My Next Big Thing

Over the last and next few weeks, lots of people have been taking part in the blog chain, ‘My Next Big Thing’.  Last week was the lovely Linzi Cooke's turn –  Linzi, if you don’t already know her, is the lovely, talented and very friendly author, musician, assassin and minx (one of these is a lie). Her book  ‘The Home Front’, part one of the Automata Wars series, came out this September and is available now from the Last Line.  Her band, Crimson Clocks, are ripping up a storm at Reverbnation with songs about evil geniuses and cats .  It’s always worth popping over to Linzi’s website to check out what she does, and what she’s blogging about -  http://www.lmcooke.com/

So now it’s my turn to become part of the chain…

What is the working title of your book?

It’s called ‘A Fatal Thirst, Book One of the Vampire Dominion’.  

Where did the idea come from for the book?

A lot of my ideas come from roleplaying, and this was one of them. I think I might have seen the Blade films and just started wondering what a world ruled by vampires would be like, initially with the idea that I would run a game with a group of renegades fighting the terrible lords of the undead. From there it sort of slipped underground and grew until finally it needed to be written and I started it for NANOWRIMO last year.

What genre does your book fall under?

I suspect the most obvious one is vampiric horror, there are vampires and they're not very nice, but there's also elements of crime, espionage and post apocalypse fictions in there (I loves me some post-apoc).

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Most of the first draft was written in about three months, but I got sort of stalled because I started worrying about the conflicting timelines in the novel - the physical effect of the events that creates vampires and ends human hegemony on planet Earth and the length of time it would take to build the society the Blooded (as I call the vampires) live in, and sort of got stuck. Most of its done, bar editing though so it'll be finished by the end of the year.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

The Golden by Lucius Shepard is probably the closest, in that it's a vampire versus vampire mystery. I'd love to compare it to le Carre or the other masters of the spy genre but I don't think it's got quite the right vibe to it.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Perversely Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series probably gave me the necessary boost to get started, if only because it left me wondering how to do something new and different with vampires. Beyond that, well I've loved and loathed vampires since the '90s  and been quietly fascinated since my Grandfather gave me the Ladybird version of Dracula to read (even if, sadly, my spine didn't crawl across the floor the way he promised it would). I just wanted to do something cool with them and I hope I've achieved that with A Fatal Thirst.

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

It's post apocalypse, there's a massive citadel full of secrets, a twisted, treacherous history and vampires that act, for me at least, like vampires. Oh and there could be a frisson of kinky sex too.

And we're done, time to pass the baton on to the next authors to delight your senses.

May I present for your entertainment and edification:

Meg Kingston (http://megkingston.wordpress.com/), author of the steampunk novel, the Chrystal Heart, three anthologies and a memoir, Meg is one of the key members behind NANOWRIMO Wales, always encouraging new writers to come to the fore, a key player in the Steampunk community and a kind, erudite person.

James Snee, also known as Warden Arkwright, is the driving force behind the Last Line, a small publishing house that at present is best known for the Asylum anthologies. Performer, writer, editor and entrepreneur, he is a powerful force within the Steampunk community and, soon, outside of it I'm sure. He can be found at: 

http://thelastline.yolasite.com/arkwrights-writers-blog.php

Watch for their blog chain posts next Tuesday and enjoy…