GENRE: YA Sci-fi (Young Adult, Science Fiction_
BLURB:
For Lachlan Smith, learning the secret of the apocalypse was the easy part.
Ever since Locksmith found the portal to the future, he has been wondering who or what was responsible for the empty, uninhabited world he found.
Now he knows—and now he has to fight them.
He thought he had fifteen years in which to prevent the extinction of the human species.
Now, he has only hours.
When the portal is stolen by a cabal of dangerous fanatics, his mother and many of his friends are trapped on the other side. Now the enemy is after him, and the only way to thwart their genocidal plan is to retake the portal and hold it—at both ends.
With very little time left, a handful of allies who don’t trust each other, almost no chance of success and the survival of humanity itself at stake… Locksmith is going to war.
Excerpt:
Rikki’s first plan of escape
Rikki’s first plan of escape was simple — wait for somebody to open the door, then pounce on them, beat them up and start running. She couldn’t act on this plan until the drug wore off.
She was still feeling jittery from the drug when the lights went out, leaving her in something very close to pitch darkness. The tags on her ears glowed in the dark. The lights stayed off for a fair stretch of time — it might have been an hour. Before long, even with the drug out of her system her pupils had dilated to the point where the light that leaked in under the doorway looked like a line of yellow-white fire, dimly illuminating the room.
Then she heard the footsteps out the in the hall. Someone was headed this way. Rikki pointed herself at the doorway and got herself into a sprinter’s crouch like she’d seen Lock do.
The footsteps stopped in front of the door to her cell. She could see the shadows of somebody’s feet. Just one person. Good. Heavier than average, from the sound of the footsteps, but still better than trying to tackle two or more people at once. Her leg muscles were ready to launch her at the enemy. She got her fists into position. A few good blows to the solar plexus and kidneys…
INTERVIEW
What is something you’ve lied about?
My driver’s license says my weight is 200 pounds. That’s kind of an aspirational statement.
Who is the last person you hugged?
Somebody I met at a script readthrough the other day. I have a role in a local theater production of Measure for Measure.
What are you reading now?
I just finished rereading Spinning Silver. Right now I’m working on Gregory Schwartz and Trevor Decker Cohen’s Bright Green Futureand John Koenig’s The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.
How do you come up with the titles to your books?
I wrestled between calling the first book Locksmith’s Closet and Locksmith’s Portal. I finally decided on Closet because it captures his instinct for secrecy. Journeys and War were easier because that’s pretty much what happens in the books—Lock goes on journeys and goes to war.
A slightly more interesting story is how I came up with the title for the Altered Seasons duology. I wrestled over it for a long time. Then I found a line in, of all places, Lovecraft’s “Nyarlathotep,” that seemed to capture the feel of the story: “There was a daemoniac alteration in the sequence of the seasons—the autumn heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown.” But I figured A Daemoniac Alteration in the Sequence of the Seasons would be kind of hard to fit on the title page in reasonable-sized type, so… Altered Seasons.
Share your dream cast for your book.
I don’t really know enough about child actors to make a good choice, although I think Uma Thurman or Tilda Swinton would be great as Mrs. Smith. Thing is, when I started doing a dream cast of Altered Seasons I thought Gina Carano would be perfect as Isabel, and the actress I thought would be perfect for Sandra Symcox turned out to be a totally different gender, so I’ve decided to hold off on cast-dreaming for a while. (I promise I’ll be okay with it if they make Lock black.)
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
In addition to writing books, Paul Briggs has worked as a newspaper editor, court reporter’s assistant, and audio transcriber. In his spare time (when he has any) he sometimes performs in community theater, most recently taking on the roles of Bottom, Petruchio, Macbeth, Rosalind, and Richard III in a Shakespeare compilation. An Eastern Shore native who grew up in Chestertown, Maryland, Paul earned a BA in English from Washington College and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland – College Park.
He is the author of several short plays, including the award-winning The Worst Super Power Ever and The Picture of Health. He is also writing the sequel to his 2018 science fiction novel Altered Seasons: Monsoonrise, which vividly imagines the dislocations that follow when the Arctic Sea ice finally melts and the Chesapeake Bay is drowned by the effects of climate change.
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BIbliomanaic Aza 
The cover is amazing! I love the design and colors.
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Thanks! Secant Publishing found a really good cover design company, MiblArt, to do the cover (and the other new covers). Of course, nobody was expecting MiblArt’s country to be invaded while they were doing the work, but they finished it anyway.
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Thanks for hosting!
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Thanks. (That should probably say, “The actor that I thought would be perfect.” I am trying to keep up.)
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Reblogged this on Books.
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Great interview
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Thanks for sharing.
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Sounds like a great read.
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