Charles Fudgemuffin, author of the alien comedy 'How To Save the World' books

Charles Fudgemuffin's debut novel 'How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy' is available for Kindle from Amazon:
UK:  How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy

US:  How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy

 

How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy
is free for the next few days.

How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy
by Charles Fudgemuffin

‘Aliens from the planet Fem have decided that as compassionate citizens of the galaxy they have a duty to alleviate suffering and affliction from the rest of the galaxy.

In the majority of cases this will involve sharing their unprecedented prosperity and quality of life with those planets less fortunate than themselves. Of course, in a minority of extreme cases this will also involve eliminating life from those planets in the galaxy where the level of suffering is simply too great to alleviate.

Unfortunately for Earth, the Femlings have deemed us one such planet...’

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An interview with Charles Fudgemuffin…

What is it you love most about writing?

That moment after months or even years of work when you finally finish the final draft of your book.  It’s a powerful combination of a sense of achievement after having invested so much time and effort in the project, mixed with a feeling of freedom at being able to start focusing on your next idea.

Where did the inspiration for your first novel, ‘How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy' come from?

The book opens with Eric and his two mates bantering on while hiking up Mount Helvellyn in the Lake District and a few weeks before plotting out the first few chapters I had actually hiked up Helvellyn myself, so that was where the idea must have originated.  Like Eric, I’m also a big fan of the ‘Would You Rather?’ game and the questions he asks in the opening chapter are some of my own favourite ‘Would You Rather?’ dilemmas.  The aliens presumably came out of the alien based dilemma which Eric asks, and then from then on it was a case of a creative domino effect with one idea leading to the next until it had spiralled into a story spanning six books.

Elias Zapple, author of Duke & Michel: The Mysterious Corridor

Duke & Michel: The Mysterious Corridor by Elias Zapple is available for Kindle from Amazon:
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UK: Duke & Michel: The Mysterious Corridor by Elias Zapple

Duke And Michel: The Mysterious Corridor
by Elias Zapple

Duke & Michel: The Mysterious Corridor by Elias Zapple

Twelve year-old Michel's freaking out as his snotty little cousin has gone missing from the garden. He sticks his head through a hole in the fence and is sucked into a giant vortex where he ends up in an infinitely long and mysterious corridor, with doors leading to many strange worlds. He also meets a pompous, food-obsessed, talking dog called Duke who happens to be searching for his equally fat brothers. Together they go on an adventure to hunt for their missing relatives, unaware that they are also being hunted by an evil villain who has a dandruff problem.

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Author Quiz interviews Elias Zapple...

What's the best and worst thing about being an author?
The best thing is undoubtedly the adulation and hero worship of my adoring public. However, it does mean that the occasional worshipper tramples all over my cabbage patch, ruining cabbages I had planned to hurl at my neighbour, Dieter. This is the worse thing, if it wasn't clear.

Tara Ford, author of Calling All Services

Calling All Services by Tara Ford is available for Kindle from Amazon:
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UK: Calling All Services

Calling All Services by Tara Ford

Calling All Services by Tara Ford

Alex Frey, successful businesswoman, wife and mother to a busy and demanding family, doesn’t find it easy to take a break. So when she’s hospitalised with a mysterious illness, paralysed and afraid of what the future might bring, frustration meets fear and she can’t wait to escape the hospital, get back in control of things and return her family to the normality of salmon paste sandwiches.

At home, her husband Grant is determined to manage the kids, Alex’s parents, his sister and anything else life can throw at him while his wife is away recuperating. But what else can possibly go wrong while Alex is in hospital? The Frey family is about to find out. . .

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Author Quiz interviews Tara Ford...

If you had to sum up your book, Calling All Services, in three words, what would they be?
Umm, to sum up my book in three words I would have to choose: humorous, emotional and believable.

What are you working on now and what projects and ideas do you have lined up next?
I am currently working on my third novel, Calling All Customers. This is the third book in the Calling All... series and there are four books altogether. The series is about the lives of the family members from the first book, in one way or another but not always directly. The second book, Calling All Dentists, is currently in the publication process and I do hope it will be released early 2014.

Clive Algar, author of Comets

Comets by Clive Algar is available for Kindle from Amazon:
US:  Comets by Clive Algar
UK:  Comets by Clive Algar

Comets by Clive Algar

Comets by Clive Algar

Set in the rich and fascinating milieu of Cape Town in the 1830s, with its shifting patterns of social awareness and the growth of scientific knowledge, Comets tells the story of James and Isabelle Forster, whose lives, and those about them, are changed irrevocably not only by the appearance of a real comet - Halley's - but by "human comets" including the aristocratic Michael Percy, the young Charles Darwin and a recently-emancipated slave couple, Adam and Catharine Cupido.  James and Isabelle's comfortable upper middle-class existence threatens to spin out of control as they confront moral crises they seem unable to resolve.

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Author Quiz interviews Clive Algar...

What is it you love most about writing?
I love the infinite scope for creating new worlds.  As a writer of mainly historical fiction (19th and early 20th century) I enjoy placing fictional characters among real historical characters to create events that could have happened.  I love the blank page waiting for me to fill it.

Where did the inspiration for your first novel, Journeys to the End of the World, come from?
Journeys is set in three different eras, but takes place largely during, and just after, World War 1.  I have had a fascination with the "Great War" since I was a child, as my late father fought on the Western Front, was mentioned in dispatches, was gassed in the trenches and saw things he could not bear to tell me about.  As I heard little about the war from him I read a great deal about it and, when the time came to write my first novel, I was drawn irresistibly to some aspect of the "Great War".  The aspect I chose was "shell shock", but I also related it to its unnamed equivalent a century earlier, and to post-traumatic stress disorder a century later.

Andrea R. Cooper, author of Viking Fire

Viking Fire by Andrea R. Cooper is available for Kindle from Amazon:
US:  Viking Fire (Crimson Romance)
UK:  Viking Fire (Crimson Romance)

Viking Fire by Andrea R. Cooper

Viking Fire by Andrea R. Cooper

In 856 CE, Ireland is a land of myth, magic, and blood. Viking raiders have fought the Irish for over half a century. Rival Irish clans promise only betrayal and carnage.

Kaireen, daughter of Laird Liannon, is suddenly forced into an arranged marriage with her sworn enemy, a Viking. She refuses to submit. With no mention of love, only land and the protection of her clan, she endeavors to get her betrothed banished from her country. Will love find its way around her stubborn heart?

Bram, the Viking, finds himself without future or inheritance as a younger son in his family. A marriage to the Laird’s daughter would grant him land if he swears fidelity and if his men will fight along with the Liannons against any foe—Irish or Viking. However, the Laird’s feisty daughter only holds animosity for him and his kind. Is marriage worth the battle scars of such a relentless opponent?
With the blame for a rival laird’s death treacherously set against the Liannons, Kaireen and Bram must find a way to lay aside their differences as an unforeseen darkness sends death snapping at their heels.

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Author Quiz interviews Andrea R. Cooper...

What is it you love most about writing?
I love meeting new characters. I am a pantser, so I discover things while writing at the same time as a character does. I do know the ending-ish, but I allow my characters to develop along with the story. It’s a thrill when a character does something I wasn’t expecting.

Peter G. Pollak, author of Last Stop on Desolation Ridge

Last Stop on Desolation Ridge by Peter G. Pollak is available for Kindle from Amazon:
US: Last Stop on Desolation Ridge
UK: Last Stop on Desolation Ridge

Last Stop On Desolation Ridge by Peter G. Pollak

Last Stop on Desolation Ridge by Peter G. Pollak

Can you imagine how you'd feel if you woke up with no memory but knowledge certain that someone wants you dead? That's what Logan Gifford had to deal with when rescued from a gully on a desolate road in the Adirondacks in upstate New York. You'll hang on every word as you follow his attempt to stay alive and recover his past.

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Author Quiz interviews Peter G. Pollak...

Tell us a bit about yourself and your work as an author.
After retiring from the company I founded, I decided to try to finish one of the dozen or so novels I'd started, but never gotten very far on. The half dozen people I sent copies to offered encouragement, so I self-published The Expendable Man, a political thriller, which is still my top-selling novel, in 2011. I followed that the next year with Making the Grade, a police procedural featuring a protagonist who has just been named the first female detective on her squad and, early in 2013, with a suspense novel, Last Stop on Desolation Ridge. I'll release another police procedural whose hero is a retired cop this fall, but I'm also working on an heroic fantasy epic which I hope to sell to a publisher when it's completed.

If you were to write a novel outside your usual genre, which genre would you like to experiment with and why?
It seems in the past that writers specialized in one genre or another, but I haven't felt confined to stick to one genre, perhaps because my reading tastes are so eclectic. As a young man, I read a lot of science fiction, and I read classics in literature courses in college and dabbled in mysteries, literary fiction and historical fiction over the years. But I found I really enjoy multi-volume fantasies, such as Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series. So, while having written two suspense and two crime novels, I'm putting most of my effort into completing a fantasy series. I hope that will show my best writing and most creative story telling.

Author Quiz is taking a break...

Since I started Author Quiz just over a year ago, the number of visitors to the blog has steadily grown, with the most popular interviews having recieved over 500 page views.

However, it does require a regular commitment out of my schedule every week to upload and format the interviews and unfortunately very soon I won't be able to guarantee the necessary time, as for the next few months I'll be away backpacking around the world.  I've therefore decided that to avoid making commitments I can't keep, Author Quiz will be placed on a break while I'm away.

Things will keep running for a while yet, however, as any interviews already submitted have been scheduled to be featured over the next few weeks.  Also, to be fair to anyone who's working on an interview at the moment, any interviews which are submitted before the end of October will also be featured.

After that though, as I'll be away travelling I unfortunately won't be able to guarantee the normality to my schedule to work on the blog on a regular basis and therefore the safest decision is to place the blog on hold for a few months until I get back from my travels.

Finally, massive thanks to all the authors who have sent in interviews over the last twelve months, and also to all the readers who have visited the blog.  Author Quiz has now featured interviews from over fifty authors covering more than fifty different genres, so thanks again to everyone who has contributed interviews over the last year.