Can you tell us a little about yourself?
I've always been interested in a quest for Truth, whether
philosophical or economic. I want to understand how the world really works.
Most of my writing explores those sort of questions.
What started your interest in writing?
I've always been a big reader. I wrote my first
"novel" in 6th grade. It was an alien invasion story. I
used to write humorous political or religious pamphlets in high school for
made-up political parties or religious groups. My first published item was a
choose-your-own-adventure book for the Tunnels & Trolls role-playing game
when I was sixteen. It was my first real job.
What is your book(s) about?
The Fist of God is about a man searching for revenge who
finds Truth instead. He doesn't really like what he discovers.
What are you currently working on?
The fourth book in the same series: The Realm of the Dark
Sun. It's more of a romance involving a CIA agent in 1959 trapped in a mystical
world at the center of the earth. Yeah, all my stuff is weird.
How long did it take you to get your rough draft finished on
your latest release?
The Fist of God was written about ten years ago. It took
me almost a year to get the first draft done. Back then I wasn't as organized
about writing as I am now.
If you could be any paranormal creature what would you be?
Ha! I would be a vampire hunter in the footsteps of old
Simon van Helsing.
What do you do when you’re not writing?
My hobby is military gaming on a tabletop with 1/56 scale
figures, primarily World War Two battles on the Eastern Front. I've always been
a big fan of military history, especially World War Two. The Fist of God is set
in that war as is the sequel, The Unholy Grail, set to come out next July.
Are any of your characters like you?
Usually somebody in the book has some of my
talents/personality. The stories often reflect some searching in my own life
although they aren't necessarily autobiographical. Although Maitre'd to the
Damned (my vampire novel) did feature a restaurant manager who turns
vampire hunter. I did used to manage a restaurant. It was a pretty weird and
awful place to work and in the book I worked in a lot of real events that happened
to me, although I never actually met any vampires... that I know of.
What genres do you write in?
Speculative fiction is the closest term. It
covers fantasy, science fiction and paranormal works, which are all categories
my fiction fits. I've also done a paranormal investigation (Why Do Ghosts Wear
Clothes?) and a lot of small non-fiction pieces on religion, philosophy and
politics.
Is there anything you will never write about?
Probably not. I've done a novel that's also a cookbook:
The Donuts of Doom. My problem is most of my writing defies categorization, so
it's been difficult to find publishers.
Do you have a favorite quote from your book(s)?
It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
Is there anything you would tell aspiring writers?
Don't give up. Everything in the writing business takes
FOREVER.
If zombies attacked what kind of supplies would you want?
Pretty much what I've already got stockpiled "just in
case." I'm not paranoid. I just feel if you expect the worst you're never
disappointed.
What was the hardest part of writing your book(s)?
Well, that's different for each book. The Fist of God was
difficult to organize because at the time I wasn't making outlines. I'd just
sit down and write the thing. When you do it that way it's like building a
house without a blueprint -- you end up going back and having to rebuild big
sections over and over. There were whole chapters that ended up discarded and
then other sections that had to be added later. The entire ending of the book
is different from the original.
Do you keep a notebook near for when new ideas pop into your
head?
No, I mostly just let them roll around in my head a while.
If you write a series do you reread your previous books
before you begin the new one?
Yes. It's surprising what you can forget even when you
wrote the book, especially if it's been a while.
Is there anything you wish to say to your readers?
Please leave a review on Amazon or whatever
site you bought the book from. You can't imagine how helpful that is for other
people finding the books.
For
readers who haven't tried your books yet, how do you think your editor or loyal
readers would describe your books?
Weird, profound and entertaining.
When
writing, how do you keep track of timelines, ideas, inspiration and such? By
notes on the computer, a notebook perhaps?
Yes. My later books have extensive outlines. The last couple
I've even storyboarded like a movie script. I try to write, "scripts for
the movie in your head."
I’m
always looking for book recommendations. What books have you been reading?
Would you recommend them?
I'm currently reading a history of the Cuban Missile Crisis
-- research for my next book. I can't really recommend it, as it's not terribly
interesting, mostly informational. Unholy Alliance, a history of Nazi
involvement with the Occult by Peter Levenda is good, if you like that sort of
thing. I read a lot more non-fiction than fiction.
Lately I've been rather disappointed in recent fiction and
movies. I'm not a post-modernist and I don't like a story that goes nowhere and
demonstrates that existence is pointless. I don't find "life sucks and
then you die" entertaining. Modern storytelling has moved away from the
happily ever afters and moral lessons to a more nihilistic viewpoint. It's
because society is changing from the traditional Western Judeo-Christian
worldview to a secular evolutionary one and what's getting published now
reflects that. The only genre that isn't affected is romance. The last couple
of books I wrote were romances because I was despairing of getting a
non-post-modernist story published otherwise.
What do readers have to look forward to in the future from
you?
The Fist of God is the first in a seven-book
series from Desert Breeze Publishing. They're due out at six-month intervals.
I've already written the first three and the fourth is almost done. It's a tale
of an ordinary guy who ends up becoming a hero in a paranormal adventure
opposing a supernatural conspiracy to enslave the human race. But at the same
time it's a story about his life, fighting in world war two and Korea, working
in the CIA, his romance and marriage, having a kid and dealing with the events
of the 20th century. Kinda like Forrest Gump if Forrest were in the
CIA and fighting evil spirits. It's been billed as the Occult History of the
Cold War.
I'll probably also get around to publishing a
collection of my short stories, many of which have appeared in Weird Tales,
Tales of the Talisman and other magazines.
Writer’s block—real or hype?
I'm a very disciplined writer. I write when I'm supposed
to. I don't have any trouble with "writer's block." You can get
blocked up if you sit there thinking about it. Just do it.
Do you prefer to extensively plot your stories, or do you
write them as they come to you?
I prefer to plot them out, at least in general form. I
find it easier to make a better story and not to have to go back and re-do
things.
Do you have a favorite genre? Is it the same genre you prefer
to write?
Hard to say. I'm kinda picky. I don't like a lot of hard
sci-fi although I'll read it. A lot of paranormal stuff I don't like because of
the way Christianity is edited out. If you're dealing with the occult without
that you're basically helpless. You can't fight real evil spirits with a
handgun or karate chop. Fantasy is probably my favorite.
What advantages or challenges does a writer in your genre
face in today’s fiction market?
The changing worldview in publishers makes it difficult
for someone who writes from a traditional Western Judo-Christian viewpoint to
get published. I don't write "Christian" fiction but I do write from
that viewpoint. My stories don't just ignore God or spiritual issues. Most of
the population doesn't either but the narrow elites that run Hollywood and the
publishing industry do and that colors their ideas of what people want to read.
It's pretty sad when you have to look to cartoons like Toy Story to explore
ideas about the individual vs. the collective and friendship because Hollywood
is all about violence and sex and the existential pointlessness of life. I
think the movie Prometheus is a good example. They raised all sorts of
spiritual issues like where are we from, who created us and why, then ignored
them in an orgy of blood and killing and left you knowing even less than you
did when they started. But what can you expect when the screenwriter's
philosophy is "life sucks and then you die, everything is a pointless
waste of time and meaningless." If so, can't we see a story about someone
who tries to come to terms with that? Instead we get boobs and giant robots
fighting.
A lot of fiction these days is basically the same. I
really liked Sommer's The Electric Church because he examined that sort of
thinking in a world that was falling apart. He never really came to any real
conclusion (which is why the series just sort of ended with no conclusion) but
at least he tried. Readers look around and ask "is this all to life there
is?" They want someone to address that. But most writers don't know what
to say and most publishers don't like the answers.
What if the Second World War wasn't just the largest war in
history, but a supernatural struggle between spiritual entities?
It’s 1940 and the fires of war have set Europe ablaze,
but America
remains blissfully neutral. To please his parents, skeptical Stuart Mackenzie
studies to become a minister. He has about as much concern for the outcome of
the war as he does for South American sports scores. But his idealistic
brother, a former bootlegger with ties to the Purple Gang, volunteers for the
Royal Air Force. And when his Hurricane is shot down, Stuart abandons his
studies to seek bloodthirsty revenge.
But what he discovers unravels his worldview. Can a confirmed skeptic defeat a
coven of Nazi sorcerers on their home ground? What chance will the mundane
weapons of the Allied powers have against ancient magic and an artifact said to
have slain the very Son of God?
Teaser:
Our frantic efforts to free our comrade dumped the contents
of the crate onto the loading dock. Nestled inside a large quantity of
protective wood shavings lay a life-sized bronze statue of a naked woman.
She wore a necklace of human skulls and several severed
hands dangled from her belt. With six arms and a Hindu headdress, her identity
was unmistakable: the goddess Kali. Once, long ago, in what seemed now like
another life, I took a seminary course in comparative religions and learned
Kali's identity as the Hindu goddess of death. But what was a statue of her
doing in a place like this? I mean, I knew there was death here, a lot of it.
It surrounded us all day long. But why would Nazis bother with something more
appropriate to a heathen temple somewhere?
But then the plans I overheard in Heinrich Himmler's castle
began to make sense. They were actually going to go through with them. This was
just the first step. The lunatic scheme of a deranged crackpot would
sacrifice millions, maybe tens of
millions, and if Himmler carried his insane plan through to completion, the
Allies would certainly lose the war. Backed by the magical power of the forces
summoned by his evil enchantment, the armies of Nazism would sweep across the
globe defeating all opposition and begin a new Dark Age, prolonged and made
more horrific by an incestuous alliance between modern science and an ancient
evil.
The mundane armies of the West could only hope to counter
Nazi occult powers with spiritual powers of their own.
During my interrogation, Himmler taunted me,
bragging about a talisman of power that would seal our doom. Yet, in the right
hands, it could turn the tide. The future survival of the West, and maybe of
civilization itself, depended on me relaying that information back to Britain.
They had to know about the only weapon with the power to balance the enemy's
hellish enchantment. They might not believe me, but that information
represented the only hope for the Free World. I had to escape. Now, more than
just my own life lay at stake....
Author Bio and Links
M.E. Brines spent the Cold War assembling atomic artillery shells and
preparing to unleash the Apocalypse (and has a medal to prove it.) But when
peace broke out, he turned his fevered, paranoid imagination to other pursuits.
He spends his spare time scribbling another steampunk romance occult adventure
novel, which despite certain rumors absolutely DOES NOT involve time-traveling
Nazi vampires!
A former member of the British Society for Psychical Research, he is a
long-time student of the occult and a committed Christian who sees himself as a
modern-day Professor Van Helsing equipping Believers for battle against the
occult Principalities and Powers that rule a world in darkness. (Ephesians
6:12)
The author of three dozen books, e-books, chapbooks and pamphlets on
esoteric subjects such as alien abduction, alien hybrids, astrology, the Bible,
biblical prophecy, Christian discipleship, conspiracies, esoteric Nazism, the
Falun Gong, Knights Templar, magick, and UFOs, his work has also appeared in
Challenge magazine, Weird Tales, The Outer Darkness, Tales of the Talisman, and
Empirical magazine.
*I'm often asked how I square my Christianity and "messing around"
with the occult, as if I'm partial to bestial things with a goat under the
amber light of the moon or something. No so. I'm a student, in the same way I
used to study Soviet weapons and tactics back when I was a US Army officer.
This gives my work a unique perspective no matter what your belief system. I
don't judge. I just present the information and let the reader decide.
