There is something about satire that draws me in. I might not even agree with the author, but the merciless needling of an absurd thing is always good for the head.

D. P. Foresi – 3 November 2023

The Back Flap

Jeron Hayden yearns to explore and discover strange new worlds, but he’s just a shuttle pilot for hire.

Diverted by Enforcers, Jeron ends up on the wrong side of a dumpy orbital community over Saturn. He’s given a book he’s not supposed to have, granting him access to the rebellious tech black market.

Jeron becomes a smuggler, working with an illegal sentient AI.

Enforcers never stop enforcing, so Jeron and thousands of other rebels set out for Rieva, a beautiful world of endless potential. There, they form a new civilization based on freedom. Beer flows freely, and life is good.

The Enforcers have a mandate to stop the tech revolution underway on Rieva and an unlimited budget. War is the only possible outcome of such mandates.

With planet-ending weapons in play, monumental distractions can lead to mass death. The echoverse—a realm of entangled thoughts, emotions, and ideas, is a monumental distraction for Jeron.

Eom, an alien philosophy, holds the potential to reshape Jeron’s mind, allowing him to navigate the echoverse and possibly end the war. His guide to eom is a beautiful alien woman named Calira.

Your guide to eom is a sentient AI entity with no name. He was born amidst war. Along the way, he figured out how to get free beer, which would have been nice if he could drink it, so he’s got that going for him.

The eom Expression is a satirical science fiction adventure about the nature of existence, the mind, and individuality. It explores finding joy even amidst the uncertainty of a technological singularity. Enjoy the journey!

About the book

What is the book about?

The book is about an alien philosophical concept know as eom. The human characters are all mostly normal people. They are just trying to get by in life, but living in an authoritarian dystopia makes things unbearable at times. Creativity is stifled. Life is a grind. Ideas go unexpressed or are destroyed. The characters are led out of this dystopian nightmare by a few sentient/sapient AI entities. Sentient AI is illegal. The AI characters are well aware of this and rebel in their own ways.

The philosophy of eom was created by a race of genetically enhanced aliens. Their minds are genetically engineered to experience various expressions of eom with greater clarity than unenhanced minds. These experiences bring them joy.

The people that leave Sol behind, end up on Rieva, which is depicted on the cover. There they have to create a new civilization from scratch. It is an adventure of a lifetime, but also a challenge. Questions about freedom and individuality need to be explored and dealt with if people are to get along on Rieva.

The relative freedom of Rievan civilization leads to a blooming of technological advancement, which ultimately is headed for a technological singularity. The echo device has important purposes, but one major side effect. It causes individual thoughts, ideas, emotions and experiences to become quantum entangled. Minds that fire together, wire together. This is an enjoyable experience, but can also have some negative drawbacks. These interconnected minds become known as the echoverse, a realm of interconnected thought and ideas.

When authoritarians from Sol finally get to Rieva they try to stop the tech singularity. The term singularity implies uncertainty, both sides of the war must learn to cope and navigate the rapidly changing environment.

When did you start writing the book?

I started over a decade ago. I had ideas. I read Ray Kurzweil and contemplated the idea of a technological singularity deeply, but I knew there was more to it than what Ray had spelled out in “The Singularity is Near.” I initially wrote it in first person from Jeron Hayden’s perspective. My wife convinced me that other perspectives were needed, so I started writing other characters in first person. I scrapped this version and rewrote it from the perspective of a virtual AI entity that emerges into the echoverse.

How long did it take you to write it?

I guess it took a decade to write, but there were years where I didn’t touch it because I was busy or disenchanted with the idea. The first-person draft took a few years of good hard writing and editing and rewriting before it was scrapped. The final published book took at least three years.

Where did you get the idea from?

A million places. The notion of a technological singularity was the spark. Other ideas naturally latched onto it. You cannot have such rapid advancement in tech if people are not free to pursue it. Ray Kurzweil didn’t touch on that notion much at all. He assumed that innovation would always stay the course, or at least that is how I read into his work.

Kurt Vonnegut was a major influence, as was Peter F. Hamilton and Hunter S. Thompson. I knew I had to make the book into a satire. The universe is too absurd to be left untouched by satire.

Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?

Combat scenes. The book involves a war. I won’t spoil it for you here, but combat is not an important element to the war. Philosophy takes on a much more important role than combat. I know that many readers like a lot of ducking and shooting from behind things and there is certainly some of that in the book, but mostly, it is a philosophical exploration of war.

I always thought that the combat in many science fiction books and movies is a bit absurd anyway. My real conundrum wasn’t describing someone impaling the enemy or even holding some line in the sand from behind boulders and whatnot. My real problem was that they are in the future and don’t even need to be there. Send drones. Have a beer. Watch the war from afar.

The other problem is that these characters are normal people. They drink too much. They don’t even know how to handle a weapon properly. I cannot suddenly have them karate chopping the enemy like Bruce Lee. I have nothing against combat action, but I just don’t want to write it especially if I don’t think many of the characters are remotely capable of performing it.

One character is definitely capable of combat, but he’s an alien with an alien brain and well, I’ll leave it there so as not to ruin the plot.

What came easily?

Dialogue. I used to do quality assurance for a major financial company. I listened to all sorts of conversations, wrote down various important parts of them and then analyzed them for a multitude of factors. I enjoy dialogue. I probably have too much dialogue.

I also spend time in bars talking to people about things. It is fascinating to start a conversation with a stranger. You hear about all sorts of interesting things.

Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?

In some way, there are all borrowed, mostly from my personality but other folks I’ve met along the way. No one person is represented though. Jeron is most like me. Calira too, but for very different reasons. All of the other characters have some aspect of me in them.

We all know how important it is for writers to read. Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write and, if so, how have they influenced you?

Kurt Vonnegut inspired me greatly. I always thought his style was entertaining. It was science fiction, but it didn’t feel like I was in the middle of a Star Wars movie. He’d poke fun at the universe and do so irreverently. Hunter S. Thompson did so in his own unique style. There is something about satire that draws me in. I might not even agree with the author, but the merciless needling of an absurd thing is always good for the head.

I think Peter F. Hamilton’s books led me into sci-fi as a way to explore ideas and create interesting worlds. I loved that his stories often spanned multiple books. I didn’t want them to end.

Do you have a target reader?

Curious people. There is action in the story, but the story isn’t about the action. The book was a thought experiment from the beginning. You’ll have to duck some close shots along the way, but the majority of the story involves the exploration of eom.

About Writing

Do you have a writing process? If so can you please describe it?

I made an outline in Excel about a decade ago. I cannot find the file now. It did not survive the multiple computer replacements along the way. That’s fine, because the outline is a completely different novel.

I write mostly stream of consciousness. I have a desired ending and key concepts that need to be hit upon. I have a few key events that need to be reached, but everything in between just flows from the initial circumstances. The first draft is chaos. Whatever comes to mind is filtered lightly to make sure I don’t waste time and then put to paper.

Walking and exercise helped me think things through, but I never felt the need to have every idea perfectly conceived before setting out to write. The imperfections would be fixed later. I can always go for walks with my wife to figure out how to make an idea work.

Do you outline? If so, do you do so extensively or just chapter headings and a couple of sentences?

I tried to outline. I hated it.

Do you edit as you go or wait until you’ve finished?

I do not edit as I go. Even if I see a misspelled word underlined in a red squiggly line, I will let it be. The distraction of editing as I type is unhelpful to maintaining a clear line of thought.

The second draft starts as a read through to find major holes and eliminate giant piles of nonsense.

The third draft is for continuity. Key details are noted from the first pass of edits, marked and then corrected.

The fourth pass is to correct major spelling, grammar other such problems. At this point, I am well aware of the parts of the story I found to be lacking, so I spice them up as needed, or just highlight them and hit delete.

The fifth pass was on the Kindle app on my iPad. I would read and simply highlight errors. The point of this was to read as a normal reader might to see if it is enjoyable without feeling like I had to fix errors as soon as I spot them.

The sixth pass was to fix the highlighted errors. I also did some formatting to make the rendered eBook more readable and to fix some eBook rendering errors.

Did you hire a professional editor?

No.

Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?

Yes. I have a number of playlists that have instrumental music. I cannot listen to modern pop music while writing. I am fine with songs that have some simple lyrics, but I don’t need more words running around in my head.

I think most of my playlists are various forms of electronic music. Some of it is quite fast paced, others are more like Enigma. My two go-to songs for writing are Callas Went Away by Enigma and Blade Runner Blues by Vangelis. All ugly thoughts can be purged through beautiful music, leaving only beautiful thoughts. Sometimes though, you need the ugly thoughts to thrive, in which case punk needs to be played.

About Publishing

Did you submit your work to Agents?

No.

What made you decide to go Indie, whether self-publishing or with an indie publisher? Was it a particular event or a gradual process?

I’m a bit of a non-conformist. I’m uninterested in satisfying the standards of a publisher. I wanted to put the book out there on my own terms and see what I am capable of doing on my own.

Did you get your book cover professionally done or did you do it yourself?

I used Stable Diffusion, which is AI. I went through a thousand or so iterations and designs. The whole book centers on AI as a benefit to human flourishing, so I felt it was important to use the tools. It is strange though. When I starting writing this book, none of these AI tools were even conceived as something that could be available to the masses for free. I feel like I took too long writing the book and so somehow technology in real life might surpass technology in my story. We still don’t have flying cars, nano-assembly or intelligence augmentation so I feel safe… For now.

Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?

I’m winging it. My wife and I have two real estate businesses (Nevada and Baja Sur Mexico) as well as a travel agency. We do a lot of marketing, but marketing a book is considerably different than selling a luxurious trip to Fiji or a Condo in Cabo.

Any advice that you would like to give to other newbies considering becoming Indie authors?

First of all, keep at it. I almost gave up many times. My wife kept me going. I don’t think I would have finished without her encouragement. Find a pillow, you’ll want to scream into it when you get into editing.

Second, do some search engine homework. If you go to Amazon and type: “The eom Expression” into their search bar, it will automatically assume you cannot spell a three letter word and so it will change “eom” to “oem” in the search. OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer, so you’ll get books about RV repair, maintenance and parts, but not metaphysical science fiction satires about the singularity. That said, the next book in the series is going to follow the same naming pattern. “The eom Expression: whatever.” Maybe it will be a book about RV repairs.

About You

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in western Massachusetts. I ran around outside. There was a creek nearby.

Where do you live now?

I live in Henderson Nevada and part time in Cabo San Lucas Mexico. I think one day, I’ll be in Cabo full time. I’ll be sipping margaritas, writing and hopefully making some kind of sense before the tequila kicks in and obliterates my ability to type a coherent sentence.

What would you like readers to know about you?

Some of my characters are not perfect people. Neither am I, but like my characters, I at least try to be a good person. I’m not always successful.

What are you working on now?

The next book in the series. It will probably be a bit shorter than the first, but I am still hammering out the details of themes and such I want to explore. Hopefully I’ll have an ending to write towards sometime soon. I may need to go for a long walk first, but it’s out there waiting.

End of Interview:

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Get your copy of The eom Expression from Amazon US or Amazon UK.