My First Blog
For my first ever blog I thought I'd tell you guys about my book Sky City: The Rise of an Orphan, and how it came to be.
When I was a teen, the cyberpunk aesthetic of Final Fantasy 7 imprinted itself onto my mind. Not long after completing this epic videogame for the fifth time(!), I began listening to hiphop and scribbling down poems which were semi-autobiographical and covered themes of social injustice.
I felt a desire to write a book and the budding concept was to express my own experiences in a Final Fantasy style setting. Many years passed and I got to scribbling until eventually I felt I was finished. [I'm not sure a book is ever truly finished!]
More than one reviewer has pointed out my story takes the structure of a videogame. This is a great observation and the structure is one of my favourite elements of the book. As well as following the main adventure, the characters will run off to complete other tasks - subquests if you will.
Events in the book are OTT but have a (pseudo)scientific underpinning. I once read an article which pointed out how science fiction is far too conservative, how future technology will be more magical than what we can currently imagine. I took that article as a challenge.
The end product is the world of Eryx: a world where anything is possible but almost everything is out of reach to the silent majority. The protagonist, Arturo, inhabits the slums of Medio city which acts as a microcosm for the world we live in and the problems so many of us face.
The characters in the book, Arturo included, are very much products of their environment. As such, I wanted to avoid the good guy / bad guy cliche. Few things are as they initially seem, and this was my main reason for using a first person narrative: to demonstrate how flawed our perception can be.
Without wanting to divulge too much, Arturo is a drug-ravaged and traumatised individual inhabiting a world where even science cannot be trusted. As such the only thing that is real is what appears real to him. Arturo's high intelligence often leads to internal conflict as he struggles to figure out the truth and is forced to question his own motives. One thing he quickly identifies is his own hypocrisy.
Aside from the philosophy and introspection, there is a lot of action - initially tame but graphically violent in some later scenes. The characters maintain a sense of humour in spite of adversity, but being teens this often comes in the form of banter and bickering. Early on we see how the teens are losing their innocence. The changes they go through are far-fetched in the way events in a Marvel comic are far-fetched. The main goal was drama and excitement, but I still tried to maintain an air of believability via consistent internal logic.
The aspect I am proudest of, and is mostly highly praised, is the world building. I spent a significant length of time creating Medio city prior to writing the book and the end result is a living, breathing Dystopian nightmare.
I plan Sky City to be an ongoing series and I am already in the very early stages of two spin-offs which you can check out on Wattpad. My username is Riksta10001 if you wish to follow me.
If someone was to ask the question:'Who exactly will like Sky City?'
My answer would be: Fans of Manga and videogames like Final Fantasy, Deus Ex and Akira; fans of the author William Gibson who are looking for an accessible approach to hard sci-fi; and fans of dark superhero comics/movies.
When I was a teen, the cyberpunk aesthetic of Final Fantasy 7 imprinted itself onto my mind. Not long after completing this epic videogame for the fifth time(!), I began listening to hiphop and scribbling down poems which were semi-autobiographical and covered themes of social injustice.
I felt a desire to write a book and the budding concept was to express my own experiences in a Final Fantasy style setting. Many years passed and I got to scribbling until eventually I felt I was finished. [I'm not sure a book is ever truly finished!]
More than one reviewer has pointed out my story takes the structure of a videogame. This is a great observation and the structure is one of my favourite elements of the book. As well as following the main adventure, the characters will run off to complete other tasks - subquests if you will.
Events in the book are OTT but have a (pseudo)scientific underpinning. I once read an article which pointed out how science fiction is far too conservative, how future technology will be more magical than what we can currently imagine. I took that article as a challenge.
The end product is the world of Eryx: a world where anything is possible but almost everything is out of reach to the silent majority. The protagonist, Arturo, inhabits the slums of Medio city which acts as a microcosm for the world we live in and the problems so many of us face.
The characters in the book, Arturo included, are very much products of their environment. As such, I wanted to avoid the good guy / bad guy cliche. Few things are as they initially seem, and this was my main reason for using a first person narrative: to demonstrate how flawed our perception can be.
Without wanting to divulge too much, Arturo is a drug-ravaged and traumatised individual inhabiting a world where even science cannot be trusted. As such the only thing that is real is what appears real to him. Arturo's high intelligence often leads to internal conflict as he struggles to figure out the truth and is forced to question his own motives. One thing he quickly identifies is his own hypocrisy.
Aside from the philosophy and introspection, there is a lot of action - initially tame but graphically violent in some later scenes. The characters maintain a sense of humour in spite of adversity, but being teens this often comes in the form of banter and bickering. Early on we see how the teens are losing their innocence. The changes they go through are far-fetched in the way events in a Marvel comic are far-fetched. The main goal was drama and excitement, but I still tried to maintain an air of believability via consistent internal logic.
The aspect I am proudest of, and is mostly highly praised, is the world building. I spent a significant length of time creating Medio city prior to writing the book and the end result is a living, breathing Dystopian nightmare.
I plan Sky City to be an ongoing series and I am already in the very early stages of two spin-offs which you can check out on Wattpad. My username is Riksta10001 if you wish to follow me.
If someone was to ask the question:'Who exactly will like Sky City?'
My answer would be: Fans of Manga and videogames like Final Fantasy, Deus Ex and Akira; fans of the author William Gibson who are looking for an accessible approach to hard sci-fi; and fans of dark superhero comics/movies.
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Elsa
(new)
Oct 08, 2014 01:12PM
I played Final Fantasy 7,8,9 and 12. I loved 7 so I loved that it inspired Sky City and I can see some similarities, especially between Arturo/Cloud and Sky City/Midgar. (Number 9 was my fave Final Fantasy though!)
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As a fan of your first novel, I can honestly say that this is also the best review of it I've ever read. That's a very hard thing for an author to do, describe his own work. It's perhaps the hardest thing to do. Kudos.
