What is the name of the book and when was it published?
My book is Grooveworld and it was published in 2014.
What’s the book’s first line?
Test one. Test two. The voice curled out of the speakers on a shrill wave of feedback and swept through the streets of Resonance.
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
Star Wars with DJs. And a little Dune thrown in.
Okay not really. But maybe a bit. Flick is a bedroom DJ who lives in a world where sound can alter emotions, power weapons, and even knock down city walls. Flick dreams of becoming a Shaper – somebody who can control sound waves. At the same time, the city of Resonance where he lives is starting to fall apart. The Ohm that fuels the city is running out. The people are getting desperate. And when a terrorist group bombs the annual Sounding festival, Flick and his friends get pulled into an epic battle that will change his world forever.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
Back when I used to go to lots of raves (a lifetime ago), I was always struck by this idea that everybody involved felt they were a part of a movement. Many compared it to the movements of the 60’s. But when the sun rose in the morning and people crawled back to their cars to resume their normal lives, the ‘movement’ just sorta… vanished. It made me a little cynical. I couldn’t help but think there had to be a deeper meaning, that our actions could manifest into something substantial. That’s when I decided that I wanted to take everything I loved from the rave scene and make a world out of it to call my own. I wanted to fall into the aural landscapes created by those spinning records. And that’s how Grooveworld was born.
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who-real or fictional-would you say the character reminds you of?
Flick means well and wants to do the right thing, but he’s also battling a darkness inside himself. That darkness — whether it’s ego or power or fear or even naiveté — offers him a fast path to success, but it’s up to him to figure out what success really means. I joke that Flick is part me and part my friend Ryan, mainly because I’m the wide-eyed optimist who still believes in magic (it’s real, dammit), and Ryan is the otherworldly DJ who can read a room and feed off the energy. He also has an encyclopedic memory when it comes to music, which makes me super jealous. I mean seriously. The guy can listen to any song and pull out some perfectly obscure record to match it on a whim. I can barely remember where I put my keys. How is that fair?
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
It’s a fantasy book about DJs. If that doesn’t pique your curiosity, I don’t know what to tell you! There aren’t a lot of books that revolve around sound and music the way this one does. (How many books can claim they have an actual Wilhelm scream?) But more importantly, this book is really about love— your first love, the love of your friends, the love of that song you’ll never forget because it came on the moment you had your heart broken. Grooveworld may be constructed around a hero’s journey, but it’s so much more than that. As the sequels come out, you’ll start to see that journey twist in on itself and become the foundation for a much bigger adventure. I hope you take it with me.