Today’s special guest is sci-fi author E.B. Brooks and we’re chatting about his new novel, Emissary.
During his virtual book tour, E.B. will be giving away a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card to a lucky randomly drawn winner. To be entered for your chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit his other tour stops and enter there, too!
Bio:
E.B. Brooks lives in the southeastern USA, where he splits his time between writing, research, and homesteading. He enjoys building fictional worlds, real houses, and landscape models, but he’s most at home with his wife and children, and their many, many pets.
Welcome, E.B. Please tell us a little bit about your new release.
Two Worlds. One Future.
Ewan O’Meara is no stranger to death: in recent months, he’s found his way to limbo at least once per week, much to his parents’ concern. It’s a necessary price for getting experience to become the greatest adventurer his homeland of Veridor has ever known, but the overbearing Veridian Church has him pinned down, soaking him for the penance gold to unlock his stats each time he respawns. And because the Church’s ancient war put an end to both the godlike Gems and the epic quests they once bestowed, Ewan has no better alternative.
That is, until he encounters a young woman fleeing arrest from the Church’s soldiers. At first glance, Treanna Rothchild needs it: she’s clueless about Veridian life. But she has other skills that defy Ewan’s understanding, and she knows things. Unsettling, seditious things the Church wants kept secret at any cost.
And she’s in Veridor to raise an army, to fight an enemy only she can see.
Risking both life and soul, Ewan follows Treanna where no Veridian has ever been and there is no respawning. But for him to have a chance at making a real difference in the strange, harsh world she reveals to him, he must first come to terms with it. Especially as he and Treanna discover how much it has in common with Veridor—and how much they depend on each other to survive.
New-adult science fiction, wrapped in gaming and fantasy around a hopepunk core, Emissary is an immersive, thought-provoking adventure with a little teen romance and a lot of heart.
Excerpt from Emissary:
Tree broke contact, then looked at the others. “I’m taking command. Samuel, move Nathan to cover by the lift. Put his feet up, and keep pressure on that wound. We’ll throw down a kit once we can.”
Sam hesitated but nodded, then knelt to scoop Nathan up.
“Love,” Tree said, locking hard, frightened eyes on Ewan. “You’re with me. Loot the corpses. We’ll disguise ourselves, then retake the camel and retreat.”
“What about Gabe and Vincent?”
“They’ll escape with us, if they’re quick enough.”
Ewan swallowed. “Yes, ma’am.”
She darted off to one of the bodies, and he stepped over to the robed figure he’d impaled, thinking a bloody gash in his outfit might be less of a giveaway than a giant frapping hole. But when he pulled the robes free, he knew with a sickened jolt that blood was the least of the differences in appearance.
The man’s copper-skinned face was scarred all over in what was obviously a deliberate, artistic pattern, as though he’d mistaken a knife for a pen. His nose and ears were pierced through with bits of metal, with hair and beard braided and bound in wire that could have come from the ruin’s walls. His muscles were lean and hard, far better fed than should have been possible for someone from the Wastes. Even in death he had a feral air about him, a lingering lethal intent that had Ewan half expecting him to leap out of the sands again.
His hand still clutched a gun, hardly bigger than a tablet. Ewan reached for it, hesitated, and left it to retrieve his thrown sword.
How do you develop your plot and characters?
I tend to be a plotter more than a pantster. For a story, I’ll write up a rough outline of key events, think about pacing and structure to see where there’s room for adjustment, and then I’ll just start drafting away. The finished product loosely resembles the outline, at least up to some branch point where I should have written another outline. My characters develop through their interactions, and I give them free rein, so long as they get to the major points in the story. Sometimes I’ll get a character who writes themselves in (like the mysterious and elegant Willow in the upcoming Book 3, Neverborn), and that can rattle the dynamics in new and exciting ways.
Describe your writing space.
I built my office, along with the rest of my house, with my wife. It’s a work in progress, but this is what it’s currently like. My office is on the second floor of my home, accessed from the master bedroom. It’s in the southern corner of the house, so I have a pair of 4×4-foot windows flanking the corner to let in a ton of light. The window walls are painted white; the back walls are painted a soft blue. There’s a window hole cut to my wife’s desk on the other side, so we can talk and exchange papers. My desk is a U-shape, and my cats love to hang out and “help” me whenever I’m working. (They go constantly between my desk and my wife’s.) I’ve got two full bookshelves and far too many books to fit on them, and wall art ranging from a National Geographic map of the Milky Way Galaxy to a print of the Prismatic Bridge (for Magic: the Gathering, by Johannes Voss) to a jigsaw puzzle of Hyrule to a poster for Jonathan Young’s CD, Starship Velociraptor.
What is your favorite food?
That’s an interesting one, especially in light of several challenging food allergies I and my family have discovered over the years. I think the answer would still be a rich fettucine alfredo with black pepper, although I’m partial to black bean burritos. When my wife and I were courting, I used to make a mean spinach lasagna to surprise her when she got home from work. These days I’m more on dishwashing than meal prep, but I still enjoy making scrambled eggs with garlic, rosemary, and whatever sharp cheese we have on hand.
Which mythological creature are you most like?
I’m sure some people would have very interesting takes on this, but in my own eyes, I’m most like the centaur of Sagittarius. A teacher like Chiron; a big dreamer and hard worker, aiming for the big targets and racing to them. A philosopher and idealist, but with the horsepower to manifest my goals through hard work—if I don’t get distracted by the next big project.
First book you remember making an indelible impression on you.
That would have to be Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, which I read with my mom at the age of six. I loved the idea of tessering between worlds, and the power of individuality and spirit to defy a crushing normal like that of Camazotz is a value I cherish to this day. I came to love A Swiftly Tilting Planet best of that series, but Wrinkle is still a wonderful book in my mind.
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Thank you so much for hosting today and featuring this author.
Thank you for hosting me! I’m happy to talk about the series and writing in general.
I enjoyed the excerpt and post.
Sounds like a book I will enjoy reading.
Intriguing author interview!!