Blog Archives
Paranormal Gifts
Utcan’s Talisman follows a woman helping her friend escape a manipulative ruler trying to exploit his healing abilities who winds up in a small fishing village where they rekindle past connections and make new allies. What was your inspiration for the wild journey you take readers on in this novel?
I’m glad that you see Bybiis the scholar as the protagonist. She’s the narrator of two sections of the book (with five sections). Bybiis had no tutor or role model for how to develop her paranormal gifts. Trial and error can be painful and doesn’t expand her potential, plus she’s resentful that others are indifferent to her need to serve her growing powers.
This theme resonates with isolated gifted persons — like artists or athletes — who are not in step with siblings or school friends, and who must leave the family situation to explore a higher calling. The struggle is extra difficult for a woman with no family and discounted by the powers that be.
One inspiration was from Gene Wolfe’s Executioner series where the protagonist was an executioner! The reader saw him as a whole person with flaws and hopes and setbacks and betraying his friends even.
The twist I added is that Bybiis is female and not able to trade on her looks. Male readers often read past the story action for the women, waiting for a hero to make his entrance. Only Bybiis can save Bybiis.
What are some things that you find interesting about the human condition that you think makes for great fiction?
Wow, the human condition. A broad question. I can give a broad answer, I suppose. Science fiction stories are often about a hero who solves a problem that sets a specific situation right and protects the innocent. He wins the day!
My worldview was more about a community of people who need the skills of the group to succeed. People of the same tradition may not like each other, but over the decades, they discover the rewards of working together into progress for the nation or city-state, or duchy. Leaders are often just men or women who are thrust into positions that demand character and integrity – like Zelensky in Ukraine. Those who lack the needed moral fiber find other routes to political rewards.
What advice would you give to a writer working on their first book?
Count the cost. It’s about the story, not about being famous. I teach young writers in online courses. I’m always amazed when they talk about a publishing career and what celebrity will play the book’s hero in the movie.
Writing has many stages, and the first few can seem overwhelming for how time-consuming and reiterative is the process. Can you devote the hours to developing a distinctive writer’s style and a plot that’s fresh and compelling?
I’ve seen many writers with talent drop out. Even though they may have control of language and a strong narrative voice, they may not have found a life-long theme to pursue. What do you want the world to know? Not about you the writer, but about the human condition, that’s so compelling that you devote your life to exploring the dynamics of the struggle?
For me, it was presenting multi-dimensional female characters. What is your essential need to write?
I hope the series continues in other books. If so, where will the story take readers?
You ask good questions. Book 6 is titled THE MATRIX OPAL and may come out in 2025. The writer’s style takes a turn in that narrators are multiple and not restricted to one section. I figure that if the reader has made it to Book 6, then she knows the characters. So we can mix it up for character voices and POV.
Bybiis is joined by more young gifted characters. A powerful enemy emerges with child kidnappings and assassinations. The demands to grow paranormal powers are more than how to live well. The gifted group must put their skills into service for strengthening group defenses.
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Bybiis el Putuki and her friend Opin the healer must navigate the demands of the khalif in Utica who would turn Opin’s gift to serve him. Jesse Hartley and Hershel Henry find each other, but each is very changed from recent events. Can they reawaken the currents of feeling between them?
When Bybiis is able to force a release from the khalif’s control, she and Opin land at a small fishing village from where Mrs. Shaw is exploring the ruins of a lost city. Jesse Hartley joins them, but the conflicts that grew in Utica get more intense. Jesse is distracted when Hershel Henry invites her to rejoin her father the Consortium General at the rainbow bridge construction site.
Blue Anomaly
In Blue Anomaly by J.K. Bunta, astrophysicist Dr. Tristan Smolensky embarks on a mission as Earth’s primary representative to investigate signals from a distant star that potentially indicates intelligent life. As he approaches the star, Tristan’s reality begins to fragment, raising questions about whether the star or its signals harbor a more sinister nature or if the journey through space is inducing a hallucinogenic breakdown. The forthcoming answers defy both Tristan’s and the reader’s expectations.
Bunta’s novel falls under the category of hard science fiction, grounded in established scientific theory and existing technology. This genre strives for hyper-realism, with events that can be explained through biophysics, human biochemistry, and similar scientific disciplines. Bunta’s scientific background lends credibility to his storytelling, creating a narrative that is as plausible as it is captivating.
Fans of space madness films like “Moon” or Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” may find familiar themes in “Blue Anomaly.” Despite its scientific foundation, Bunta skillfully weaves in literary elements that are both eerie and emotionally resonant. Tristan’s quest to uncover the source of the star’s signals leads to revelations, but it also opens doors to deeper mysteries. This interplay between scientific plausibility and imaginative storytelling is what defines exceptional science fiction. At its core, this book explores the pressing questions of human nature and existence while venturing into the unknown. The book masterfully balances scientific rigor with imaginative exploration, creating a journey that is intellectually stimulating and thought-provoking. The ending may leave some questions unanswered, but it solidifies the bond between protagonist and reader, ensuring that the journey is memorable.
Blue Anomaly is a compelling blend of scientific authenticity and literary creativity. Bunta’s expertise in science enriches the narrative, while his storytelling transports readers on an unforgettable journey through the cosmos.
Pages: 193 | ASIN : B0D5TM2VHD
Political Turmoil
Tribal Logic follows a group of people who find themselves struggling to survive in a world plagued by political turmoil and shifting loyalties. Could you please share what inspired the initial idea for this series and how it evolved as you were writing it?
Well, um…that’s a big question. I’ve been writing the series for over three decades. And maybe I learned how to write! The situations and characters get better with each book.
Political turmoil is a big theme in the series. In the previous book HOME RULE, the tribes gain a new leader and feel that they are united. With TRIBAL LOGIC, we expand the worldview to include a military coup at Stargate Junction and a rescue mission into the asteroid field.
I like to think that the action reflects moments in our own world, like when the cosmonauts were in space for over a year and returned to find a dismantled Soviet Union.
For evolving themes, we added more magic into TRIBAL LOGIC. Characters begin to meet others from an elusive tribe with skills in making wards, charms, scripts, and hexes – mostly to defend themselves. One new character is a young healer named Opin who can lay-on-hands for relief from a bleeding wound. I researched Indian and Middle Eastern traditions of healing and learned a great deal about our larger world too.
Were you able to achieve everything you wanted with the characters in the novel?
I see TRIBAL LOGIC as a pair to the next book UTCAN’S TALISMAN that will be released in August 2024. The story arch is satisfied over the two books. There are many characters, but we mostly follow the urge to connect between Jesse Hartley and Hershel Henry. Jesse is a flawed character – high-handed and a poor negotiator. We love to hate her and wonder how she will make a place for herself.
Dr. Greensboro is a primary character still, married to General Shaw. Her research has led her to a remote fishing village called Sergiio, but events bring the world to her door.
My principle is to show women in more roles than newlyweds or evil queens. I keep exploring how relations operate over time and how women make choices to keep the marriage fresh and manage the decades for child raising. The stories tend to stretch out rather than being satisfied with winning the day.
What was one of the hardest parts of Tribal Logic for you to write?
Each book section has its own narrator, so we see the world through the eyes of Jesse Hartley, then Dr. Greensboro, then Hershel Henry, then Bybiis el Putuki. Developing the individual voices so each section is personal and conversational with a specific point-of-view can be a challenge – and a reward.
After spending a hundred pages with Henry’s voice, we are jolted to encounter Bybiis’s view of him as a feckless philanderer, for example.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when can your fans expect it to be out?
UTCAN’S TALISMAN is Book Five in the series and slated for release in August 2024. Utcan is from the tribe with magic. His talisman is modeled after a found-in-nature “mermaid’s purse” that’s actually a folded seaweed frond where a shark has inserted a fetus for extra incubation. For sci-fi, I was able to embellish that idea to a talisman where the holder can peer through a hole in the head of a dead serpent and talk with another holder. Ha, ha…I love magic.
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A change in leadership on Stargate Junction makes all characters question how the future will shape. How to survive the shifting loyalties among the city-states? Will my home even be there when I return?
While on a deep space rescue mission, Hershel Henry misses karsci on Dolvia the Abydian khalif steps down. Within the turmoil, will Henry connect with Jesse Hartley, or is that romance lost forever?
Our Place In The Universe
Intergalactica follows a neuropsychiatric after waking from a coma who joins an organization that is trying to find Earth 2 to save humanity, or so they say. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I needed to find the most credible way in which a situation as heightened as this could happen in reality. As we know, her coma is related to the twist at the end of the book – so it all connects in a way that is hopefully rewarding to the reader.
Was the character’s backstory something you always had, or did it develop as you were writing?
Amanda is greatly inspired by another Amanda – from the TV series Nikita. Although Amanda from Nikita, played by Melinda Clarke, is a psychopath and the main villain behind the show. I wanted to create a new character – this time a heroine, that still had her commanding presence and icy one-liners.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I wanted the reader to reflect on our place in the universe, and to also be able to explore new worlds with actual new species and ecosystems. I feel the sci-fi genre can get too desolate and hopeless at times, and I am especially sick of barren planets.
Will there be a follow-up novel to this story? If so, what aspects of the story will the next book cover?
There are three other novels in the series, already published in Portuguese. I believe if the next three get translated, I might re-edit the entire product, revisit them, and adapt them to fit one full book. It would still be just slightly bigger than Intergalactica, so this idea has been on my mind for a while. We shall see.
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It’s launch day for NASA’s long-awaited manned expedition to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa!
Neuropsychiatrist Amanda awakens after months in a coma caused by acute meningitis…
Along with two patients, they discover themselves to be key pieces in an ever-growing puzzle involving an underground geopolitical corporation called The Firm, which plans to sabotage the mission, taking advantage of a new technology to hijack the ship and set a course for a habitable planet located seventeen light-years away from Earth.
Originally released in Brazil in 2016, the Intergalactica book series moved thousands of physical and digital copies in Portuguese. Discover a new Earth as you journey to the stars in the first volume of F. P. Trotta‘s saga.
LITERARY TITAN 