Angus Sliders follows Max as he struggles to remember what versions of history are real and what is made up from Mirror’s effects, causing history to fracture further, and possibly in irreparable ways. What was the inspiration that created the journey Max goes on in this book?

Max’s journey in Angus Sliders originates from a core question. What happens to a spy when his most trusted asset, his memory, fails him? The Mirror has always posed a threat because it warps time, but the greater threat is psychological. I aimed to examine how an experienced intelligence officer, skilled at handling lies, disinformation, and shifting loyalties, would react when his internal compass fails him.

The inspiration came from three connected ideas. The first is the fallibility of memory in espionage, where spies operate within constructed realities such as covers, legends, and half-truths. The second is what could be called post-war trauma. The fear of misremembering. Lastly, there’s the ethics of changing history. If altering one moment could save lives or end them, how does someone like Max resist the temptation or cope with the guilt of decisions made in unstable times?

So, his journey ultimately revolves around identity under pressure. Max becomes a man forced to navigate through multiple versions of his own past, aware that each step could deepen the cracks. The tension in Angus Sliders comes from whether he can hold onto the truth long enough to repair the present, or if the Mirror will completely overwrite him.

I find that authors sometimes ask themselves questions and let their characters answer them. Do you think this is true for your characters?

Absolutely. For me, that’s one of the engines behind the entire Sliders universe. I often start with a question I’m unsure how to answer, for example, what would it feel like to step into a version of history that remembers you differently? How much of your identity remains when memory becomes negotiable? What does loyalty mean when time itself can be rewritten? Then I stop answering as the author and begin listening to the characters.

Max and Alicia are both shaped by the worlds they navigate. Max, for example, rarely gives the easy answer; he provides the necessary one. Alicia responds with accuracy and restraint, revealing the cost of knowing more than she can admit. So yes, my questions start the conversation, but the characters finish it. That’s the value of writing in this universe: the characters live close to points of fracture such as history, memory, and time, and their answers often reveal truths I wouldn’t have reached on my own. In that sense, I’m not just writing them. I’m discovering what they’re willing to tell me.

I felt that there were a lot of great twists and turns throughout the novel. Did you plan this before writing the novel, or did the twists develop organically while writing?

The honest answer is both. I always start with a skeleton. The main plot points, structural pivots, and key revelations that the whole story depends on. In a book like Angus Sliders, where the narrative twists around time distortion and espionage, those anchors are crucial. Certain twists must happen for the story to have the right impact. But the best twists are the ones that seem inevitable in hindsight yet are surprising in the moment. They tend to happen naturally. They appear when characters react honestly to pressure. They surface when a secondary detail suddenly becomes essential. They occur when the logic of the world requires a new fracture in the timeline.

As I write, the characters often reveal parts of the story I didn’t fully see during the outline stage. Max, for example, rarely acts like someone who wants his arc to stay linear. The Mirror’s influence almost encourages unexpected angles. Alicia makes choices that challenge the neat structural plan, deepening the stakes. So, the process becomes a balance. Plan the structure and, to some degree, let the characters decide how to move through it. That’s where the twists come from. Structure supported by surprise, and surprise supported by character truth. If I’ve done it right, the reader feels both the inevitability and the shock.

Can you tell us more about what’s in store for Max Calder and the direction of the third book?

Without revealing too much, the third book pushes Max into the most dangerous territory he’s faced yet. Not because the enemies are stronger, but because the consequences of what he’s already survived finally catch up with him. Cuban Sliders, based in the Caribbean, leaves Max standing at the edge of a world where the Mirror has been dismantled, but its influence hasn’t disappeared – it’s just increased. The third book poses a more complex question: What does a man do when the past he fought to fix begins rewriting itself around him? Max has learned to navigate fractured histories. But now he must decide which version of himself he’s willing to live with. The third book will force him to confront timelines he thought he’d closed and choices that refuse to stay buried.

Max no longer knows if he’s fighting for the right side or if the right side even exists. If the first book broke Max, and the second tested him, the third questions whether he can survive the truth he’s spent his life trying to uncover.

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