Featured Interview With Catalin Marcu
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born and raised in Romania, in the beautiful region of Moldova. Now I live in Iasi, the biggest city in this region, enjoying a great mixture between a relaxed lifestyle and all the benefits of a big city. From the top floor of the building I live in, I love to breath in the fresh morning air and admire the beautiful view of my city. A second later, I have to stop and go back to playing with my 1 year old son. Yes, I do my writing mostly at night!
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I’ve always been fascinated with books and not only books, but with anything that let me peer into other worlds or into other people’s lives. Science fiction in particular appealed to me, as it tickled my imagination so much that I’d often stop reading the book and just let my mind create its own stories. I tried writing small things when I was in high-school, but they weren’t worthy of any reader’s eyes, so I figured it’s not my calling.
Through my career as a game designer I often needed to write, be it small excerpts of text to describe gameplay, characters or locations, to more fully fledged stories in the later years. With that practice came a bit of confidence and the desire to write something that stood on its own. Thus, my first book, Companion, became a reality.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favorite genre is definitely Science Fiction, but what makes it perfect is if there is also a bit of romance and politics mixed in there. My favorite author is Isaac Asimov, with Arthur C. Clarke close behind.
I don’t have any one inspiration when I write, I tend to draw from the entire myriad of entertainment sources I consume. What I want most is to write things that are very accessible to anyone, but also provoke the reader to come up with questions and answers to things he may never thought of before.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
Companion: A Novella is a book about what I think is a very close-by future. It analyzes how the evolution of technology, artificial tissues and artificial intelligence will finally produce the sort of robot that will make us forget it’s not human. And when that happens, how will we react? Will it be fear, superiority, contempt? And, most importantly, how will love fit in this picture? Even if it took me an year to finish, Companion is a short, light reading, but hopefully it leaves you with big questions. Because at the end of the day, that’s what I love most about books, not the stories they tell, but the questions I’m being asked while looking beyond the narrative.
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