Get to know the writer:
1. What is your novel about?
Answer 1:- Skymerge is about the emergent need for mankind to step out of this planet which is dying because of Global Warming. A million year old artifact is found in an excavation site in a desert area of Africa. Since it predates mankind’s appearance on Earth, there is no doubt that the Artefact is of extraterrestrial origin. The dig is closed and Professor Hoslop and his young lady Assistant Professor Saki, carry the artefacts to Washington USA after sending a telegram to an eminent Professor friend of Hoslops to arrange a meeting with the President of the USA. However even walls have eyes and ears. They are met at the airport by a group of imposters posing as the Presidents Special Body guard to escort Hoslop to the White House. Some instinct makes Saki distrust the bodyguard, and they use a subterfuge by leaving Hoslop’s Briefcase with the artefacts purportedly inside with the bodyguards on the pretext of going to the toilet. The body guards leave with the briefcase while the artefacts are actually in Saki’s handbag. Saki and Hoslop leave the airport in a cab shortly followed by the bodyguards. Thereafter John Kriel, the cab driver who is actually a millionaire author researching the life of a taxi driver who he has as a character in his next action novel, helps them to evade their pursuers, lets them stay at his little flat, discloses his alien origins, and hair raising episode after episode follow. The artefacts are opened out layer by layer and many, many years later, they manage to build a teleportation device which takes John Kriel to a planet Rukan with an ancient civilisation of sentient beings. Without saying more, Skymerge is a thriller with many great protagonists based on plausible physics and biology at every stage. I am convinced that Mankind has the ability to travel to the stars within a person’s lifetime without violating constraints like Einstein’s Velocity of Light. Skymerge is about civilizations, polity, wars, communication, entanglement – an Epic in every way. Read it to enjoy the story and be guided by it because within this century, mankind will be forced out of Earth to avoid Extinction. Skysplitter and Spacevasion are the two other Sci Fi Epics which follow Skymerge, and all have earned Readers Favorite 5 Star Reviews.
2. What genres would you say this story is in?
Answer 2 :- Visionary Science Fiction, Interstellar Adventure, Thriller, Young Adult, Alien Contact
3. How would you describe this story in two words?
Answer 3 :- I would describe this story as Eminently Readable
4. What movie have you seen the most in your life?
Answer 4 :- I think I have seen “Gone With The Wind” and “Dr. Zhivago” and “Lawrence of Arabia” and the movie “Mughale Azam” the same innumerable number of times.
5. What is your favorite song? (Or, what song have you listened to the
most times in your life?)
Answer 5 :- “Carnival” by the “Seekers”
6. Do you have an all-time favorite novel?
Answer 6 :- “Tai-Pan” by James Clavell
7. What motivated you to write this story?
Answer 7:- Global Warming and Mankind’s need to escape extinction here on our dying Earth
8. If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would
that be?
Answer 8:- There are too many such people for me to name one. Since you ask, I suppose I would like to have dinner with “William Shakespeare”.
9. Apart from writing, what else are you passionate about?
Answer 9:- I am a poet with 4 volumes of structured poetry published.
I am passionate about painting and have many of my paintings on online sites.
I love singing and I am also an avid viewer of all kinds of sports.
I travel extensively and delight in the wonders that Earth has provided for us.
10. What influenced you to enter your story to get performed?
Answer 10:- The Wildsound letter that informed me that my logline had been found to be among the best, instantly motivated me to make every effort to really inform the world about my books. If you examine the pricing, you will find that they are all published as scratch pricing with minimal profit for the author. I intend to delight the world across genres, and by Gad, that is what I will do. I am a multi genre author writing across genres.
11. Any advice or tips you’d like to pass on to other writers?
Answer 11. The only advise I can give to any writer is not to hesitate to pour your heart out because great stories only live in the heart. And after finishing your book, edit, edit, edit, edit, edit word by word at least 5 times to remove errors and tie up stray threads. Never try to sell your books or your creativity will be disturbed – selling your books is someone else’s job.
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Producer: Matthew Toffolo http://www.matthewtoffolo.com
Director: Kierston Drier
Casting Director: Sean Ballantyne
Editor: John Johnson
Camera Operator: Mary Cox
Novel Writing Festival 