Who Owns You?, Book One
Science Fiction
Date to be Published: October 11th
Set in the early 23rd century, THE STARS RAIN DOWN follows an android woman
pursuing a renegade human. At the same time, he searches for his missing
wife and child, abducted by alien pirates, and sold into slavery. Special
Agent Catherine Mercer, an artificial intelligence and agent of
Interplanetary Security (think FBI in space), is given the assignment to
pursue and apprehend Rick McCabe, a freighter pilot suspected of illegally
smuggling passengers to the free colony of Aranae, some 1300 light years
from Earth. Rick, on the other hand, on route to Aranae, was attacked by
pirates and separated from his pregnant wife, Sarah, who was captured. But,
having come under the suspicion of IPS of illegally transporting passengers,
Rick goes rogue and sets off to find Sarah while evading Catherine trying to
capture him. Rick and his tech-savvy partner QR follow a trail of clues and
tips that lead from one planet to another, from one hostile slave owner and
alien race to more pirates and unsavory characters. Along the journey,
Catherine learns that being human is more than possessing a flesh and blood
body. The transitory body holds an eternal spirit that yearns to be free.
INTERVIEW
Is There a Message in Your Novel That You Want Readers to Grasp?
Thomas: No message. I’m not into sending messages through my writing. My goal is to entertain, but if you get more than entertainment, I’m happy for you.
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
T: I get plot blocked from time to time. Sometimes, I hit a spot and don’t know where the story goes from there. When that happens, I either go into my mind palace to see what’s there or go after it with a club, as Jack London once so eloquently put it. Just get the notebook out, write some stupid stuff, and see if that triggers something.
How many books have you written and which is your favorite?
T: Not many. As for my favorite, I only have two to choose from, and that would be the latest one, The Stars Rain Down. But then again, SRD is in the same universe as The Spiderboys of Aranae, my first book, so the two works are connected.
If You had the chance to cast your main character from Hollywood today, who would you pick and why?
T: This would be for the Catherine Mercer character, yes? From SRD. I’ve given it some thought, as the book developed from an idea for a TV series, but no one yet comes to mind who’d make a good Catherine.
When did you begin writing?
T: I can’t remember when exactly, maybe 11, 12, 13, somewhere in there, I set out to write a Star Trek novel, being a fan from the beginning. I had no idea what I was doing, wrote the opening line—period. And that was it. The first sentence and I had no idea where to go after that, like I expected the story would just write itself. Years later, I was about 18 and started a science fiction novel; this time, I got several chapters into it, then it fizzled out, and I never finished it. It wasn’t very good anyway. It wasn’t until I was 25 that I sat down to write the novel that would be rewritten as The Stars Rain Down decades later. Some history with that book.
How long did it take to complete your first book?
T: Two years. That would be SRD’s ancestor called No Longer Mourn for Me. I wrote it just out of college but never published it. I wrote it by hand on paper as I did not have a computer at the time. Years later, I decided to transcribe the book to a digital format for archival purposes. While I was doing that, I realized that the writing was awful. Just horrible. A golden idea poorly executed. I got ideas for improving it and did a page one rewrite. That also took two years to write, plus another year in the edit and rewrite phase. The story bears no resemblance to the original, but the core idea remains. Also, some names were carried over from the earlier work: Catherine, Rick, Sarah, IPS, and a few others.
Did you have an author who inspired you to become a writer?
T: No. I had to come to that conclusion myself.
What is your favorite part of the writing process?
T: Simply getting a good idea and writing it out. It has to be full of emotion and conflict. It could also be when the scene, dialog, or sequence first hits me, that epiphany when I see and hear it for the first time. Everything stops, and I stare at the wall, totally lost in the moment. It’s Cloud 9, man. I really zone out, and it’s wonderful.
Describe your latest book in 4 words.
T: Do I have to? (count ‘em—four.)
Can you share a little bit about your current work or what is in the future for your writing?
T: The Stars Rain Down is the current work, but it’s the first book in a series, so it’s ongoing. Working on Book 2 right now; I’ve gotten quite a way into Chapter 1 now. I’m not sure how many books will make up the complete series. I think somewhere between 4 to 6, maybe. But the future could be much more than the book series. When I got the idea to rewrite the novel, I was thinking in terms of a script for a movie, and set about writing it. Halfway through, I realized it was way too much story for one movie, so I switched to a TV series. So, the plan is books and then TV series, though there’s the possibility for some overlap.
About the Author
Glenn Thomas’s life path has been a meandering one, setting new life
goals at various points along the way, gaining skills in art, photography,
film-making, driving, and ultimately, writing in screenplays and
prose. As a self-described “high-functioning daydreamer,”
Glenn often finds contentment in self-imposed isolation, in conversation
with characters only he sees and hears, in universes of his own
creation. Once in a while, he writes them down into scripts and novels
to share with the world.
Glenn lives in the Los Angeles area and works as a driver for a major
motion picture studio. His first self-published work was a series of
short Science Fiction stories called The Spiderboys of Aranae, which
appeared in 2015.
In 1986, when Glenn was convinced he was at the start of a long and
prosperous career as a visual artist, an idea for a sci-fi story came to
him. A guy loses his wife to space aliens, and he searches the galaxy
to find her. As a fan of the genre, Glenn sat down with paper and
pencil to write the story, and two years later, No Longer Mourn for Me was
finished. It then sat on the shelf, unpublished, for nearly 35
years. Glenn thought about that crudely executed early work, got ideas
to improve it, and sat down at the computer for a rewrite. The
original story was completely gutted, retooled, and reborn with a new title:
The Stars Rain Down.
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