Why My Dog is Better than Yours

I had a question posed to me recently that set me back on my heels and made me really think. No, it wasn’t something life changing, nor was it a moral dilemma. I didn’t have to sort out whether the chicken or the egg came first, and I’m of the opinion that tastes great beats less filling almost every time. The question was about my book, Vitalis. Specifically, what’s so great about it?

At first glance that question is on the level of, “Why my dog is better than yours.” After thinking about it for a few seconds it becomes far more practical. After all, if my book really is as good as I think it is, why shouldn’t I be able to share that with the world? Nobody else is going to tell them about it unless I start the ball rolling.

Years ago I realized that I didn’t read books because they had neat toys in them, I read them because of the characters. Sure, crash landing on an alien planet is cool, but that same character concept could be applied to a host of other genres. With that in mind my writing underwent a serious change. I started writing about people, not about things.

Vitalis embodies that with the many characters the story revolves around. These are people that feel very real, they have flaws and quirks just as much as they have strengths and talents. They have emotions and relationships, and sometimes those get twisted up and stepped on. Just like us these characters make mistakes and suffer setbacks, but they try to learn from their failures and evolve into better people because of it. These people are as real as I can make them – my goal is to take the voices in my head and put them in the readers.

While the characters are central to the story there does need to a balance between them and the environment. That’s where the genre comes in. Vitalis is science fiction at its most fun. There’s futuristic space travel, interstellar piracy, and an undiscovered world teeming with vibrant, beautiful, and deadly life. It offers the opportunity to expose the fragile characters to new experiences, opportunities, and challenges that will either make them better or it will destroy them emotionally or physically (or both).

Vitalis is filled with intrigue. Whenever you get a group of people together politics are going to form and the residents of Vitalis are no except to that. Hidden agendas and ulterior motives are prime motivators for some characters and it falls to others to understand the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

These are but a few of the reasons why Vitalis is a fun book filled with a little bit of everything from horror to action to drama. I know if I hadn’t wrote it, I’d be swept away by it – but I might by biased.

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.