Author Interview with Greg R. Fishbone

[Anna]

Greetings Space Opera Fans!

One of the coolest things about belonging to a community of space opera addicts is you sometimes get to interview the authors who write the books we all love to read. One of my personal missions is to indoctrinate 'em young encourage and promote a love of science fiction and space opera to young people, which means getting them addicted at about the age they'd be reading Harry Potter. So it's with great pleasure I introduce someone who is writing books you SHOULD be introducing to your kids and grandkids instead of those lame sparkly vampires.

Without further ado, here's Greg R. Fishbone, author of the Middle Grade - to - Young Adult age series GALAXY GAMES.

Be epic!

Anna Erishkigal

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1. What books have most influenced your life?

Here are three:

ONE FISH, TWO FISH, RED FISH, BLUE FISH by Dr. Seuss: This was the book I picked out on my first visit to the local public library. I was only three or four years old when I walked to the bus with my mother and rode to the library, with its huge room filled with children’s books. Seeing all those shelves of books, and then having the opportunity to bring a book home to read made a life-long impact on me. Why did I select a book about fish? No idea, but it turned out to be a great book.

A WRINKLE IN TIME by Madeleine L’Engle: This book made my head explode. Fwoosh! I was not the same person at the end of the book as I was at the beginning. It was the first time I realized how a series of glyphs inked onto wood pulp can literally rewire the human brain.

THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams: No book has ever had a higher cool stuff per page ratio. No book ever will. Plus it’s so funny, I even laughed when the entire world blew up to make room for a hyperspace bypass!


2. How do you develop your plots and characters?

Here is one way:

Think about the most horrible thing that could happen to a main character. Then think about what kind of character would be affected most powerfully by having that plot happen to them. Then repeat that as a feedback loop until you have a book.

Take THE CHALLENGERS for example. The most horrible thing to happen would be a doomsday asteroid falling toward Earth, threatening to end all life as we know it. That’s a bad situation for anyone, but even worse for Ty Sato, the eleven-year-old son of a workaholic astronomer—now he’s guaranteed to never see his father again until the end of the world. And if the doomsday asteroid were discovered during a rare father-son bonding moment, that’s even worse. Now the asteroid is named TY SATO in his honor, and since TY SATO is coming to destroy world, his name is all over the news and not in a good way. Then it's discovered that TY SATO is not an asteroid after all. It’s an alien spaceship, which kicks off a whole new set of problems for Ty Sato to deal with.


3. Tell us about your Space Opera Fans book?

THE CHALLENGERS is the first book in the Galaxy Games series. It’s the story of Tyler Sato, and how he becomes the captain of Earth’s first Galaxy Games team, representing the human race in a tournament against kids from all across the galaxy. But first, he has to defend Earth’s slot against one final challenge, in a single winner-takes-all game.

It's also the story of M'Frozza the Mrendarian, the Galaxy Games Captain of her world, who is desperate to avoid a personal crisis--or offload it onto someone else.


4. We all need a hero! Tell us about your protagonist(s)? Was there a real-life inspiration behind him or her?

Tyler is a Japanese American boy who lives in a college town in Nevada, where his father teaches astronomy and works at a mountain-top observatory. Tyler’s mother is smotheringly overprotective, and it sometimes seems like his older sister’s life work is to make Tyler feel as small and unimportant as possible, until Tyler finds himself at the center of a killer asteroid scare, first contact with alien life, and Earth’s invitation to join the Galaxy Games Tournament.

Tyler sees himself as an ordinary kid in an extraordinary situation, at the head of a team of kids representing dozens of countries, cultures, and sports of Planet Earth. But Tyler is wrong, of course. There is no such thing as an ordinary kid.


5. A good villain is hard to write. How did you get in touch with your inner villain(s) to write this book. Was there a real-life inspiration for him/her/it?

When everyone believes the world is coming to an end, humanity is its own worst enemy. It was fun to come up with all the ways that people in the story might act in that situation. But even after the world is saved and Earth is invited into the Galaxy Games Tournament, some people still can't be happy, which is why we get the Seclusionist political movement trying to shut everything down.

The first aliens we meet the Mrendarians, a species that’s notorious for lying, scheming, and keeping hidden agendas. With friends like these, who needs enemies? I guess we do, because we will have loads of them, starting with the Ossmendians in Book #1.


6. What real-life inspirations did you draw from for the worldbuilding within your book?

On Earth, Japanese culture is strongly represented in this book, with much of it based on my experiences in Tokyo.

Out in the galaxy, the real worldbuilding will take place over the course of the entire series. I have a lot of fun coming up with new alien worlds and the civilization that unites them through the Galaxy Games.


7. Sci-fi fans love techno-porn! What real-life science (or pseudo-science) did you research for your book?

I had fun with quantum entaglement, astronomy, and life sciences. I visited a mountaintop observatory. And I’m always on the lookout for weird wacky facts that might find their way into a book.

I can’t claim that all of my science is accurate, but I try my best to avoid obvious errors and work in the grand traditional of reasonable speculation with a bit of hand-waving to make a better story.


8. What was the hardest part of writing this book?

The tricky part was keeping a timeline of everything happening in Nevada, everything happening in Tokyo, and everything happening in space.

Originally, there was even more action happening in Mexico, Brazil, Germany, and China, all at the same time, but that turned out to be way too complicated and confusing. I was mapping out planetary orbits, looking up Chinese train schedules, and getting all the time zones to work out right.


9. What was your favorite chapter (or part) to write and why?

When Tyler goes into space and sees Earth from orbit, I tried to capture my own imagination of how amazing that must have been, and my hope that someday I will get to see those sights with my own eyes.

Later in the book, when Tyler leads a small squad of Earth kids to the Moon, I wanted that to also inspire a sense of wonder. The Apollo missions were among the greatest technological accomplishments in the history of our species, but it’s been decades since we’ve put new boot prints on the lunar soil. The least I can do is send my characters up there and bring my readers along by proxy.


10. Did you learn anything from writing this book and what was it?

My ears now perk up a lot more for information about exoplanets and speculative xenobiology. I've learned a lot, and the funny thing about research for a story like this is how much doesn't make it into the books.


11. Is there a message in your novel that you hope readers will grasp?

A team that represents Earth, all of Earth, has to represent as much of our planet’s diversity as possible. In this book, and future installments, I will be introducing more characters from different cultures, with different abilities and different life experiences.


12. What are your future project(s)?

Look for Book #2 of the Galaxy Games series later in 2016, and Book #3 in 2017.


13. If you couldn’t be an author, what would your ideal career be?

I’ve had a few careers. I am an attorney and website developer, but I believe that having a creative outlet is important for everyone. For me, that's writing. I get to create entire worlds with the tips of my fingers and send my thoughts into other people’s minds across time and space. It’s better than having a superpower.


14. What is your preferred method to have readers get in touch with or follow you (i.e., website, personal blog, Facebook page, here on Goodreads, etc.) and link(s)?

I can be reached here on GoodReads, through my Author Page on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/gregfishbone/], through Twitter [http://twitter.com/tem2], or through my publisher’s website at SpellboundRiver.com.


15. Do you have anything specific that you want to say to the Space Opera Fans community members?

For the past few years, it’s felt like space opera has taken a back seat to post-apocalyptic stories, which can be fun but get depressing when you binge on them. But thanks to your support, space opera seems to be roaring back as strong as ever, especially with the new Star Wars movie breaking all box office records. As an author, I appreciate your help in bringing our children optimistic visions of humanity spreading outward into the galaxy.

SOF Interview granted 2016/01/10

[Anna]

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Be sure to check out the DISCUSSION THREAD on this book!

HERE: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

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[Adam]

Cool interview. Looks like he's having a lot of fun with this series.