Interview with local author of The Thinking Machine, Ben Van Dongen

You may already know Ben Van Dongen from Adventure Worlds Press. He’s the other half of the collection of science fiction short stories in No Light Tomorrow, and one third of the crime fiction stories in All These Crooked Streets. Now, he’s written a pocket-sized sci-fi novella entitled, The Thinking Machine.

The Thinking Machine

A Man and a Monster with the Same Name

In a city that spans most of the eastern seaboard, there is a creature that used to be a man. A stranger, from the shrinking wilds of the north, is called by a spirit to enter the city and destroy the abomination. The thing that shares his name. Zed.

We thought we’d ask Ben a few questions in light of his new release;

Hi Ben, what’s your ideal writing spot?

I do my best writing out of the house, often at a cafe. I go to Anchor Coffee house every day I can to get some writing done. Tim’s if Anchor isn’t open.

How Canadian of you! For our non-Canadian readers, Tim’s is shorthand for Tim Hortons, a very famous Canadian coffee shop franchise. In your opinion what’s the hardest part of writing?

The hardest part is likely a tie between starting and finishing. I tend to struggle often when I sit down to write. Sometimes I fight my way through a couple sentences before things start flowing, sometimes I take a good half hour of faffing about before I can focus. Once I get going, I am good, but starting is a grind. As for finishing, it’s usually at the point where I’m spending more time imagining the next story throughout a day than the one that needs to be finished. It takes some discipline to stay focused and power through to the end. There may be something about reaching the end of a story and not feeling like I’ve accomplished everything I set out to do, or really captured the original idea, but I’m not ready to unpack that feeling, so I’ll say it’s thinking about the next story.

Are there other books or media that you try and emulate or take inspiration from?

I get a lot of inspiration from 80s science fiction movies. I started out as a movie fanatic before discovering books. The visual elements of my stories often have some inspiration from those films. Philip K. Dick is someone who I try to, not emulate, but maybe keep in mind when I write. He was an idea focused writer and that is what first caught my attention with reading a writing. I try to make sure my ideas have something novel to them and that I don’t lose the story (or that idea) in the description or drama.

I’m also hugely inspired by music. I’m the kind of person who always has to have some music playing when I’m not doing something that precludes it (say working at the day job or watching a movie). I take a lot of time (probably too much if you look at my answer to the second question) picking out what to listen to each time I sit down to write.

Tell us a little bit about your novella, The Thinking Machine.

It’s part of an interconnected series. I tried to write something fun, fast, and with a strong idea pulling the plot along. To clarify, the idea is really a question about what makes us human, and when will technology change the definition?

Would you say you write ‘what you know’ or do you create ‘pure fancy’?

I write what I think about. Since I mostly write science fiction, there is a mix of fantasy and some science or technology rooted in reality. Sometimes that science and tech is an extrapolation I make from current theories, so I make up aspects or ignore limitations for the sake of the fantasy, but I try to have some idea of what I’m talking about. For my last story, the novella in the Crime Anthology All These Crooked Streets, I used what little I new about photography and did some research to fill in any gaps. I didn’t study photography for the sake of the story, just grounded it in some kind of reality. It’s the same with my science fiction. In The Thinking Machine, I too some current cutting edge technology, (like prosthetic eyes) and made the implants. I’m no expert in computer aided prosthetic, but I wanted to give the technology of the story some kind of realistic origin. So, my long winded cop-out answer is both.

Ben Van Dongen grew up in Windsor Ontario. He likes to think that if he tried harder he could have been an Astronaut, but he is happier writing science fiction anyway. He co-authored the books No Light Tomorrow and All These Crooked streets, and is one half of the founding team of Adventure Worlds Press. His newest book, The Thinking Machine, a cyberpunk novella, is out now.

You can read more of his crazy notions on his website: BenVanDongen.com

Or connect with Ben:  https://benwltp.wordpress.com/books/
https://www.facebook.com/AdventureWorldsBen/

Tweets by Ben_VanD

https://www.instagram.com/benwltp/

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Eye of the Storm – Part 3

“Nice to meet you, Summer,” Victor echoed my words from earlier, then turned back toward the bar. “Hey, Howe!” He called out, raising his head and his glass in search of the bartender. “Can I get another one of these?”

Curiously, ‘Howe’ was nowhere to be seen. I shrugged, about to use this opportunity to escape my new ‘friend’ and head back to where Debbie and Paul stood to either side of the jukebox trying to choose the next song, when the power went out. Without lighting or sound, the dilapidated old bar was just that. It was pitch black thanks to the shitty weather and the fact that the streetlamp outside the front window had also gone dark. Guess this isn’t just Howe blowing a fuse.

I could hear voices and shuffling even if I couldn’t make anyone out. It wasn’t crowded by any means, this being a Tuesday night, but it wasn’t a big place. Somebody must have bumped into Debbie because she squealed, “Paul, that better have been you!”

“Uhh…” I heard Paul reply.

“Power’s out across the street too,” somebody called, presumably looking out a window, “but it seems to have stopped raining, so there’s that.”

But my attention wasn’t on the bar patrons, it was on Victor. From the sounds of his stool scraping back, he’d stood and if the darker shadow over the bar was any indication, he seemed to be trying to clamber over it. “Howe?” He called out again from somewhere ahead and above me.

I heard a thunk as Victor landed heavily behind the bar, followed by rustling noises. In the background someone said, “Hey, a power outage doesn’t have to ruin the night, I brought my guitar!”

Despite my better judgement, I started forward, feeling for Victor’s stool. I found it with little trouble. It was still warm. Without thinking too hard about what I was about to do, I put my drink down, hoisted myself up onto the still-warm leather seat of the stool, and stood, stepping onto the bar. My foot hit what I presumed to be Victor’s drink. I made a point to avoid it as I let myself down the other side.

“Aha!” Victor proclaimed seconds before a match flared to life in his hands and our eyes met for the briefest of seconds in the sudden illumination. He seemed surprised to see me there. I was simply glad the ruddy light of the single flickering match didn’t allow Victor to make out the embarrassed flush of my cheeks.

“Here,” he shoved the pack of matches in my hands before grabbing another and starting past me. By the time I got a match of my own lit, he was halfway around the inside corner of the L-shaped bar and moving quickly. I hurried to follow.

A door I hadn’t noticed before now was open slightly. Pulling it wider, Victor disappeared into the opening, his body cutting off all view of the match in his hands. Rounding the corner myself, I almost bumped into him where he had stopped on a set of stairs headed downwards. In retrospect, wearing black was a poor choice, Victor, I silently admonished him.

I became aware of a strange sound coming from the darkness below. Halfway between a hum and a rumbly growl, I couldn’t identify it, but the sound unsettled me in way I couldn’t explain. “Howe?” Victor called again, more tentatively this time, I thought.

Silence greeted his call. I mean real silence; whatever that grumbly sound was, it stopped the moment Victor spoke. Against my better judgement, Victor started forward again, lighting a fresh match and raising it high above his head. I made it two steps before my own match burned my fingers, forcing me to shake my hand forcefully to put the fire out. I stuck my fingers in my mouth and looked down, less than eager to face the prospect of burning myself on another match.

My fingers in my mouth were the only thing that kept me from screaming. There on the ground, in a pool of his own blood mingling with the juice from a smashed jar of pickles was the bartender, Howe. His pale green shirt was bloodied and torn, and the gut I’d noticed earlier was missing entirely, having been replaced by a gaping maw, resembling nothing more than a fleshy crater. From that crater rose a field of spikes, like an over-sized porcupine had taken up residence inside the portly man.

“Holy shit!” Victor cursed and flailed wildly, causing his match to go out.

I fought the urge to vomit as he quickly struck another. The initial flare of light glinted off large yellow eyes and as the light settled to its dim brightness I became aware of what I was staring at. Well, not what it was, exactly, only that I was staring at it.

It, was the source of that strange rumbling growl from before and now the sound returned. A warning, low and guttural, it informed me on an instinctual level that I was in danger. Even with shock numbing my mental faculties, I didn’t need the warning. I fled, Victor’s heavy footfalls on the stairs proclaiming that he was trailing after me. Only two steps were needed to take me out of the basement, but they felt like twenty. I cleared the threshold of the door and quickly realized I was trapped by the L-shaped bar I didn’t know my way around.

Victor however, did. He made straight past me for the exit. I started after him, but a blur of motion crossing my vision stopped me.

The creature’s leap was silent. It’s landing wasn’t. Bottles crashed and the wood of the bar groaned as the massive cat-like thing landed on it. Soft guitar music was replaced by a cacophony of screams and curses from the bar patrons as the thing swung its head around, sniffing the air.

I felt a hand grab mine, warm in the darkness. I gasped, but it was only Victor, pulling me away from the scene and toward the back door of the bar. I stumbled along after him and we broke out into the cool, wet night air.

The rain had stopped, but the sky still looked dangerous.

*** Missed Part One, find it here. Part Two is here. If you’d like to read more of this serial, like this post, subscribe and/or leave me a comment!***

 

Eye of the Storm, Part 1

Remember that opening I shared as an example of how openings are hard to write? (You can read about that here.) Well, with two books currently in the works, I have no plans to do anything about the sci-fi novella I started, so… I thought I would share it with you. If you like this opening bit, let me know in the comments below and I’ll keep posting every week or two so you can see where this story goes (and keep me motivated in writing it at the same time!)

Chapter 1 – The Rain

The change came without warning, unless you count the rain. It pounded on the window of my battered Oldsmobile, demanding to be let in. I sighed, frustrated. So much for the Weather Network. Wrenching the rusted driver’s side door open, I was drenched in seconds. I scurried across the city parking lot, doing my damndest to avoid the worst of the puddles, though it hardly mattered now. The damage was done.

Inside the bar, the lighting was dim and yellow. Even so, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust.

“Summer!” Debbie ambushed me before I could so much as shake myself off like a dog after a swim. Her dry hair smelled like strawberries and stranded me somewhere between envious and nauseated. “You came!”

“Of course,” I mumbled. “You said it was important.”

Nodding, Debbie pulled back. “Come on. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

This is it, I realized, I’m finally going to meet the new boyfriend Debbie has been going on and on about. Despite this guy being the subject matter of all our conversations over the past few weeks, I really knew very little about him. I think she said his name was Paul…

“Well, if it isn’t Summer Green!”

Wait… Paul? As in Paul Sheffield? It was him, in the flesh. The very, very attractive flesh. Oh, god, what am I thinking. He’s Debbie’s boyfriend now… Not my highschool fantasy crush.

“Paul!” I didn’t manage much more than awkwardly saying his name before my nerves shut down my vocal cords. Leaning on a barstool, his elbow up on the bar, Paul was as drool-worthy as he’d ever been. Maybe more so. It had been years since I last saw him, but I remembered the day clearly. It had played in my mind over and over again to remind me of just how pathetic I was. Our last of of high school, Paul had left his group of much cooler friends to come over and give me a goodbye hug and I was so shocked I’d garbled any useful words that could have come out of my mouth in that instant. He’d walked away, a confused and sympathetic expression on his face and I just waved awkwardly and let him leave, instead of being suave and asking him to hang out over the summer like I’d planned.

In my fantasy, that summer would have led to a fabulous romance. In reality, I spent that summer working in a greasy 50’s themed diner, which was where I’d met Debbie. We were as opposite as people get, but somewhere along the line we became inseparable.

Speaking of Debbie, she’d managed to fit herself under Paul’s muscular right arm, her thin frame fitting far better there than my plumper one could have managed. She was looking up into his clear blue eyes, her own green ones twinkling. My slight envy from earlier came back with the same ferocity as the storm raging outside the building, developing into full blown jealousy.

“Paul and I are getting married!” Debbie exclaimed, looking to me for my reaction.

My eyes widened and my breathing became laboured. Face with them both and their sickening perfection, I suddenly became very much aware of my bedraggled and water-logged appearance. The nice white top I’d chosen for a night out with Debbie had been soaked through and was likely showing off my breasts, not to advantage like I’d planned, but more in an indecent sort of way. And my jeans, once form-fitting in a comfortable sort of way now just stuck to me in places where I’d rather they didn’t. I took a subconscious step back from the scene before me, wanting to be anywhere but here, but was stopped by a combination of the squashing sound my sneakers made and Debbie’s sudden frown as she began to realize I didn’t share her elation.

“That’s…great…” I tried to save face and failed.

Debbie pouted. “I know it seems unexpected and sudden,” she allowed, “but it makes sense when you think about it. Paul’s a dual citizen and is living and working in Michigan. If I want to be able to move in with him, we’ve got to get married. It’s just part of the immigration process.”

Whoa, immigrating? ‘Just part of the process…?’ I know Debbie moves fast, but holy hell.

I kept my thoughts to myself. “No, I’m sorry, I’m happy for you. I was just caught off guard, that’s all.”

Debbie beamed, assuaged. Paul smiled, that oh-so-cute lopsided smile of his that used to make me weak in the knees. Now it just made my stomach do uncomfortable flip-flops. “I get it,” he said. “You’re Debbie’s best friend, so it would stand to reason that you’d want to get to know the man she’s going to marry. Lucky for us, you and I go way back.”

“Yeah, lucky…” I mumbled. “If you’ll both excuse me, I’m going to go get myself a drink.”

***

Let me know in the comments below if you’d like me to continue sharing this story and if I get enough comments, I’ll put part two up on Thursday, next week! Thanks for reading.

It’s Here! It’s Launch Day for This Night Sucks by Elizabeth J. M. Walker!

Welcome to the Book Tour for Elizabeth J.M. Walker’s new novella, This Night Sucks! Follow the tour each day to read reviews, guest posts, and exclusive excerpts.
Don’t forget, you can get the ebook of  This Night Sucks from our store for only $0.99 with the promo code: SUCKS.

From the author of She Dreamed of Dragons comes the hilarious highschool vampire comedy: This Night Sucks.

Title: This Night Sucks
Author Name: Elizabeth J.M. Walker
Genre(s): Young Adult, Paranormal, Fantasy, Vampires, Comedy
Release Date: June 17, 2016
Publisher:  Mirror World Publishing  http://www.mirrorworldpublishing.com/

Mirror World Publishing Link: http://mirror-world-publishing.myshopify.com/products/this-night-sucks-ebook
Amazon Link: http://amzn.to/1U3RQSX

Lana is a high school senior enrolled in Vampire Education – a class to teach students about the very real presence of vampires in the world. Lana and her classmates don’t really expect to meet up with any undead bloodsuckers. Vampires are a lot like other scary things that supposedly exist but you hope you’ll never come across: nudist colonies, mad cow disease, and your parents’ sex life.

What is part of Lana’s everyday reality is navigating through one last year of high school while desperately trying to be less nerdy. She still loves spaceships, fantasy novels, and cat stickers, but she also recently got her braces removed, grew boobs, and is working on the makeup thing. She never expected her crush-of-a-lifetime Pete to even notice her – let alone ask her out on a date.

The date is going great until Pete’s ex-girlfriend Katy shows up, all bloody and pissed off. Lana quickly realizes that Katy is not just her ordinary bitchy self – she has been turned into a vampire taking Lana and Pete’s date from a steamy make-out session to an unexpected vampire hunting expedition!

Elizabeth J. M. Walker lives in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. She has always loved books and writing. As a teen she discovered zines, which inspired her to publish her own litzine of odd fairy tales for over a decade.

She Dreamed of Dragons is her first novel, This Night Sucks is her second.

Connect with Elizabeth J.M. Walker:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Elizabeth-J-M-Walker/620043831422660
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Elizabeth-J.-M.-Walker/e/B00PO8Z0MG
Goodreads Author Page:http://www.goodreads.com/ElizabethJMWalke
Publisher Website: http://www.mirrorworldpublishing.com
Author Website: www.elizabethjmwalker.com

 

This Night Sucks is ON SALE this month!

I’ll give you three guesses as to our featured book this month and the first two don’t count…

That’s right! This Night Sucks by Elizabeth J. M. Walker which launches June 17th is our featured book this month! And you know what that means, right? Yep, the ebook is ON SALE for $0.99 for the month of June. All you need to do is visit our webstore and enter the promo code: SUCKS. And, even though the book doesn’t launch until later this month, you can pre-order it now at the discounted price, or you can become a member and get this book in addition to the rest of our collection FOR FREE. Oh, and did I mention… members get this book as soon as they order it, whether it has officially launched or not!

This Night Sucks being this month’s feature also means that we’ll be talking about it a whole lot, so you don’t just need to take my word about how absolutely hilarious it is. First, let’s start with a description:

“This night sucks!”

Lana is a high school senior enrolled in Vampire Education – a class to teach students about the very real presence of vampires in the world. Lana and her classmates don’t really expect to meet up with any undead bloodsuckers. Vampires are a lot like other scary things that supposedly exist but you hope you’ll never come across: nudist colonies, mad cow disease, and your parents’ sex life.

What is part of Lana’s everyday reality is navigating through one last year of high school while desperately trying to be less nerdy. She still loves spaceships, fantasy novels, and cat stickers, but she also recently got her braces removed, grew boobs, and is working on the makeup thing. She never expected her crush-of-a-lifetime Pete to even notice her – let alone ask her out on a date.

The date is going great until Pete’s ex-girlfriend Katy shows up, all bloody and pissed off. Lana quickly realizes that Katy is not just her ordinary bitchy self – she has been turned into a vampire which, in turn, takes Lana and Pete’s date from a hot and steamy make-out session to an unexpected vampire-hunting expedition.

Young Adult, Fantasy, Comedy. 100 pages.

Now, a little bit about the author:

Elizabeth J. M. Walker has published zines for over a decade and lives in her hometown of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. She Dreamed of Dragons is her first novel and This Night Sucks is her second.

 

To learn more about This Night Sucks and Elizabeth J. M. Walker, you can join us for her facebook launch party, or follow the release week blog tour! Or, just subscribe to this blog and we’ll keep bringing you more info!