by Brett Bam
Where did you get the idea for The Sunseed Saga?
The idea of Kulen De Sol first started during many talks with close friends who have similar interests. We all grew up together reading the same comics, watching the same movies and sharing the books we read which inspired us. I think the first conversation was with a friend, Douglas Mc Cusker. We were talking about what gas giants were made of, and if we could fall through them all the way to the other side. What would that be like? What would it take to survive? The Kulen De Sol character grew from this seed.
How long did it take to finish the book?
Believe it or not, this story has taken me 19 years to finish. It’s been a love hate relationship for most of my adult life. I wrote the first draft by longhand back in 1998. Since then I’ve written several drafts. The first draft was saved onto stiffy disks, just to show how long ago that was. Over the years, I’ve managed to lose every draft except this last one. I’ve had computers crash and data wiped, I’ve had laptops stolen and destroyed. I’ve moved from one continent to another several times and lost the material in the process. It’s been a long chain of sour luck which has caused me to restart this same story eight or nine times now. This latest draft has been interrupted by me moving to Australia from South Africa, starting a business, changing careers, getting married, having kids, getting divorced, buying houses, and life in general. It’s mostly been written at 3 AM while my family was asleep and during lunch breaks at work. But I never gave up. I kept writing, no matter what. It’s very satisfying to reach the end of the project and to start the next one. I promise anyone who enjoys the book that they won’t have to wait 19 years for the next one.
What prompted you to start writing?
I have to write. I have a million ideas constantly struggling for space in my imagination. I have rough drafts of the next four books all planned out, and I have about 16 short stories waiting for my attention. If I don’t get these ideas out they clutter up the place and cause me to daydream more often than is healthy. I get lost inside my own mind. Writing frees up space for new ideas and I can stop visiting re-runs of the same old stories. It keeps me awake at night and when I don’t write it can affect my whole mind-set, I become distracted and unproductive. I become very involved with what’s happening internally, writing helps soothe some of that and I can walk around pretending to be normal.
What did you do before you published the book?
I am a diver and a coxswain by trade. I have been a recreational scuba instructor for almost 20 years, and I am also a commercial diver working on all kinds of fresh and salt water projects. I specialise in zero visibility and confined underwater spaces. I’ve done construction diving, search and recovery, underwater salvage, and other such things. I really enjoy the ocean and the underwater world. I love coral reefs and the diverse biology and the uniqueness of the environment. I’ve lived and worked in almost every ocean on the planet and a whole lot of fresh water bodies as well. The experience of using technology to enter a hazardous environment has always inspired a lot of my work.
What is your next project?
I’m working on a story about an illegally aware artificial intelligence in a very realistic future world. I have a new slant on the story that personalises the experience of the machine in a way I hope readers relate to. It’s about the dangers of monopolised technology and the problems of the advent of AI and what it means for our society.
What other writers have influenced your work?
I love Peter F. Hamilton, he’s my current favourite. Terry Pratchett is a literary god and I’ve read everything he ever wrote more than once. The best short story I’ve ever read is Andy Weir’s “The Egg”. That story changed the way I see the world. I’m a voracious reader and I’ve followed a lot of authors over the years. I was massively influenced as a teenager by Isaac Asimov, Clive Barker, L. Ron Hubbard, Arthur C Clarke and many more. Another writer I love is Brian Michael Bendis, I think his work with Marvel Comics has changed the genre for the better, pushed it to new heights and encouraged the evolution of the comic book into something I’m still entertained by as a grown man.
What are you reading right now?
I’m actually busy with a series of non-fiction books. I’ve been inspired by the writing of Kevin Kelly. He wrote a book called “The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 technological forces that will shape our future.” I’ve also just finished Yuval Noah Harari’s “Sapiens” and its sequel, “Homo Deus”. Outstanding stuff and critical reading for anybody anywhere. I also love audible books and I spend hours every week listening to a wide variety of material. Right now, I’m listening to “The Neutronium Alchemist”, volume two in Peter F. Hamilton’s “Night’s Dawn Trilogy”, for the second time.