Questions for the author

I wrote this book while scooping up the remains of myself during an incredibly emotionally intense time of my life. It was my attempt to deal with the mental and physical repercussions of an immensely abusive work relationship, years of exploitation, mind games, and pressure to self-sacrifice. It was not out of a sense of self-pleasing or lofty want, but rather a deep-seated necessity to walk the path of rediscovery of who I am, and even more importantly, want and can be. I wanted to create something which can be shared, enjoyed, discussed, analyzed and learned from. While I initially set out to entertain, I quickly felt obligated to offer what I have learned, experienced, contemplated, and gained. I delight if I can amuse my readers. I celebrate if I can enlighten them, and am truly fulfilled, if I can evoke emotions. I can only dream of providing associable characters, relatable feelings, and support by suggesting a handful of little tricks, mechanisms, and ideas to improve their lives.

The future is a marvelous mirror of the present. The thoughts of what could, should, and might be allow us to analyze where, who, and how we are. I think now more than ever we all have to ask our-selves where we want to go, what we want to strive for, and ultimately, what we want to avoid becoming. Humanity is stubborn and will make it work. I am interested in what it might look like, who could be in charge, and how it will all be. Then we can decide what needs to change to achieve what is envisioned.

I set out to create a believable futuristic end-stage capitalist-ruled society in space, complete with its own expectations, rules, beliefs and (counter-!) cultures. I want to cover macro-economic and societal aspects like corporate expectations dictating lifestyles and mindsets as well as everyday occurrences like minimalistic personal zones due to living in cramped environments, the ever-present looming hand of mercantilism in the shape of corporate jingles, speech patterns, advertisements and its lasting impact.

There are so many young people seeking, questioning, discovering, sharing, learning, developing, coping, believing, and much more. This audience in my opinion is the strongest, most eager, curious, and willing while at the same time the most abandoned in their journey of self-discovery in a world which seemingly does not care for them, only the exploitability of their labor, suffering, and their financial capital. I want them to know that against all appearances, they are not alone in this world; their struggles and dreams connect them.

While I did not initially set out to do so, I hopefully have accomplished creating a diverse cast of primary and secondary figures representing a wide array of personalities, attitudes, gender identities, and facets of masculinity and femininity. It is of the utmost importance to me to offer my readers believably competent and multi-dimensional characters with their own lives, beliefs, and behavioral patterns, as well as delivering them a relatable cast and struggles to identify with. My goal, aside from simply entertaining is to ultimately inspire readers to pursue their own goals, offering support through my writing to possibly assist them in finding themselves and to spurn them on to spread positivity, kindness, and support to others, as is exemplified by the actors in this intertwined story about identity, love, and (personal) strength.

I was exposed to English media before I could even read. We used to get a British cartoon TV channel, and growing up, I was additionally exposed to an incredibly unhealthy diet of age-inappropriate video games, movies, and shows in English, or in the case of the crème de la crème of 90s and 2000s anime, with English subtitles. This nutritional intake laden with wild action, manufactured love, brutal violence, deeply soaked in melancholy and filled to the brim with stereotypes, tropes, and clichés shaped much of my childhood.

I rode along outlaws in spaghetti westerns and through space, chased criminals and conspirators flanked by a Major in sentient tanks and spacefaring bounty hunters on refurbished fishing trawlers, halted spice production on both the TV and computer screen after awakening the Sleeper, beat up the regular cast of ne'er-do-wells with Bud and Terence, recently started cheering for AFC Richmond, chased spies in East Germany, was shocked and drawn in by the casual brutality of a comedian directing sublime yakuza films, endlessly ecstatic over the beautiful and biting humor of the daily life of Monsieur Hulot, in tears over to the absurdist humor of Monthy Python’s Flying Circus and Helge Schneider, became a permanent and drenched resident of Rapture, chased demonic hordes off Phobos, lost three months of my life and my heart to the world-changing love between a Replika unit and her Gestalt wife, and am forever changed by the music of Cari Cari, Ennio Morricone, Frank Klepacki, Jesper Kyd, Quentin Malapel, Stéphane Picq, and Trent Reznor, which perfectly set the mood for my writing journey. Aside from the already mentioned, I would like to credit and thank Becky Chambers, Elizabeth Bear, Grace Curtis, Arkady Martine, Zoe Hana Mikuta, and many, many more magnificent artists for their, in my case, life-saving works.

Just make it exist first. You can make it good later.

The next book in the series is called “DIVERS OF FORTUNE”, starring a whole slew of characters, reuniting readers with their beloved trio of mischief makers, as well as a particularly determined investigator, her anxious wreck of an assistant, and the personal correspondence of the enigmatic suspect currently accommodating the previously mentioned down but not our potential throuple from this book.

Are you interested in becoming a Beta-Reader for its long-awaited sequel, "Divers of Fortune"?

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