Friday 12 December 2014

EUPHORIA/DYSPHORIA BY MICHELLE BROWNE & NICOLAS WILSON

Title: Euphoria/Dysphoria
Authors: Michelle Browne & Nicolas Wilson
Genre: Sci-Fi, Dystopian Bio-punk
Cover Artist: Katie de Long
Release Date: 20th November 2014


BLURB supplied by Bewitching Blog Tours
Execution above or extinction below...

“Please help me. I'm pregnant.”

A chance encounter with a fugitive has turned Christine's life into a nightmare.

Survival is hard enough in the poverty-stricken streets of the Lower Blocks, and this woman is far from the first to flee the Engineers who oversee the City. But now Christine's a target: hunted by the aristocracy, her future uncertain, and past laid bare. And a person with Christine's powers can't afford to be caught.
Humanity built the Foundation to elevate themselves from the poisoned earth, but Christine and Ilsa must choose whether to descend to hell below, or remain in hell above.


EXCERPT

Christine knew that with an Engineers’ blood on her hands, she’d be in for it. That was Three for her, for sure. More likely, she would be immediately taken, due to the severity of her transgressions. No reason to play it safe; best-case scenario, she’d probably have to hide out for months to work through all of the changes needed to disguise herself. She thought of the other grey-market acquirers she knew and wondered which of them liked her enough to shelter her.

She cursed the woman running alongside her and herself for getting drawn into this in the first place. It was too late now—she could only hope that she could make her downfall have as great an impact as possible by seeing Ilsa through this. Tearing her mind from the future, she looked at for exits. No time to worry and fuss. She just had to keep moving.


ABOUT THE AUTHORS


MICHELLE BROWNE



Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer from Calgary, AB. She has a cat and a partner-in-crime. Her days revolve around freelance editing, jewelry, phuquerie, and nightmares. She is currently working on the next books in her series, other people's manuscripts, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.








She is all over the internet, far too often for anyone’s sanity, 
and can be found in various places.


NICOLAS WILSON



Nicolas Wilson is a published journalist, graphic novelist, and novelist. He lives in the rainy wastes of Portland, Oregon with his wife, four cats and a dog.

Nic's work spans a variety of genres, from political thriller to science fiction and urban fantasy. He has several novels currently available, and many more due for release in the next year. Nic's stories are characterized by his eye for the absurd, the off-color, and the bombastic.



For information on Nic's books, and behind-the-scenes looks at his writing, visit www.nicolaswilson.com

INTERVIEW WITH BOTH AUTHORS

What is your name, where were you born and where do you live now?
Nic lives in Portland, Oregon, and Michelle lives in Calgary, Canada.

Did you always want to be a writer? If not what did you want to be?
Michelle: At the age of six, I wanted to run a lion reserve. Forensic investigation and child psychiatry were also careers that I considered, especially when I was younger, but I’m quite glad that I’m a writer (and editor!)—for one thing, there are fewer actual dead bodies.
Nic: I developed an interest in writing early on, but I also was a realist enough to realize that the odds of that being a real “job” weren't good. I never really wanted to be anything else, though. I almost went into the military, but I changed my mind. I've got a bum knee, since degraded to bum back and knee. I probably could have gotten through the basic stuff without mishap, but it would only have been a matter of time and deterioration before I couldn't fake full health. And, to be honest, I'm not great at following orders.

Do you work another job as well as your writing work?
Michelle: I’m a professional freelance editor, and I work with other authors and small publishing companies to provide line-editing services.
Nic: Michelle's a great editor; she actually worked on some of my non-coauthored projects. I'm a graphic designer. Not the kind who does logos and masterpieces, though. I'm the dude producing the emailed BLACK FRIDAY SPECIAL 2 FOR THE PRICE OF 1 advertising stuff. I've also got a disturbingly large selection of techniques to make any text look like it was written in poop. And I've even used them.

What is the name of your latest book, and if you had to summarise it in less than 20 words what would you say?
Michelle: After the Garden—a post-apocalyptic story in the distant future, about love, superpowers, giant spiders, and religious extremism. After that, it’ll be The Meaning Wars, the third installment of the series of the same name. It’s a sci fi dystopia, and this is a big one—characters from the previous books are coming together at last.
Nic: Blood Moon- zombie vampires. Nexus 2- Star Trek, but hornier and weirder. Lunacy- Werewolves... in space. Nexus 2 should be out before xmas, and Lunacy hopefully not long after, provided I can tie down a few loose strings cleanly enough to avoid pissing my developmental editor off.

Which of your books were easier/harder to write than the others?
Nic: Every project has its challenges. I'd say Euphoria/Dysphoria was a little more difficult to write than most, because having even one more cook with equal right to be in that kitchen is more challenging than being able to dismiss an editor's notes as not to your tastes. I enjoyed writing with Michelle, and I'm glad we were able to work through that learning curve. I'm a literary brat; I like to make weird aesthetic decisions and let my foul mouth run wild. And when I'm only accountable to myself, that's one thing. But when someone else is involved, it makes sense to rein myself in a bit. Not everyone likes as many off-color jokes in their work as I do. Michelle has the patience of a saint to look the other way on as many banter-y gags as she did.
Michelle: Cowriting a book was a really interesting creative challenge, but Nic was pretty phenomenal to work with, and we had a great editor who helped us along. Other than that, I’d say the hardest part of writing is revisions. The last stretch of revisions always frustrate me because I’m so eager to get the story out and into the wild!

What can we expect from you in the future?  ie More books of the same genre? Books of a different genre?
Michelle: I’m pretty crazy about post-apocalyptic scenarios, especially long after a disaster has happened, because I love the human challenge element and the way people relate to each other under pressure. The Meaning Wars is more of a high science fiction setting, with my usual leaning towards social science rather than hard science. I also hope to have another sequel out in The Nightmare Cycle, a different series—book one of which is The Underlighters. Book two will be Monsters and Fools. That will be out in 2015’s latter half, along with The Meaning Wars (early next year), if I’m lucky.
Nic: More genres, definitely. I write pretty much anything under the “speculative fiction” umbrella, and then some. My next few projects are sequels, and a few older projects still somewhat soaked in afterbirth. Those have some scrubbing up to do before they're ready for company.

What genre would you place your books into?
Michelle: Science fiction, definitely, but there are touches of horror and dark fantasy as well. In the future, some urban fantasy, steampunk, and even a contemporary work or two will be forthcoming. Because I’m masochistic.
Nic: I kinda shot myself in the foot on this one; I wrote in several. In general, “specfic” is not a bad label for me, but even that misses some of the outliers; I also wrote Banksters, a psychological suspense with absolutely no magical or scifi elements, and am currently publishing more entries in The Gambit, an urban fantasy series along the lines of The Dresden Files or Constantine. Most of my work is science fiction, both soft and hard. But there's a lot of outliers that fall outside that umbrella.

If you had to choose to be one of your characters in your book/books which would you be? and why?
Michelle: I really like Ilsa. She tries so hard to be a good person, but she starts on the back foot in a lot of ways. Her development was really interesting.
Nic: I've got several characters who are kind of Me+1. It's kind of my thing; I don't know if I should be proud of how much I've pigeonholed myself into the disillusioned Peter Pan syndrome suffering Everyman. In Euphoria, I empathize the most with Tyson. So little of his life is actually in his control, but he does his best within a broken system, and when the time comes to stand for something and fight it, he does so without ruining himself over everything he lost in the process. And he's not a jackass about being Mr. Nice Guy, the passive aggressive third wheel watching every woman around ignore him.

Do you have anybody read your books and give you reviews before you officially release them?ie. Your partner, children, friends, reviewers you know?
Nic: Katie de Long, my developmental editor. I've worked with her for years, and Michelle has recently started running things by her, too. She's hell on plotholes, and author egos.  I'm always happy to have ARC reviewers; I value those opinions, as well. Not for all projects, but for some, I serialize them on my blog. I'm not really afraid for people to see my work with a few rough edges.
Michelle: Katie de Long, as mentioned. She’s a goddess, I swear. I also live and die by my fans—I have some other authors who’ve helped me out, and their beta reads are worth their weight in gold. It’s lovely. I can’t believe I used to write without betas and an editor!
[Ooo I love reading Arc's and have done some Beta Reading too, so please feel free to give me a shout if ever I can help? My favourite genres are Post Apoclyptic/Dystopian]

How do you come up with the Title and Cover Designs for your book/books?Who designed the Cover of your books?
Nic: Euphoria/Dysphoria was designed by Katie de Long, a fellow writer and artist. Also mentioned above as my developmental helper. We spoke to her about the project in its earliest stages, and when she got a sense of what we had planned, she rushed off and had a mockup to us in a few hours. I hadn't even decided whether I had room in my schedule to write the darn thing, but once I saw that cover, I knew that I wasn't gonna be the one holding things back.
The title is a bit of a funny story, since I usually connect to the title before I write the book or mockup the cover (Not a good graphic designer, but a graphic designer, remember?). But in this case, I stumbled onto it as a placeholder descriptor name for our notes, and Michelle liked it. Apparently my subconscious is smarter than my head sometimes.
Michelle: I see the title as representing the eutopic/dystopian duality in the setting. For Pocas, the world’s pretty decent. They live in the high air, and with quite a bit of luxury compared to everyone else. There’s also a strong theme of freedom in the book, and the euphoric element of that feeling. However, dysphoria also ties into the struggles of the labourers and what happens when…well, spoilers! The cover, also by Katie, encompasses the duality very nicely.

Do you think books transfer to movies well? Which is you favourite/worst  book to movie transfer?
Nic: Personally, I think it's hard to top Fight Club. I like Palahnuik's writing in general, but the movie did actually improve on it, and lay his point plainer. In similar vein, you wouldn't catch me dead reading American Psycho, but the film adaptation is a favorite.
Michelle: Oh, man, this is a hard question. I think Coraline by Neil Gaiman was one of the best transfers I’ve seen, though I also love The Shining—even if Stephen King doesn’t. The worst, in a way, is American Psycho, because the movie is so much more watchable and better than the book. Nic and I agree on a lot of things, and this is one of them.

Did you have a favourite author as a child?
Nic: Tolkien, ever since my dad read me The Hobbit. And also Batman. I grew up as a comics nut.
Michelle: Diana Wynne Jones, probably—I love her high fantasy works because of their scope and imagination. I also liked Roald Dahl a lot.

Where can readers follow you?
Lots of places! Here's Michelle's links.                                  

And here's Nic's.


***GIVEAWAY***

5 ebook copies of Euphoria/Dysphoria 
and swag packages containing a pendant, bookmarks, etc.
Open to shipping within the US or Canada only.
[Sorry the swag packs are US/Canada only, though I know I'd love to read this book so I'll be entering for chance to win an e-copy, how about you?]
a Rafflecopter giveaway

1 comment: