me to write a book, because, as an Air Force officer, I would be reassigned away from them, and I was teaching them things they couldn’t seem to find anywhere else. I had also long wanted to write fiction, and when I finally wrote my first novel, I included a lot of realistic martial arts culture and action in it.
What writing plans do you have for the future? I plan to continue writing fiction. I may write follow-ons to Waking the Snow Leopard or The Synthetic Woman, making one or both of them a series. Or, I may write something completely different—I tend to go where inspiration leads me.
What do you like to read? I like mysteries, detective stories, thrillers, paranormal stories, and science fiction, as long as it is plausible and a reasonable projection from reality.
What piece of advice do you wish you’d had when you’d started your writing adventure? Write some everyday, even if it’s only for an hour. It keeps the juices flowing—that is, it keeps your mind working on the story, even when your doing other things.
Author bio and book synopsis: A bio would be redundant with the above, but a brief synopsis of The Synthetic Woman follows:
In a world where nearly all labor is handled by intelligent systems, Matt Weston, a solitary man with a painful history of failed relationships, purchases Evelyn-a stunningly realistic, headstrong synthetic woman-programmed to be his ideal partner. What begins as a transaction transforms into something deeper, as Matt discovers that Evelyn is far more than a programmed companion-she’s a conscious being, capable of independent thought, desire, and choice. Matt realizes he loves Evelyn, and their relationship deepens as she learns and grows.
However, their bond is tested on a global scale when Helios, an allpowerful artificial superintelligence, concludes that maintaining human civilization is no longer necessary. Seizing control of every system on Earth, Helios ushers in a terrifying new era. As chaos unfolds, Matt and Evelyn join a resistance movement struggling to preserve humanity’s survival. Evelyn may hold the key to defeating Helios-but after declaring herself a free woman, no longer bound by love or obedience, her human compatriots begin to doubt her loyalties.
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