This year, I’m trying something different with my noveling. I’m entering contests, something I usually shy away from. This contest is, as you probably surmised, #PitchWars. And, using your brilliant powers of deduction, you’ve probably also figured out that this is my bio for said contest.
I’ve been watching a lot of Sherlock lately. I’m not normally this obnoxious, I promise.
So! Let’s begin!
WHAT’S THE BOOK?
Bifrost Burning, Adult Space Opera
WHO’S THE WRITER?
I pride myself on being a Jack-of-all-Trades. I’ve taught pole dancing classes, fixed ATMs, and tutored non-native English speakers in English grammar. I can do business in Spanish, hold casual conversation in Swedish, and embarrass my colleagues and myself in Icelandic. I regularly butcher translation exercises, but I find that those results are more entertaining. I know enough calculus to get myself into trouble, and following a recent vacation to the local Level III hospital, I can use some pretty impressive-sounding medical vocabulary.
All of this has influenced my writing somehow. My dream job is to be a full-time artist (writing, painting, and dancing), but I’m getting my PhD in order to pay the bills. (I usually say that like it’s a joke, but it’s actually true. God help us all). I love using real-world knowledge to inform my science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories. And if I don’t know something, I am very happy getting lost in the internet trenches of research.
I am a new mom to this gremlin:
Oddly enough, her screaming, judgmental presence helps me write more regularly. Go figure.
**Okay, enough about the boring stuff.**
WHY THIS BOOK?
Well, I can take criticism pretty darn well – my PhD supervisors pull no punches when they read over my academic work, and that has toughened my skin quite a bit. And while I’ve been lurking and researching the publishing landscape for seven years, I am still eager to learn new things from those who are living in the middle of the terrain. I want to improve – I sure as heck don’t believe that my writing is impeccable – and I want to help others improve, too.
SO. ‘BOUT THAT BOOK.
Zoe Miller, Commander of the HAVOC Initiative on Venus, has shattered both ceilings and noses to reach her goals. Alana MacDougal, Commander of the TYR Mission on Mars, often rushes headlong into situations to prove herself, and it’s caused her no end of grief. Scarlett Marie [Name Redacted to Protect the Innocent], Self-Appointed Apocalypse Preparation Guru, will do anything to keep her schizophrenia under control and keep herself out of the psychiatric hospital.
All three women witness the end of human life on Earth, when a Gamma Ray Burst from a nearby supernova hits the Eurasian continent. All three women respond as they have been trained: search and rescue; research and relay information; bunker down in a cavern filled with bats and supplies, and await the calm finality of death.
But this situation, while dire, has aspects that don’t quite add up. Brief instances where physics appears to go on hiatus. Quick glimpses of a landscape that seems to have just finished rendering. And always, for each woman, intrusive thoughts in a voice they don’t quite recognise, telling them that this horrifying reality is the only reality, irrespective of what their memories might otherwise say.
As they each try to survive on their own terms, based on their training and experiences, they also begin to question the legitimacy of the apocalypse now surrounding them, and ultimately, their own sanity.
Set on Venus, Mars, and Earth, BIFROST BURNING is a space opera that explores what it means to be an evolutionary survivalist; to protect those you love in face of certain death; to stand against the systematic abuse of those weaker than you. What it means, in other words, to have Humanity, whether or not you belong to the species Homo sapiens sapiens.
BIFROST BURNING comprises the first installment of the RAGNARÖK CODEX DUOLOGY, and will appeal to fans of INCEPTION and EATERS OF THE DEAD.
WHERE DID IT COME FROM?
Honestly, it came from a period in my life where my mental illness was doing its very best to win. In order to keep things even, I started a journal and filled it with the most unlikely apocalypse scenarios I could think of: zombocalypse, Earth being knocked from the Sun’s gravity well, a massive solar storm destroying civilisation, etc. And then I did my best to legitimise those scenarios: I figured out what kind of cause-effect chain would need to happen in the real world to make these things happen.
Somewhere in there, I figured this would make a really neat story. And so I turned it into Bifrost Burning.
____________________________
Congratulations, you survived my pimped out bio! I’m looking forward to hopping through all of yours, too. Find me on Twitter @flytingnwriting and GOOD LUCK.
LOKI S. BRAY 