“Pulstar I: The Swan Barely Remembers” follows an amnesiac astronomer who must piece together her forgotten past and navigate a technologically advanced world as she grapples with the ripple effects of choices she can no longer remember. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

In a nutshell, the Pulstar trilogy is the result of a promise I made to a special person who is no longer on Earth. However, the long story would be this one:

During my teenage years, at my sister’s birthdays, a party guest talked about an intrinsic and mysterious subject. That’s where the idea for Pulstar came from. I felt I had to write about it somehow, heavily influenced by Blade Runner, The End of the Eternity, and 1984. I published the novels Astralvia I and Astralvia II in Spanish in early 2000. Afterward, I stopped writing and focused fully on my band Fractaler until 2012. Then, my country, Venezuela, became more chaotic than it already was. That contributed to the dissolution of my band and forced me to emigrate. While I attempted to start a family and lived in Europe, a tragedy in Venezuela forced me to return and stay there, isolated in an apartment all day long, writing and composing music all the time. Finally, I sold the apartment and returned to Europe, but in body, my mind was anchored in Pulstar and Astralvia—the fictional country where the story of Pulstar trilogy and its prequels take place.

Jeral Murh is a compelling character. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?

Thank you for saying that.

The idea was to create a character who has always felt like an outcast, who has never fit in, and whose primary motivation is the study of the cosmos. For her, nothing can be more important than understanding the universe, even if the answers are shocking and disturbing and reveal how insignificant we are.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

The central theme of the trilogy is how little we know about ourselves, about what is out there, about the meaning of our existence, if there is any real meaning at all. Pulstar I introduces the characters’ present, one that is commanded by past actions they don’t even imagine they did. However, sometimes remembering the past is frightening, and we may wish we didn’t remember it, especially if we don’t identify with what we were before anymore.

What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?

Thank you for asking.

Pulstar I is the core of the story, and the second and third parts are already in the editing stage—in English and Spanish. I always conceived this story as a trilogy, or as an enormous book split into three parts, although each is self-concluding somehow. The ending of Pulstar III has been one of my biggest driving forces to continue with this project. Nerve (also published) is a prequel to Pulstar I that you can read as a stand-alone novel. Then, there’s Marlenh, an erotic thriller taking place 30 years before the events of Pulstar I and Nerve. I plan to publish Marlenh in October of this year. It is currently in the Proofreading phase.

Another project I have to complete is the music for all these books; it’s quite advanced, though.

We’ll see. 😊

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