Today is the last day of the free promotion of AFTER Life, INFERNO. This trilogy doesn’t get enough love, but the story of how Artificial Intelligence takes over the world via brain parasites was a lot of fun to write.
mybook.to/AFTERLifeINFERNO
Where it Came From
A local photographer was a fan of This Plague of Days. The parent of two kids on the spectrum, he really dug Jaimie Spencer’s role in the zombie/vampire apocalypse. His hobby was to take pics of local artists of all stripes, so he reached out to ask to take photos of me. I still use one of his pics for my author photo.
When he walked into my chaotic office, he paused, maybe in shock. Surveying my many crammed bookshelves, he said, “This is an interesting creative space. Your mess says a lot about you.”
Me: “Uh…thanks?”
The Seed of the Idea
We started talking about end-of-the-world potentialities, and he told me an interesting story. He had a friend who worked on Toronto’s police force. The photographer said there is a viral research lab in downtown Toronto. The cop swore his priority in the worst-case scenario was “containment.” That meant that if a virus in the vault started infecting the research staff, he’d be tasked with keeping the infected in the lab. If any medical personnel tried to escape the vault, they would be shot in hopes of protecting the city.
AFTER LIFE INFERNO, PURGATORY, & PARADISE is Born
I attended the University of King’s College Foundation Year Program. It’s basically the history of philosophy and the survey course included everything from the Bible to classical literature and modern jazz. We’d sit around entertaining questions like, “What is the definition of the soul?” (My favorite answer: The essence of the whatness of the being.) That’s where I got introduced to Dante. Inferno is great. I didn’t enjoy Purgatorio and Paradisio as much, but Dante’s vision of Hell was fascinating. So, with that loose structure in mind, I sallied forth with my take on weaponized brain parasites escaping a military lab.
Setting it in Toronto, I brought Artificial Intelligence and the future of humanity into the mix. The trilogy puts an infected police officer and a brilliant research scientist on the same side, but maybe not for long. (Wink!)
I love how this story evolves as the AI goes from attacking and taking over humans to learning more about us. When you get to Paradise, the AI is out to invade America and improve us against our will. Humans are a problem to be solved, and the story winds up going to very compelling places.
Or get the whole series as a huge paperback (600+ pages!) or the e-box set here.
