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SDCC 2019: ‘Stan Lee’s Alliances: A Trick of Light’ Author, Co-Creators Talk Creating A Universe, Working With Stan, And More!

by Mikaela MaxwellJuly 25, 2019

I’ve always been a huge reader, but as life shifts and changes, and commuting takes up more of my day, I found myself not making as much time for it. Then I discovered Audible, and it changed my world! In the couple of years since joining Audible I have listened to almost 50 different titles! A lot while commuting, but also while cleaning, gardening, getting ready in the AM… you get the picture. So naturally my interest was piqued when, shortly before commencing my first SDCC trip, I received an invitation to have an experience and do an interview with the creators of a new Audible Original, Stan Lee’s Alliances: A Trick of Light!

Not only was this an Audible project, but it was also one of the final collaborative projects from the illustrious Stan Lee, in a totally new universe, with totally new characters, created for a totally new format! Needless to say, my interest was extremely piqued. That being said I almost didn’t jump at this opportunity because I didn’t know if I was a good choice for the job. It’s not like it would be my first interview (I interviewed my face off at last years PAX West) but this project just felt so precious and special, and like it needed to be handled with such respect and skill. I wasn’t sure if I could do it justice. However with much support and encouragement from my Geekscape mentor (AKA Derek!), I decided to say yes to this amazing opportunity!

On Thursday, July 18th, the first Full day of SDCC, I was able to head into the A Trick of Light activation. This was a super neat experience, and I wish everyone was able to try it out. The activation allows you to experience excerpts from the story, narrated by the incredible Yara Shahidi, accompanied by captivating lighting sequences and effects. There are no characters or scenes laid out in front of you, you are required to create the image of the characters through your imagination, but the way light is used inside the activation creates an atmosphere that plunges you directly into the story alongside the characters.

The activation kicks off by having you experience the storm that changes the life of one the main characters; through lights, and mirrors, and narration you feel immersed into this character’s experience. You are then lead into, as Ryan so eloquently described, a light labyrinth. Here you find yourself turning corners and coming to dead ends, where there is a cone of sound around you, allowing you to have a private-feeling experience of the narration, while being mesmerized by an accompanying lighting sequence. As you go to leave, you are lead down a hallway, accompanied by Stan Lee’s voice, and I doubt I was the only one to tear up at this point in the experience!

Photo Credit: Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Audible

Saturday hit and that meant it was time for the interview! This was meant to be a round table interview, which means that a group of interviewers sits down (in this case at a literally round table) with the people to be interviewed, and take turns asking questions. My expectation was this would be beneficially because other people would have really smart questions that I would get to hear the answers to, and that it would be extra stressful because I would be feeling self conscious in front of peers. I was very wrong.

As it turned out, during the time slot that I was there, it was myself and one other interviewer, Josias Arebalo with The Comic Syndicate, accompanied by co-creators Luke Lieberman and Ryan Silbert, as well as co-writer Kat Rosenfield. Turns out I needn’t have been nervous at all! Everyone was very nice, and the interview went off without a hitch. Together we asked a few good questions, and more importantly heard a lot of really great explanations about how this project was developed, the process of making it come to life, and how important and exciting it is to have developed it for the Audible platform.

So please take a read and enjoy getting inside the head of these incredibly creative and talented humans!

Josias Arebalo: All right guys, we are here reporting from San Diego Comic-Con 2019. We’re here with some very special guests from Stan Lee’s Alliances: A Trick of Light. Please feel free to introduce yourselves.

Luke Lieberman: Luke Lieberman. I’m one of the co-creators.

Kat Rosenfield: Kat Rosenfield, author.

Ryan Silbert: Ryan Silbert, co-creator.

JA: And we have another very special guest.

Mikaela Maxwell: I’m Mikaela Maxwell, I’m with Geekscape.

JA: If you guys could please just break down exactly what this experience is and how it came about. Start off with a little bit of everything, that way our listeners can get a better background.

KR: I think we should talk about the book first. This is an Audible Original. One of the most innovative, and one of the last collaborations that Stan [Lee] completed in his lifetime. It’s a totally immersive experience and it’s the story of, I’m gonna keep broad strokes here, two young people who have gifts and whose connection with each other is so powerful that it could save the world or it could destroy it.

JA: Awesome premise already! Since it is one of Stan’s last projects he was working on, how did it grow from there? How did it come about and what was the collaboration process?

LL: I met Stan in the year 2000 when I was a film student at NYU. At that point Stan was very excited about the Internet and what it could mean for us as a tool to communicate ideas, and for people to communicate with each other. Cut to about a decade and a half later, Stan was my mentor so I knew him throughout, but you cut to a decade a decade and a half later and he became much more keenly aware of how that tool was being misused and how the Internet had become a tool for division. Manipulating people’s perception and manipulating people, and how the anonymity of the Internet was causing us to dehumanize each other. This story is very much about finding real connections in a, you know, virtual space. The idea of A Trick Of Light is that all of these digital realities, virtual realities, augmented realities, and just what you see on your phone or on your screen every day, that’s not real. That’s A Trick Of Light.

RS: Just the brass tacks of it: this was a multi year process of working and world building, creating many characters and many story threads, and the foundations of what became Alliances. Then, once the choice was made to introduce the story through A Trick of Light, bringing it out as an Audible Original was something very exciting for all of us, especially Stan, because it allowed us to tell this story and introduce this universe in a really immersive way. These are characters developed for audio, and it allows you then to have a very personal connection and, co-authored with Kat here, it brings you inside the journey of Cameron, Nia, Juaquo and Zoll, and all of the other characters, in a way that really no other format allows. So that’s what was really special for us in terms of how we decided to release the project.

RS: Now in terms of where we’re sitting right now, we are at SDCC at what was a mind blowing experience for the three of us because we walked in here, and it is a completely dark room [with] basically a light labyrinth that brings you inside of the story in a way that I have never, ever, experienced. Truly I wish all the listeners could come step into Fourth Avenue and walk through the A Trick of Light installation because it is mind blowing!

KR: This activation really encapsulates perfectly how gripping it is to be told a story in audio. So many of the other spaces at Comic-Con rely on visual spectacle, in here it’s really just about the story; and it’s about the voice of Yara Shahidi, our incredible narrator.

JA: The writing process for this, how long did it take?

LL: As Ryan was saying, the world building started years ago. We were just building out characters and story threads, and when Stan decided that he wanted to introduce this universe through a long form narrative, then Audible became an opportunity. First of all for Stan I think just working the audio medium it was something he hadn’t done a million times and at that point in his career that got him excited.

RS: Yeah.

KR: He’d never done it, it was completely new!

LL: Right. Exactly. Finding a new storytelling medium for Stan Lee in his 90s…

MM: What an incredible opportunity!

LL: That’s when we took this this universe that was created, and the characters, and started to focus them into a single narrative, which is A Trick of Light, the story that introduces you to the characters in the universe.

RS: The foundations of the Alliances universe come from the question that Stan asks in the intro which is: ‘What is more real? The world we’re born into or the one we create for ourselves?’. You know as fans you wait your whole life to hear Stan ask that ‘what if’ question. Cause we’ve read all of that work, and to hear that it unlocked so many opportunities and potential, to develop Alliances, to introduce Cameron and Nia through Trick of Light. That question is is so meaningful to all three of us and Stan.

JA: How big is the space we are in right now? [For the A Trick of Light SDCC Activation]

LL: Well there is this room, which is where you’re first introduced to it, then there’s a hallway that takes you to a larger space, and then there’s a hallway with Stan’s audio that brings you out.

RS: For listeners [or readers] you walk in and it says here ‘The Great Beyond’, and that’s where you experience the beginnings of the journey of the story. Right, and you go into the great beyond…

LL: The great beyond lies within.

RS: ‘The great beyond lies within’, which is from the book. Each space is developed and each little experiences develop from a piece of the narrative. There are massive audio modules that allow you to focus in on Yara’s terrific performance and the terrific writing of Stan and Kat, and really walk out of this experience with a different understanding of the story in a way.

KR: I just want to add on, because we haven’t actually made this explicit yet, what you’re doing in this activation is that you’re experiencing our main character Cameron’s transformation from an ordinary person into something a little bit superhuman.

LL: Cameron 2.0.

KR: Yeah, Cameron 2.0.

JA: I know you’ve been working on the project for years, but for the activation in general how long did it take to put something like this together?

RS: We don’t know.

LL: We are the wrong people to ask!

RS: We create the world, there are geniuses here that create this world. I think what’s really moving about this installation, not only as people who have worked on the project for so many years, is Stan has such an amazing connection with fans. We’re sitting at this table because he built the fan community basically brick by brick prior to the 60s and then into the 60s with the Marvel Age. You know, through soapboxes and through his talks on campus, and then came connections, and then came the Internet. Prior to that was sending letters around from penpals, through the fan pages. Here it’s great because you get to experience the Stan Lee story with fans. Then on the way out Stan, is no longer with us, but he is present. As you exit the intro plays and it’s very very moving. For us during this part of the experience we really miss him, because this is what he really enjoyed so much, he was a long [time] mentor of Luke’s, and you know this is really special activation experience.

KR: He feels present in this moment, not just because you hear his voice as you leave this experience, but you just see how excited everyone is to share in this story, and we’re so excited, and it really just feels like he’s kind of here.

LL: Also actually when you leave and you’re hearing his voice it just remind me of how excited he was to work. This was a project he was excited about, and you sort of hear it. And Stan’s excitement is contagious, it’s infectious, and it gets all of his collaborators excited, it gets you motivated.

MM: So Alliances is a universe, does that mean there will be other things to come of this?

KR: Well for the moment we are very focused on the release of the Audible Original, we’ve been working on this for a long time and couldn’t talk about it for the longest time because it was all under cloak and dagger and it was super secretive. So you know, we’ll say that universes tend to expand and it would be a little weird if this one didn’t. But right now we’re very focused on A Trick of Light and just getting the fan community excited to be part of this journey and to get in with these characters.

MM: Do you think that this particular Audible Original could expand into VR or something? Because walking through this experience I could totally see sitting at home in like a VR world kind of experiencing the light and sound and stuff all at once.

KR: That is a cool idea.

RS: I think one of the things that’s so beautiful about audio is that, I believe and we all believe because we’re working in it, it is like the most immersive experience. There’s a lot of spectacle to virtual reality, but when it comes down to it 52% of your experience in a film, probably more but let’s just go with 52% percent, is the sound. You forget it because it becomes part of the story, it becomes part of the backdrop, but it is so important. So I think the most immersive way to experience the story would be through audio.

KR: I will say we we have a print edition coming out in September. So you know there’s a lot of raw material here that I think can function really well in any number of mediums.

LL: When we were talking about how [Stan] was excited about the opportunity to do something he hadn’t done before, which was an Audible story, one of the things that got him excited was the idea that his fans would collaborate with him and that they would visualize the story, and that they could be the [Jack] Kirby or the [Steve] Ditko and they would create their own versions of the characters. We didn’t really overly describe the characters because we wanted everyone to be able to sort of visualize their own version of Cameron and Juaquo and Nia… and Zoll… and Six [and another character that I could not make out on the audio]

KR: You just named off every single character!

RS: You just named off every character!

KR: We never talk about Barry, the old man.

LL: Yeah we really should, he is like one of my favourite characters.

MM: Just out of curiosity I feel like I’m noticing a trend of technology and humans kind of intermingling in a way that they haven’t previously, in comics and movies and stuff like that. Do you have any ideas on why that is, why that’s happening at this point in time.

KR: I think it’s happening in real life! [Said simultaneously with one of the guys, to peels of laughter from everybody]

KR: What this story is really reflective of is what it’s like to live right now, in a world where technology influences our lives, where it’s our primary medium for connecting with and communicating with each other. Sometimes it’s even our exclusive medium for knowing somebody. So I think that this story is another way, a different angle, to explore the anxieties and the questions and the concerns that arise from already living in an age where technology is so much a part of our lives. It’s already a part of our identities, you know, you shape this self online. So I think it flows very naturally from something that’s actually happening.

LL: We’re not experts in technology, we’re not scientists or anything, but we did a lot of research to just kind of see where things were at, and what was coming and what was around the corner, to sort of inform the storytelling.

RS: With A Trick of Light, as Luke was saying, we did do real world research, we went up to Cornell, Stanford, the Human Interaction Lab where the Oculus was created and were informed by a lot of the real [technology] that the fantastical was developed off of. But all of Stan’s stories, and I think this is why his stories tend to stand the test of time, they are mythologically based, they’re character based, but they also are set in a world that’s familiar to ours. With [Fantastic Four] or with the Hulk, these are amazing characters that can develop and be set in different kinds of context, but where they were set originally were and things that felt very real like: Spidey swings down Sixth Avenue, Hulk is dealing with the nuclear age. We hadn’t been to space at the point at which Reed Richards [of Fantastic Four] went up there [to space]; Kirby and Stan rendered that from their imagination. So great storytellers, I do think on trend, will notice and be able to set great stories and great characters inside of things that feel familiar to us. And I think that’s something that in this story Kat and Stan achieved.

JA: You know any goal starts with an idea. I’m gonna ask you guys and odd question, but it might be different for each of you as far as the answer goes. What was the most difficult thing about the project to get it to where it is now. Did you find a certain stage where it was like we’re not getting this, or part of the script, or was it more the technological aspects?

LL: The nice thing is that we have a very very experienced storyteller to kind of help. We had a Gandalf guiding us through the path, and it was a team sport. So you know, if you’re bumping up against something maybe Kat has a solution or maybe Ryan has an idea you can throw out. That I think was the benefit of the collaborative process.

KR: Yeah, I will say that when I came on board I expected it to be so much harder than it was. You know I’m coming from a background of writing novels and in my experience that’s always been a very lonely solitary thing. You spend two years just rattling around in your head trying to create something, it’s just you and hopefully you emerge at the end, back into the sun with a manuscript that’s in decent shape. Getting three more brains into the mix I thought would be difficult, you know, to kind of create that mesh. I was like oh my God how is this going to work are you going to be able to see the seems in this narrative where each person contributed something, but it’s not like that at all.

RS: The hardest thing that I bump up against is just getting creeped out every time a certain sequence happens in the Audible Original. I can’t help but hear it and be like ooh super spooky.

KR: What creeps you out?

RS: Well I don’t know, no spoilers here.

LL: Have you met Six? [All laughing]

KR: I have I lived inside his head. [laughing]

RS: Yeah. Creeps me out.

LL: Have you met Zoll?

RS: What do you mean, that happens on Sixth Avenue every day!

JA: For our listeners and audience can you let us know where we can find you, and if you are working on anything that we can get on board with?

LL: I have a mini series out now called Red Sonja: Birth of a She Devil. I also control the Red Sonja franchise so I’m sure you know everything else that’s being done on the publishing side for us!

To learn more about these crazy talented people you can find them on social media at:

Luke Lieberman: @TheRealRedSonja on Twitter

Kat Rosenfield: @KatRosenfield on both Twitter and Instagram

Ryan Silbert: @RyanSilbert on Twitter

And if you are looking for a new listen, or want to get in on the newest Stan Lee endeavour, I highly recommend heading over to Audible right now to get started on Stan Lee’s Alliances: A Trick of Light!

Geekscape Reviews: Harper Lee’s Controversial ‘Go Set A Watchman’

by Gabriel von GrünbaumSeptember 11, 2015

Well, after covering the tease of the first chapter, I finished up Go Set a Watchman. For those of who have yet to read it, I’m sure you’re still probably wondering what the truth behind the recent hubbub really is. In Harper Lee’s first—and until now, only—book, To Kill a Mockingbird, the epic father figure, Atticus Finch is basically a superman (given the time period) lawyer for civil rights. He set the bar for basic human decency during a period of awakening in American society. He was a bright beacon for the reformation of white guilt into something more constructive, as a nation began the attempt to make right the sins of our fathers.

There are probably several other ways to describe the character’s impact on society but—judging by the headlines these days—whatever it is, we’re still working on it all these decades later. . . which is rather mind blowing. So it is that, while Mockingbird was a wonderful dream to shoot for, Watchman is probably a more realistic presentation, kissed with optimism for finding a path that was still out of reach then and there—a path we’re, shockingly, still trying to navigate.

The new Atticus is not a superman—probably unrelatable to many but the most progressive at that time—he’s just a sorta decent (for the time) old dying white guy who recognizes that times are rightfully changing. He knows the new America needs to happen and recognizes that he won’t be welcomed by it because of his ingrained prejudices and his contemporaries’ actions in the old. His only hope of contribution to the new order is that he might have succeeded in raising his daughter to be a strong intelligent leader—that she will help overtake his generation and, hopefully, wipe their sins from the nation.

The most important thing to remember here is that this is a progressive book for the fifties, when it was written, offering little more today than perspective and understanding for a bygone era. The fact that that time is not quite as bygone as we’d like, makes Watchman all the more relevant.

Now, I must say, hopefully not giving too much away, people’s reactions are actually the whole point of the story! What I’ve read in articles and on Twitter—some from people refusing to read it!—are the themes directly addressed in the book. I find that telling. It may be the issue we have yet to face as a society—that we’d rather imagine everything’s fine instead of facing the truth and doing something to correct it.

In that regard, Watchman could prove to be even more powerful than Mockingbird, especially for today, because it pops that bubble of optimistic illusion and forces us to look at the ugly truth still facing us—daring us to make it right once and for all.

For the literary geeks; I have to say I quite enjoyed the experience of the author’s work with little touch from an editor. It felt raw and immediate to find her thoughts spit out across the pages just as they had formed in her brain. Switching between perspectives, time periods and storylines as they occurred to her. Did I occasionally have to reread some sentences to realize a subtle transition had taken place?—yes. But it was exciting and thrilling to feel like I was cresting the wave of inspiration with her as the muse pulled her in a new direction. The way she used words and sentences to paint her creations was beautiful to experience. I fell in love with Jean Louise (Scout) Finch and her world from the first chapter and felt the horrible sting as that world changed before her eyes.

Honestly, as a reader, my favorite moments were those where we find Jean Louise flirting—with Henry, life and adventure or possibility. Her character is sharp and witty—a pleasure to experience. Her vulnerabilities are charming; her strengths, admirable. She’s tough and unwilling to take guff from anyone but, for all her experience living in New York, it’s her naiveté that I found most disarming. Scout as a young woman may actually be the perfect avatar for America today—believing the world to be sunnier than the hard truths lurking under the surface—truths that must be addressed to cure the persistent cancer. In her defense, she may not know all the facts but she knows what’s right and she’s ready to take a stand. My favorite exchanges were between her and Henry as he does his best to court her. My favorite line out of context was actually delivered by her uncle (probably my second favorite character), “I’ve played hell with her fruitcakes.” I’m considering adopting it as a non sequitur hashtag, #IvePlayedHellWithHerFruitcakes. You know that has a lot of uses—let’s make it a thing.

That said, however, I’m left with the impression that this is a short story that was stretched out like taffy, reaching out beyond what was necessary to tell the tale. That is to say, as author’s drafts tend to be, it was not efficient. It’s easy to see why some wise editor, over half a century ago, advised Lee to take some aspects of this story and build a new one from them. It’s the recommendation that gave Lee immortality with Mockingbird. However, her raw skill and talent here for carving characters and worlds from words breaks my heart that she wasn’t inspired to write more through the decades.

All told, I think Go Set a Watchman, is a read you won’t regret. It may not leave you feeling like you’re connecting with a rosy dream world but the lingering effect may be the impression of a better connection with an ever evolving real-world America and inspire you to make it the best you can.

‘Go Set a Watchman’: Review of Harper Lee’s First Chapter

by Gabriel von GrünbaumJuly 13, 2015

I really wanted to do this right, so I set up my e-reader with the first chapter of Go Set a Watchman available online, poured myself a drink and went out to sit by the pool and read it. I didn’t go back and re-read To Kill a Mockingbird first; honestly, it’s been years since I read it and I have fond memories of experiencing the book—but I didn’t want to do a direct comparison. I figured tons of people would be doing just that already and I wanted to see how this story, that takes place about 20 years after Mockingbird, would stand on its own.

Wow. I was taken by its elegant simplicity. The sheer beauty of the commonplace and Harper Lee’s uncomplicated skill to expose the opportunities for delight and discovery in routine elements. Her lines pulse with a subtle magnetic vibration that ushers you wholly into a full sensory experience of grown Scout, Jean Louise Finch. To say it another way; Lee makes the regular feel luxurious with no heavy lifting on the reader’s part. Additionally, I found that I often chuckled to myself as I read the chapter and laughed out loud several times. The characters are instantly and easily related to, so that you’re quickly delighting in their interactions like watching old friends at it again—although you’re meeting these adult characters for the first time. Even a train conductor we never meet feels as familiar as a lovable uncle!

Quite simply: this is writing at its finest and I’m really excited to read the whole novel. My sincere compliments to legendary talent, Harper Lee. Just beautiful and—wow.

Now, some things to keep in mind. This manuscript was written in a very different social and political climate. Even in this first chapter, there are references to race and gender that can feel archaic and uncomfortable—and from what I understand, there’s much more of this to come throughout the book. Lee bats at these conventions like a cat with a piece of string—I was laughing with Lee on the conclusion of the encounter at the end of the chapter but maybe for different reasons than readers of the past would’ve laughed. It stands the test of time because the material finds new meaning as the eras tick by. The important thing is the feeling of Harper Lee’s soul and intentions behind these dusty words and references—judging by this first chapter, that feeling is unconditional warmth. Remember that this is a manuscript she wrote in the mid-1950s—this is a hot-off-the-presses time machine directly into the past. I’m sure that, if published then, there would’ve been a backlash from certain “conservative” groups about her progressive thinking. I feel like she was building a bridge between these people of the past and their brighter future—while, now in that future, seeing these old words and references can feel a little weird. She logically used the lexicon and referential structures born from the history, perspective and customs of those times as she kindly joined the shifting in then-current events.

It’s also interesting to note, as far as her writing timeline, that To Kill a Mockingbird was actually written after this manuscript; a prequel that ended up getting published first. At that point this manuscript wasn’t touched again; lost until it was recently found in storage! Some are talking about Atticus’s portrayal in Go Set a Watchman as being at odds with the character we loved in Mockingbird. One likely possibility here is that Lee refined her vision of Atticus Finch as she wrote Mockingbird and never had the chance to go back and apply those same refinements to this original manuscript for Watchman. I’ll be approaching the experience of reading this full novel as a chance to take a little peek behind the curtain of remarkable wordsmith, Harper Lee—and to ride this excellently eloquent time machine her young idealistic-self crafted for us. In hardback. On paper pages.

The full novel will be released everywhere by HarperCollins Publishers on July 14th, 2015. You can taste the first chapter of Go Set a Watchman for yourself here at The Guardian.

Go Inside The Mind Of Guillermo Del Toro With ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’!

by Derek KraneveldtOctober 6, 2013

Briefly: This looks incredible.

I’m (like most people it seems) a pretty big fan of Guillermo Del Toro. His films (and this year’s Pacific Rim is no different) tend to be wildly imaginative, insanely beautiful, and simply wonderful works of art.

During film production (and pre-production, right down to the conception phase) Del Toro tends to keep incredibly detailed notebooks of ideas and drawings. I’ve always wanted to take a look inside one of his books, and it looks like I’m about to get my chance.

Hitting store shelves in just a few weeks is Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiousities, a book (co-written by Space Command‘s Marc Zicree) that delves into many of Del Toro’s notebooks, elaborates on the contents, and finally gives us a look inside the celebrated director’s head.

The book sounds like a must buy for me. It’s currently available for pre-order on Amazon for a cool $36.00, or you can even pick up an INSANE limited edition version for just $636. The book’s publisher, HarperCollins has debuted a trailer for the upcoming collection, featuring a quick glimpse at just what you’ll be able to experience inside the cabinet. Watch the trailer below, and let us know if you’ll be picking this one up!

Behind The Kickstarter Curtain: ‘The Astonishing Adventures of Heracles Flint’, Interview with Creator Nick Moore

by CJCSeptember 23, 2013

Today on Kickstarter, we explore the weird and wild of steampunk storytelling with Nick Moore’s “The Astonishing Adventures of Heracles Flint“, a promising action-filled steampunk and horror extravaganza that not only allows, but invites prospective writers to come roll around in the Victorian dirt with Heracles and his team a while. The adventure pits the titular Heracles Flint against a time-travelling Dracula who obtains this infamous time-travelling device from a descendent of H.G. Wells out on one of those carefree time-travelling sprees. That’ll teach you to drink and time-travel (unless you’re drinking necks, apparently).

As an opener, I interviewed Mr. Moore on why we should be giving Heracles Flint a first, second, and possibly a hundredth look.

So I have to say it: Alan Moore… Nick Moore… steampunk comic-style…

No relation unfortunately, but maybe there’s something about the name that makes us seek out the weird. Shame he’s not a relative as trips to the pub would be damn cool! I am a huge fan though with his run on Miracleman, rather than everyone’s favourite Watchmen, being my top comic read. Strangely though I’ve never actually read his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books!!

Was Kickstarter your original goal for this project?

Not originally as I’ve been tinkering with Flint’s world for years before Kickstarter launched in the UK allowing me to submit a project. Every passion project at some point, if you want to let other people into the little universe in your head, will need money behind it to grow and flourish. Kickstarter gives me two things if it’s successful. Firstly a professional edit of the book, which is a necessity for any writer. Apart from checking spelling and grammar, it’s a pair of fresh eyes to ensure you haven’t sliced the same vampyre twice, and the airship is pointing the right way when battling on the Las Vegas strip. When you’re in full flow little crucial details can trip you up.

The second thing is art. While comics are a huge passion of mine, I’ve a 10,000+ collection causing stress fractures in my house, I’d already spun the novel out of a movie idea, and didn’t want to change formats having expanded the tale to try to fit it into a comic, yet. But the chance to have those characters made real as comic art was too good to pass up, so the funding also goes to bring the services of fantastic artist Bentti Bisson on board. He’s already done one amazing piece for me to make sure we were on the same page creatively, and wow he just stepped into my head and laid Flint out in grand comic book style. I really want the Kickstarter to work to get all his character pieces done as a showcase of just how good he is.

Have you slept at all?

Ah… no 🙂 Crowd-funding is all about getting eyes on target, as no matter how good a project may be if no one knows it’s there, you’ll get nowhere, there’s no crowd-funding without a crowd. While there are plenty of tools to let you automate Tweets, G+ posts, etc, there’s still a huge amount of work in setting that up, and trying to balance getting the word out without spamming networks to death. I hope I’m getting that right with reaching 41% funded in less than two weeks, though the lack of sleep is making things blurry.

Steampunk opens up a rich opportunity for world-creation as well as social commentary. What’s your favorite twist about the genre, and how do you keep it all straight in your head?

I have no shame in saying I’m an action fan, and I think my favourite thing is the element of shock and awe you can give to a Victorian setting. Everything is sedate and oh so very proper, ladies and gentlemen dressed in their finest, horses hooves and carriage wheels on cobblestoned streets is about as loud and busy as it gets. Then you can smash into that street with a four story high mechanical man, all gears and boilers, smoke belching from huge chimney stacks on its back, and a maniacal crackpot inventor sitting in its chest pulling levers. You get to quickly and spectacularly shatter that civilised veneer, that was always pretty thin as it covered horrible divisions in society between the rich and poor. This was the era that found it ok to stuff children up chimneys to clean them, maybe some people still do, but I can’t get any of my three to fit!

As for keeping it all straight, reading is the key, along with Evernote, man it’s a blessing. If you want to write about a place or real person from the era that Steampunk springs from, it’s essential to read up on them and find out as much as you can. There’s a wealth of history to play with and it’s a delight to delve into historical figures, and learn about things that don’t make it into the general view people might have of them.

'Forever in Shadow' cover — ‘Forever in Shadow’ cover

How much does historical accuracy factor into Heracles Flint’s world?

Historical accuracy is a double edged sword when it comes to writing fiction. You can have great fun tying a character into a factual setting, but it can quickly become a creative nightmare if you can’t get room to manoeuvre in that setting to tell your story. For Flint’s world I haven’t rewritten history as many Steampunk themed tales do, as the battles Heracles and his Society of Esoteric Technica fight are kept away from the public. Their efforts are meant to spare the everyday person from the horrors that the forces of darkness want to visit upon them. It’s the small, I suppose geeky, details of history that I get to have fun with. For example Queen Victoria fell down stairs in Windsor Castle in 1883 which had a permanent effect on her health from then on. That tiny detail I work into her appearance in the story just for the lark of having it there, it’s terribly geeky 🙂

You list several impressive genres in your description of the story. Tell us something loveable about these genres that can be seen in your book.

The story touches on several of the ‘punk’ genres of sci-fi in some way or another, and the expanded universe, will give more focus to each one. In addition to these the classic monsters of horror are also along for the ride. Vampire hordes led by Dracula himself, none of whom sparkle by the way. Werewolves, who are a misunderstood society pushed to extinction by humanity. Frankenstein’s butt kicking bride, a McDonalds loving stranded alien, and a traveller from the 22^nd century. For Steampunk elements, aside from just having the general air of Victorian science fiction, I have the staple of the genre, the airship. A grand leviathan that makes it to present day Las Vegas to take on some modern aircraft above that brilliantly crazy city. As for the other fringe sci-fi elements we have, without wanting to give too much away, cyborgs, biological nightmares, other worldly nanotechnology, and some lightning infused Teslapunk.

Now how about something new that this world brings to the genres.

Beyond the fact that I don’t think I’ve seen a story that mixes up the wide range of sci-fi and horror that runs rampant throughout the book, I hope the thing it brings is accessibility. Flint’s first astonishing adventure is a wild ride that acts as a mainstream on ramp to the many genres it incorporates. It will allow the deeper themes of those genres to be further explored in the planned sequels, the expanded universe, and in other tales featuring the characters together and on solo adventures. If you ask people in the street if they’ve heard of Steampunk, or perhaps Atompunk, you’ll most likely get a blank stare. I hope to be able to give them a doorway through which new readers will take their first steps into a fantastical new world, within which they find tales to make the heart race, and challenge their attitudes on many social issues. If I can gain an audience for my stories, and signpost them to William Gibson, G. D. Falksen, or Gail Carriger, I’ll be a happy man.

What’s your hope in regards to opening the world of Heracles Flint up to other artists and writers?

I’d love to be able to build a platform for other talented creators to set up shop in a corner of Flint’s universe, and create spin off novels, comics, maybe even web series or radio dramas featuring the characters. I’m writing some new ones just for this purpose and it will give people the opportunity to make things like roleplay blogs, which Tumblr is brilliant for, though there’s far too many Tony Starks on there 🙂 The book establishes a time-line of events that spans over a century, and the sequels will expand that further. There’s the potential for a new comics and novel universe waiting for people to dive in and have fun, the sky’s the limit. It would be so amazing to head to my local comics shop, or make my weekly download from Comixology, and see some of my characters in books that have other people letting loose with their imaginations.

Who would win in a fight: Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Heracles Flint?

Hmmm this one is hard to call. While Heracles is a Victorian era gentleman he has a healthy respect for women’s abilities as warriors, and is all too aware that some may outclass him. So as soon as he sees Buffy is capable of possibly kicking his ass he’ll give no quarter in his efforts to put her down. He’ll also have an edge due to a handy array of gadgetry so I’ll give this one to him 🙂

Thank you to Nick Moore for sparing some of his blood, sweat, and no-sleep filled time with Geekscape! You can donate to the Heracles Flint society here. In fact, one of the rewards even includes your visage as a society member! Don’t wait. Act now. The world may depend on it.

Equip It! The Geeky Book Wearables You Need

by CJCSeptember 9, 2013

With all the booming new stores on this little thing called the internet, it can be difficult to sort through all the possibilities for purchase. So let Geekscape be your guide. In the traditions of old, we’ll help you figure out what to take to make it a little less dangerous.

“A new lease on life for books.”

Ever wanted to carry your favorite book with you without lugging around the whole thing? Now you can, and not in a shiny, new book smell-less, electronic reader format, either. Retro Beads & Bangles offers you a recycling opportunity that looks adorable AND literate. Using book pages to make jewelry is not unique to the internet (as you’ll see below), but Retro also branches into brooches, bracelets, the using of sheet music, and old board-game pieces to make unique and specialized accessories for every day. These beautiful earrings, necklaces, and cufflinks immortalize famous names and phrases from classic — and currently popular — literature for a fair-ish every day price.

Shipping policies are not listed, so customer may beware — or want to read the 76 customer reviews before deciding.

“What a novel idea!”

Pretty Little Charms, also out of the UK, offers similarly recycled book jewelry. The categories featured here are Game Of Thrones, JK Rowling, Mortal Instruments, Divergent + Twilight, The Hunger Games, Narnia + LOTR, Alice in Wonderland, Pride and Prejudice, Sherlock + Classics, and Dictionary/Other. The charms feature different shapes, as well as colors: some heart-shaped in silver, others a beautiful copper with a steampunk-like accessory hanging off of the main jewelry. Compasses accompany sections of map and silver wolf heads sit next to “direwolf”. It’s all very appropriate and well placed. Pretty Little Charms also offers rings in pairs, offering a chance to celebrate your favorite geeky ship either with your special someone or all on your own if you’re greedy.

The charms that come with the sections of words, and the choice illustrations for others, are really what makes Pretty Little Charms’ selection glow. You can carry your favorite character or phrase along with you in stylish fashion.

All items are $3 shipping for the first item and free for additional items. There is a fair return policy: anything can be returned in exchange, except for earrings (hygiene!) and you foot the shipping.

Pretty Little Charms would like you to note that these items are NOT waterproof. They are made from books! Therefore, care should be taken when you’re deciding where and how to wear them.

“Wearable literature.”

If jewelry isn’t your thing, then head over to Storiarts, where you can acquire pages of classic literature printed onto a scarf, or writing gloves. How fancy would you feel if you owned something called “writing gloves”? Tori Tissell produces these wonders by hand, with the text chosen from such pieces as “Pride & Prejudice” and “Sherlock Holmes”. You may also custom order if you have your own choice of words (book paragraph, music, poetry, etc) prepared. Storiarts’ scarves look gorgeous and, as they say, will make you feel both “warm and intelligent”. Just be sure that your chosen text is not copyrighted and can be reprinted and sold without bringing terrible consequences down upon Tissell’s head. That’s the polite thing to do.

All items are shipped via the USPS and tracking is available. Storiarts accepts returns or exchanges within ONE week of delivery, but if you do a custom order then a full refund cannot be granted, so choose wisely. And not poooorly.

Have you found any gems on Etsy recently? Sound out below!