A Night in the Cells with…Andrei Cherascu

    It feels a little safer in the cells this week. We’ve rubbed garlic on the window frames and doused the doors in holy water. There’ll be no vampires getting in here again. Especially not any of the sparkly kind.

     But there is something sparkling in the cells tonight. The faint whiff of sparkling champagne coming from our latest detainee’s breath. Champagne he says he consumed whist celebrating winning an award for the best Sci-fi novel of 2014 at scifi365.net. A likely story if I ever heard one. The only award winner in this town is Mr. Raj’s award winning Lamb Bhuna, and once I’m done with this scallywag, that’s exactly where I’m heading. Before we bring Mr. Sparklepants out from his ‘dressing room,’ let’s find out a little more about him.

Andrei Cherascu was born in 1985. He’s always had a passion for books and loves science-fiction the most. He gained a Master’s Degree in American Studies and wrote his thesis on the music of Tom Waits. After graduating, he took a job in IT support, but always felt like something was missing. After attending his friends wedding in the Dominican Republic and having a near-fatal incident with a knife-wielding hooker, he realised his time was precious. With the support of his loving wife and family, he quit his soul-destroying job to become a full-time writer.

  In September 2014, he published Mindguard, the science-fiction novel he’d dreamt about writing his whole life.

     Well, we’ve seized his award until he can prove he obtained it through legitimate and lawful means. Let’s see what he has to say. BRING OUT THE SUSPECT!

   MindGuard has been described as exciting new science-fiction – Tell us about the story in a few concise sentences.

   Mindguard takes place in a future world, where telepathy has become a threat to information and privacy. To protect their sensitive “data”, influential people turn to the services of mindguards – powerful telepaths who possess the ability to shield their client’s thoughts from outside aggression.

    The story follows Sheldon Ayers, the world’s most accomplished mindguard, who is tasked with protecting the integrity of a young woman’s mind. He is told the content of the “information package” she carries is vital to the future of mankind. As is often the case with sensitive information, it attracts the attention of certain external forces, in this case a band of ruthless military operatives whose mission is to stop this information package from reaching its destination.

  It’s the time-tested recipe for conflict: different people wanting the same thing, who will stop at nothing to attain it.

   It is said good science-fiction acts as social commentary on today’s world. What modern issues inspired MindGuard?

    I think information privacy is definitely a modern issue, brought to the forefront by recent revelations regarding surveillance and intelligence gathering. It’s certainly a sensitive topic. But it didn’t necessarily “inspire” mindguard. In this case, the story followed the character. The narrative developed organically from the whole concept of this fictional profession.  First I came up with the idea of a mindguard and then started imagining what such a person’s activity would look like, what type of environment would have to exist in order to justify such a character’s existence.

    Being a full-time writer must feel like a dream come true. How did making that decision feel?

    Well, it wasn’t something I just dove into head-first. My wife and I had planned on making this move for a long time. We were just waiting for the right moment, when we would be in a position financially for her to become the primary breadwinner for a while. A stable income is not something easily abandoned. But I felt I needed to make the move while I was still young enough to afford to fail and start anew. So, when the opportunity presented itself, we took it.

     October 19th 2012 is a very special day for me. It was my last day at work. My dad picked me up at 17:00, we went shopping for some nice craft beer, came over to my place and drank to my new career. It really was a dream come true, one that many don’t ever get to experience. I’m so grateful for it and I always will be. I think I’d liken the feeling to that of coming home after a being away for a long time.

     The first two weeks were like a fairy tale. The first thing I did was take a few days “off”, so to speak. I drank wine, listened to jazz and dusted the house, dancing around in my pajamas like Mrs. Doubtfire. Then, I eased into work and, after a couple of weeks, I was already spending more than eight hours a day working in my little home office.

   An incident with a knife-wielding hooker? I’ve gotta ask….?

      You know, I told this story so many times I think it’s only fitting that I finally write it down for a crime author’s website. In 2012 my wife and I traveled to the Dominican Republic for my friend’s wedding. I was a groomsman, by the way. Anyway, since the trip was going to be long as hell, we decided to first fly to Punta Cana and spend a few days relaxing on the beach before heading out to Santo Domingo for the wedding. We took a bus from a town called Bavaro. It was supposed to drop us off at Enriquillo Park, where my buddy’s father in law was going to wait for us.

       It must have brought us to the wrong place. Before we got off, the local woman sitting in front of me ominously said, “Be careful”. I’ll never forget that warning – or her face – as long as I live. When we got off the bus, we found that we were in something that looked suspiciously unlike a park and decidedly like the place you would drop off two tourists to get mugged and/or killed.

       My friend’s father-in-law was nowhere to be seen (later, he said he had waited at the actual Enriquillo Park, meaning we had definitely been taken somewhere else). Anyway, instead of him, we found a group of junkies and a hooker whose dilated pupils predicted nothing good.

      She asked me if I’m “hungry” (which I was, but I don’t think she meant it literally), I said “no” and she freaked out. She started yelling in Spanish, taking off her clothes and wig (?!?) and then pulled a knife on us. Out of nowhere, a car showed up. The driver asked us if we needed a “taxi” (I’m positive that vehicle was not a taxi) but we got in anyway to get away from the crazy woman. She followed us in. She sat down next to the driver and started yelling at him, telling him that we were “hers” (I don’t speak a lot of Spanish, but I understood that). She tried to stab him with the knife but he wrestled it away from her. He pulled her out of the car and beat the ever-loving shit out of her until she fled.

       He showed us the knife and told us she was going to kill us with it. Initially, I thought the whole thing was an act and that they were in cahoots but then the “cab fare” ended up being eight dollars or something. I’m sure he knew I would have given him a hundred dollars just to get us the f**k out of there. Anyway, all ended well, the rest of the trip was fantastic and I ended up with a cool story to tell absolutely everyone I meet until the end of time.

     There’s more to you than just writing. You also have a music blog called The Music and Myth. What was the inspiration behind that?

       I decided to create The Music and Myth essentially as a place to hone my craft. I hadn’t written in six years and was looking for a writing endeavor that would allow me to slowly get comfortable with spending a few hours in front of the keyboard. I decided to start a blog. Writing about music just came naturally to me. I’m a huge music lover, very passionate about it – especially jazz. But I’ll listen to anything that’s good. I started posting weekly in-depth reviews of records and related articles. Slowly, the website started growing and building an audience. Before I knew it, I was covering events and interviewing the likes of Al DiMeola, Terri Lyne Carrington and Neil Cowley. I even have my own Music and Myth Awards. Now, two and a half years later, The Music and Myth has become the one constant in my life when it comes to writing. It’s a project that is very close to my heart.

       Tell us about the moment you found out you’d won Sci-Fi book of the year.

      The Book of the Year thing happened at just the right time. I was coming off a difficult few weeks, for various reasons, and creatively I was in a bind. I was just generally feeling down. When I got the e-mail, I was at a friend’s birthday party. As you can imagine, I was overjoyed.

      It’s an incredible honor for me as a debuting author to receive such validation for my work. You know, as an author, how difficult it is to stand out in this market. There’s an enormous number of new books being put out every year and many of them are very good. Having my novel chosen Book of the Year 2014 means I have something to help me stand out from the rest, which is immensely important from a marketing stand point. Psychologically, it was even more important. It gave me renewed hope and energy for the future.

     Now, let’s see if you can recite an excerpt from your book:

    When Sheldon turned around, his usually inexpressive face was a mask of disbelief. Like a skilled prizefighter delivering a knockout blow, Miller did not waste a second. “Perhaps I can arrange for the Council to grant you access to your beloved grandfather,” he said, smiling in certain victory.

     Ross didn’t know if Sheldon was going to start yelling and cursing or crying, or if he would attack Miller or run away or perhaps curl up into a fetal position and just rock back and forward. At that moment, all those reactions seemed equally possible. His friend did none of those things.

    “That’s not possible,” Sheldon said, struggling to remain calm.

  “I’m sure you can imagine, Mr. Ayers, that I am a very well connected man.”

     “You know what I mean!”

     Sheldon silently looked at Miller for a long time. His stare was so cold that Ross was surprised Horatio didn’t ask his brother to fetch him a sweater.

    “You have, no doubt, heard the rumors,” Miller said. “Now I’m telling you that they are true.”

    Sheldon looked like he wanted to hit the man. Ross could not remember the last time he had seen his partner even remotely angry.

    “You’ve found a way to communicate with the uploaded minds,” Sheldon half whispered. His voice was cold and it sounded hollow; he seemed to be trying very hard to control his anger.

     “To a very modest extent. But it is possible. My company developed an algorithm which enables limited two-sided communication in the form of single-line true/false responses from IDIs – Individual Data Identities.

   “People can communicate with the memories in the archives,” Sheldon said slowly, as if he were formulating an accusation before a court of law, “and you kept the information to yourselves?”

      “Look, Mr. Ayers, it is a very recent breakthrough, still in the early stages of development. I’m sure you understand that access to the memories cannot realistically be made available to everyone.”

      “I’m sure you make it available to yourselves.”

      “Now listen here,” Marcus barked. “If it were not for funding from Mylonas Industries, most of the technology that even makes it possible for the vast quantity of data to be stored in the archives would not even exist. The funds are provided by my brother. Now, if you don’t believe this entitles him to certain privileges offered by the technology he helps to develop, then that is merely your own opinion, Mr. Ayers.”

      “Also,“ Horatio stepped in with an appeasing voice, “at this stage the main priority is developing a faster and more complex method of communication. Our scientists are collaborating with the archive itself to make that possible, hopefully sometime in the next five to ten years. But this can only be achieved if we benefit from discretion.”

    “And people like yourself decide the boundaries of this discretion, Educator Miller?” It was the first time that Sheldon referred to Horatio as ‘Educator’ and it had sounded like an accusation. Ross, who was quietly following the conversation, could no longer remain silent.

     “Enough!”

    He raised his voice at Sheldon, like a father at a misbehaved son.          “Listen, Sheldon, you either take the case and get the opportunity to communicate with what’s left of Kinsey’s mind, or you walk away, but you are done splitting hairs and you are done wasting everybody’s time. You got that? Now, what will it be?”

    “All right,” Sheldon said, without even so much as looking at his partner. “Show me to the bathroom,” he ordered Marcus Miller, who unenthusiastically got up and led him out of the cellar, understanding now that the mindguard was a prototech. As if he needed any more reasons to dislike Sheldon, Ross thought. He waited for the two men to exit before confronting his host in private. “You know, I yelled at him but, with all due respect, I should have also yelled at you, Educator.”

      “And why is that?” Miller asked, feigning curiosity.

      “You were way out of line.”

      “Was I?”

      “That is not how you conduct business, Educator.”

    “That is exactly how you conduct business, Mr. Ross. Especially with a man like Sheldon. He must be intercepted like an adversary, he leaves one no other option.”

      “You knew where this was going from the start. You baited him by offering him things you knew he would refuse so that he’d let his guard down. If you had mentioned his grandfather from the start, his anger and resentment might have caused him to impulsively decline. You knew that a man with Sheldon’s pride would never have accepted later on if he had already declined. You manipulated him from the start.”

      “I did. Would he have accepted otherwise?”

  “You have lost his respect, Educator,” Ross said. The whole conversation left a bitter taste in his mouth.

     “I don’t care about his respect, Mr. Ross, I want his services. Now, are we free to ‘seal the deal’?” Horatio poured Ross and himself another glass of wine in anticipated celebration. Ross felt like he wanted to empty the whole bottle right over Miller’s head.

     I guess the champagne was well-deserved! Looks like we’ll be giving his award back and releasing Mr. Cherascu from custody. MindGuard is available at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk You can read about the Sci-Fi Book of the Year award at scifi365.net. I’m sure Andrei has peaked your interest and you can find out more about him at his writing blog and at The Music The Myth.

 RELEASE THE PRISONER!