Tag: science fiction

Ten Day Book Challenge: Day Four

Ten Day Book Challenge: Day Four

And I’m back with another entry in the Ten Day Book Challenge. I’ve been very bad at keeping up with these, but I am determined to share my choices for the top ten most influential books I’ve ever read. So what I lack in punctuality, I hope to make up in sincerity and selection :).

Okay, so as usual, here are the rules of this challenge:

  • Thank whoever nominated you with big, bold print. If they have a blog, link to the post where you got tagged there.
  • Explain the rules.
  • Post the cover of a book that was influential on you or that you love dearly.
  • Explain why it was so influential to you.
  • Tag someone else to do the challenge, and let them know they’ve been tagged.

Thanks once again to RAMI UNGAR for the nomination, and you can find him at ramiungarthewriter.com. And here’s my third selection for the challenge, the post-cyberpunk classic The Diamond Age!

This book takes place in the 21st century after the world has been fundamentally changed by the introduction of nanotechnology. If Eric K. Drexler’s book The Engine of Creation was the authoritative treatise on how nanotechnology would change our lives, The Diamond Age was definitely the fictional counterpart. In this novel, Stephenson treated fans to his usual mix of weirdness, genius, historical and social commentary, education and growth.

For me, this book remains immensely influential, not because it introduced me to the concept of nanotechnology, but because it did so in a way that had such depth. Anyone who reads this is sure to feel that this book came along at exactly the right time to offer commentary on a concept that was slowly moving from the realm of science-fiction to science fact. And as this concept becomes more and more realized, I feel that this book will become required reading for people looking to understand the evolution of nanotechnology.

But, as I said, this book went beyond mere technological commentary, and contained some very interesting thoughts on social change, historical patterns, and the role of culture in development. While I didn’t agree with everything he asserted, it was interesting to see Stephenson detail how specific cultures may go about embracing technology differently, and how the pendulum of history can swing back and forth depending on the time and place and what means are available to people.

If nothing else, it got me thinking in a very serious way, like most of his works. And it was also delightfully fun to read and inspired me as a science fiction writer to take more risks and tackle issues I felt were previously inaccessible to me. Again, I highly recommend this book.

Okay, now for my nomination. This time around, I nominate the Tousled Apostle herself and a long-time friend and colleague of mine, Jamie A. Hughes!

 

The Jovian Manifesto is now Available for Kindle and iPad

The Jovian Manifesto is available for purchase on kindle and iPad. Get it now for the low price of $0.99!

The Jovian Manifesto is available for purchase on kindle and iPad. Get it now for the low price of $0.99!

 

Future Days Released!

Future Days Released!

Good news everyone! The anthology known as “Future Days” – a collection of 17 short stories by Castrum Press’ sci-fi authors – has just been released. And in honor of its release, the book is on sale now for $0.99 (£0.99 pounds in the UK). As I’m sure I’ve mentioned, one of the short stories is by yours truly. It’s titled “Jericho”, and its set in the same Universe as The Cronian Incident.

The plot revolves around a generation ship and a crew of settlers who are on their way to a distant planet. This planet has already been seeded by a breed of nanotechnology known as Seedlings, which terraform planets and build the colonists’ infrastructure in advance of a colony ship. But of course, some surprises are waiting for the colonists when they arrive!

The book is available on Amazon and will be on sale until August 31st! As of September 1st, it will be $2.99, so you better hurry!

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Cover Art Reveal for the Future Days Anthology!

Behold! When the anthology drops, this will be the beautiful artwork that adorns the cover! This anthology is a collection of short stories by Castrum authors and is being released in advance of a number of new books by said authors (one of which is the second installment in my Formist Series – The Jovian Manifesto). My wife thinks there’s a strong resemblance between the child wearing the jet pack and yours truly. Yeah, I suppose I can see it too! 🙂

For those interested, my own contribution is the story Jericho, a story that takes a look at a generation ship that arrives at its destination many centuries from now. The colonists are what are known as Seedlings, people who use advanced nanotechnology to seed and terraform other worlds in advance of colonists. When they arrive, their homes, cities, streets, industries, and all the basic amenities are already built. All they need to do is take their places among the colony and get things working.

This story takes place in the same universe as The Cronian Incident, thought not the same time frame. Speaking of which, stay tuned for cover art for the second installment in that series, The Jovian Manifesto!

The Jovian Manifesto, More Good News!

The Jovian Manifesto, More Good News!

Some good news on the publishing front. My latest novel, the Jovian Manifesto (the second installment in the Formist Series), is back from the editor and I’m now making corrections. Once that’s done, it’s back to the publisher for another run-through, and then it will be ready for publication. While I can’t give a precise date, a realistic estimate at this point places the release date early this summer. And I’ve already seen some sample artwork, and it looks awesome!

And while I don’t want to spoil anything, I can say that the second book has plenty of action scenes! One thing I worried about in book one was that it had a rather slow buildup. Of course, that’s a consequence of having a story with multiple settings and an intricate plot. Nevertheless, I wanted there to be more action scenes in the second and third books, and ensure that they occurred throughout.

Credit: NASA

Suffice it to say, there are a few combat scenes that involve powered exosuits, some exotic locations, and the aforementioned space combat. Writing these scenes was admittedly a bit of a challenge, since its kind of hard to predict what combat would look like where super-advanced technology is involved. In a society where anything can be synthesized and manufactured at the atomic level, what kinds of weapons, armor and ships would be possible?

In other news, The Cronian Incident is still getting reviews. At this moment, it has accrued 12 reviews on Amazon (with an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars) and 16 on Goodreads – with an average rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars. Hopefully, the second book will do just as well.

 

The Jovian Manifesto is Complete!

The Jovian Manifesto is Complete!

Yes, after a good six months of planning, plotting, writing, rewriting, and worrying about deadlines, The Jovian Manifesto is finally done! And by that I mean I’ve finished writing the manuscript and the process of editing and polishing is about to begin. I’m also expecting some artwork in the coming weeks so there are plenty of surprises ahead!

In addition to being the sequel to The Cronian Incident (released in September of 2017), The Jovian Manifesto is the second book in the Formist Series. So based on the release date of the first book and assuming I can get all the edits done by the end of this month, that would make this the second books that I’ve written in the past six months. Would now be a good time to take a wee break? I hope so!

Here’s the preamble that I’ve been saving for the release:

“Months have passed since the incident on Titan. For Emile and the Formists, life is returning to normal now that their enemies have been dealt with. Or so they thought. On the Jovian world of Europa, a mysterious document has been released that threatens to reveal everything. The Jovian Manifesto, as it’s called, has the Outer Worlds up in arms and the Inner Worlds fearing a civil war. The Solar System is on the verge of ignition, and all that is needed is a spark.”

As I stated in a previous post, this sequel will feature a whole new bunch of characters and locations. In fact, all of the new leading characters in this novel are women, which surprised me even. I did want to move away from male primary characters since the first book was a little heavy on them. But even I was a bit surprised when someone pointed this out to me.

As with The Cronian Incident, my publisher will be the venerated UK-based company known as Castrum Press!

I’d also like to take this opportunity to say congrats to my friend and fellow writer, Rami Ungar! Rami recently signed a contract with Castrum Press to write horror and suspense (his specialty). Thanks to Castrum’s pro-active approach to recruitment, I was able to set up a meet between him and Rami, and the two hit it off! Good luck to the both of us, Rami! Busy times ahead 🙂

Interview with It’s Write Now!

Interview with It’s Write Now!

Follow the link below to see my interview with It’s Write Now, a book-sharing site that is committed to sharing Kindle ebooks to promote new authors. It was the single-longest interview I’ve ever done, but that was no problem. Lots of interesting questions that really made me ponder and dig deep!

Incidentally, they are also giving away free copies of The Cronian Incident for a limited time. If you’re looking for a hard SF read, get your free copy while you can!

https://itswritenow.com/78050/author-interview-with-matthew-williams-of-the-cronian-incident/

Interview with SciFy Shenanigans!

Interview with SciFy Shenanigans!

Check out the link below to see my latest interview for The Cronian Incident. This one took place with the good folks at SciFy Shenanigans. This is the author website of JR Handley, a husband and wife writing team that specializes in military science fiction. Be sure to check out their interview antics, and have a look at their novels while you’re there. It’s a pretty bad-ass site!

SciFy Shenanigans: Matthew Williams

They even featured a song that I used as inspiration to write The Cronian Incident – Mars by Gustav Holts!

 

The Cronian Incident Release Date Moved Up!

Just to let people know, the release date for The Cronian Incident is no longer September 15th. The book will now be available to the public (paperback and ebook) on Saturday, September 2nd. That’s this Saturday, so in just two more days!

DONE!

DONE!

For reasons which will be become clear in a moment, I am not feeling very wordy today. So I shall keep this plain and put it into a series of bullet points, all with exclamation marks:

  • The manuscript is complete!
  • Sent it to the publisher last week!
  • They’re about half-way through and said they like it!

Hmmm. Okay, maybe I need to go with the wordier version!

After 18 months, I have finally finished the manuscript to The Cronian Incident. And after about a week, they wrote to me to tell me that they were half done and they were enjoying it. Naturally, they were sure to note that there were some flaws and some things that needed fixing, but nothing major. In other words, it will need polishing, but they see no reason NOT to publish it at this time! 🙂

This moment has certainly been a long time in coming! And in all honesty, I felt kind of deflated once I had written the last sentence to the last chapter. I was happy and knew that the significance of being done would probably hit me soon enough. But at the time, it was like climbing a steep hill and getting to the top, only to realize how tired I was and how far I still needed to walk to get back to the car!

Ah well. Like I said, I am sure I will hit me it eventually. And in the meantime, I’ve been encouraged and relieved to know that the publisher didn’t think it was pure crap! Because believe me, when you’re heavily invested in the creation of something, you really worry that others might not like it! And that is perhaps what made completing the manuscript so very difficult and time-consuming. It was not just me feeling like, “man, I need to finish this!” There was also the feeling of, “but what if this doesn’t work out? What if this is no good? Have I wasted all this time? Will I have to start over?”

In the meantime, all I can do is wait and stay cautiously optimistic. The publisher has told me that they anticipate finishing the book by sometime next week; at which point, I imagine we’ll start talking about edits and contracts, etc. Getting close, people! Fingers crossed!