Featured Interview With A.C. Harrison
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, and currently live in Mesa, Arizona. Though I’ve traveled as far as Brazil and Japan, I’ve stayed trued to my roots, having lived in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, and Mesa. I attended ASU in Tempe and have a degree in Japanese language and culture. You could say my desert rat tendencies have definitely influenced me, as my novels do deal with climate change and drought, not to mention all the other challenges faced.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
My fascination with books began at a very early age. Reading and writing was very important in my household, with the interesting twist being that my mother was an English-Portuguese translator. I was always reading books above my age level, which was largely due to my father handing me many of his classics to read before I truly understood them. In many cases I would have to return to them and gain more from them, but this taught me to really appreciate novels and to connect a book with its era and culture.
When it comes to writing, I started in grade school and never stopped. When teachers gave out writing assignments, they first had to tell the class the minimum number of pages, then tell me the maximum allowed. This continued into college, where my senior thesis for undergrad was longer than those of many of the graduate students that were sharing a course with me, except this time I had no page limit, so I took advantage of it and scored an A+.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favorite authors range in scope, but primarily focus in the sci-fi genre. As I write cyberpunk science fiction, the authors that inspire me include William Gibson and Neal Stephenson, while also reaching back to Philip K. Dick and Robert A. Heinlein. I also enjoy the works of Huxley, Hemingway and Salinger, as well as James Clavell. I like to draw from multiple genres even though I tend to write in one, so despite the grimness of my universe, I like to throw in a nod to great authors such as Douglas Adams and his Hitchhiker’s series. Don’t panic, right?
Catering to my Japanese degree, I also enjoy reading classical works such as those by Murasaki Shikibu (The Tale of Genji) and the war epic “The Tales of the Heike,” both of which I have read in English and classical Japanese. Yoshikawa Eiji and Ibuse Masuji would be two more conventional Japanese authors I greatly enjoy.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book is actually my premier novel, a cyberpunk adventure titled “Jupiter Symphony” that releases on September 20, 2014 and is now available for pre-order. The book takes place in a post-apocalyptic America that has been whittled down from a terrorist EMP attack, the collapse of the economy, and global climate change. The government has taken up refuge in a giant bunker system known as Fortress Washington from which they send out the military as a mercenary force to bolster their coffers.
As the work is cyberpunk, of course corporations play a role, and in “Jupiter Symphony” they have gained sovereignty, taking advantage of the chaos that reigned after the terrorist attack. Wealth is concentrated at the very top, leaving millions of Americans to live either on the street, out in the desert wasteland, or else work for one of the corporations at a level that is on par with serfdom.
From out of this chaos comes a nomad from the desert that finds himself suddenly caught up in a botched military coup, and so he in turn forms his own power base of the tired, hungry, and sick, eventually beginning a new American Revolution. Unknown to him and his friends, however, is the threat which looms in the heavens overhead that could obliterate them in a flash.
In writing my novel, I tried to keep it grounded in reality without being too grim or heavy handed, although it certainly does deal in politics and society as much as it does with cybernetics, hackers, and high-caliber rifles. The book was a labor of love; I challenged myself to completely finish a writing project, something I had never done outside of school. While the original manuscript only took a few months to write, by the time I was done editing it had nearly doubled in length and I was looking at a release date nearly a year later than I had originally planned. This was all done on my own time, as I still suffer a day job to pay the bills. Despite all this, I know the book is better for it, and I think the readers will really appreciate the hard work and dedication I invested in my novel. I believe in art through adversity, and this book is no exception.
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