Featured Interview With Marjorie Kaye Noble
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
During my childhood I zig-zagged. I was born in California. My parents moved to Tennessee, then Kentucky and returned to California when I was fourteen. When I was sixteen, my mother died of cancer at age 36, leaving me and my four younger siblings to cope with a sadly overwhelmed father. After high school, I worked and went to school and after almost seven years, I graduated from UCLA (theater major). I was an actress for a split second until I moved to Reno and raised children. In Reno, I started a locations casting company, and then I moved back to LA to work as a casting director. After that, I became an English teacher, the biggest challenge yet. Seeing donated boxes of YA novels, I decided to give writing a try. How hard can it be? Incredibly hard. Still, I started with a story about one of my great uncles, a prisoner in 1930’s Ohio. He escaped right before the prison burned down, killing almost all the inmates. My story depicts a prison fire, but ends on Christmas Eve in 2004 as mall rats fight demons in a burning shopping mall. Now I live in Northern California with Arthur, a tuxedo cat, Henry, a fierce chihuahua and my husband, Daniel Oldis, also a writer. Currently, I’m finishing my second sci fi novel. a sequel to my novel, Babylon Dreams which takes place in an after death VR world..
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
When I was nine I read The Black Stallion. I loved it. For a while, I wanted to be a horse. That didn’t work out, but reading did. When I was twelve, I lived in a small town in Kentucky. Every week, I’d go to the library and check out books. There are so many I remember. Heinlein’s Have Spacesuit Will Travel, a book on the Longs of Louisiana, and I read Charles Dickens. I love his humor and insight. My mother read constantly. I remember her reading James Michener’s Hawaii, another author whose work I love. I started writing in mid-life when I began teaching. Writing became my vacation.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend novels, Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy are two. Science fiction that explores what it means to be human.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
The Dark Side of Dreams is a sequel to my speculative science fiction novel, Babylon Dreams. Both take place in the near future (22nd century and 23rd), when mind uploading has created, a new industry–the after-death destinations programs. The first book focuses on Gunter Holden, a ruthless businessman and creator of Bali Hai, an after-death custom paradise. Sixty years after his suicide, Gunter is bored and desperate. There are rumors of a company merger, something that alarms him. His file is beginning to fragment which causes him to relive moments best forgotten. On the advice of Miranda, the Bali Hai AI, he tells his life story to Tom, a new Bali Hai resident. The mergers happen anyway, and Gunter tries to protect the virtual people of Bali Hai. Still, as the paradise of Bali Hai slides into a new form of hell, Gunter learns the devastating truth of his childhood. It ends when Gunter and Tom ride Babylon Dreams, a virtual rollercoaster and self- delete. But Gunter returns in The Dark Side of Dreams. He is a digital copy of the original, made years before Gunter’s death. Stored in a closet for over one hundred years, his descendent, Mira intends to use him to take back Bali Hai and the company he lost.
Several years ago, I read an article in Psychology Today by Ray Kurzweil on the potential of mind-uploading into a virtual reality environment. He said we could copy ourselves and meet friends for lunch. Even better, we could customize our appearance, for example “raspberry eyes.” I was working on a film at the time and I mentioned the article to the writer/director, along with a story idea: A love triangle that continues in virtual reality after all three people are dead and mind-uploaded to the same VR program. He liked it and suggested I write it. At the time, I didn’t write, and when I did, it was another novel. Still, I kept the thought. Being someone who loves films, I thought of a character who tells his story long after his death. Gunter Holden is a murderer and an impossible narcissist who finds redemption in Babylon Dreams. As it tells this Gunter’s story, The Dark Side of Dreams connects us to the “bio” world as it is in the 23rd century. Gunter’s descendent, Mira Patel risks everything to take back Gunter’s company and his legacy.
Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles