BLOOD BROTHERS by Dean C. Moore Excerpt, Interview & Giveaway

BLOOD BROTHERS: Escape To Creeporia

by Dean C. Moore

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BLURB:

Fraternal twins are separated from birth, and raised to be assassins.  They were never meant to meet.  But even when kept apart, they’re just too powerful.  Their paranormal abilities cease to be an advantage when they can no longer be controlled.  So they are scheduled for cancellation.

Their paths cross before they can be taken out.  It is only then that they discover the true depths of their betrayal.  Not only are they stronger when they’re together, they’re half-breeds, sired by an all-powerful warlock.

The question is, are they strong enough even together to take him on now that he’s coming for them?

They have an ace up their sleeves they are not aware of.  Drawn to the same kind of women, they find themselves married to a pair of sorceresses whose magical abilities are only now surfacing.

But one encounter with dear old dad is all it takes for them to realize, they’re still the underdogs.

From the back of the book:

“The series is called Blood Brothers, but this adventure is really a family affair: the brothers, their partners, children and even their old man in a starring role as the villain.  Think Disney's Incredibles, but in a violent and bizarre fantasy world.”  Rob May, Dragon Killer

“With incredibly detailed world building and action scenes, this story seems like it would make a phenomenal film or TV series.

Moore pulls out all the stops with dragons, telekinesis, shapeshifters and insurmountable odds in this battle of good versus evil - and a villain who just won't lay down and die.” Demelza Carlton, Ocean’s Gift

“When you read a Dean C. Moore novel, you can expect rich, original characters, witty dialogue and unexpected plot turns.  Blood Brothers doesn't disappoint.”  JC Gatlin, Designated Survivor

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Excerpt 

Jared Rawlings fought to keep up with his wife Ellen, the predatory animal that was the real him threatening to break free of the placid, domesticated creature on the surface that held him prisoner. 

They made their way to the latest stall, past the body odors and the dust kicked up in the dirt road by the relentless march of harried shoppers.  The Moroccan marketplace was teaming with life; not all of it for sale, at least on this side of the display tables. 

Ellen's eyes darted to the curios, his to the latest constellation of attackers.  Whoever had sent the first one after him had abandoned subtle and understated methods. 

One fez-wearing assailant, in the window two stories up, aimed his rifle at him.  Another assassin, lurking in the shadows the booth over, reached for a Yemeni Janbiya under his vest.

Jared picked up a frying pan, and deflected the bullet from the shooter at the man with the short curved-blade dagger the booth over.  The gunfire and ricocheting sounds were swallowed up in the mayhem of the marketplace. 

He gazed at the back of the frying pan—with nary a scratch—impressed.  Thrusting the pan before Ellen, he said, “I like this one.”

Having missed what was going on with him entirely, she pointed to the miniature brewer and the Arabic coffee.  “A few shots of that are what you need.”  Addressing the peddler, she said, “I swear, he sleepwalks through life.”

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

I write sci-fi, fantasy, action-adventures and thrillers, or some combination thereof—usually with a strong vein of dark humor.  Though, my works are dramas first; the humor is there to take the edge off as with the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Transformers, and Jurassic Park franchises. 

I wrote screenplays for a while, and while enjoying them, I found them a bit confining.  After a while you just need the extra page count to flesh out characters better and do additional world building, especially when considering doing anything epic in scope.  I also took a run at future forecasting and trend tracking, being as I always had my head in the future, things like Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock.  I also relished this, and can certainly see myself releasing a few titles accordingly in the nonfiction area.  But since delving into novels, short and long, I’ve definitely found my home and my voice.  For the first time I feel the restraints have been taken off of my imagination.  I suppose all mediums have their limits, so I may end up doing a mix of things, but I suspect I will continue to spend most of my time with novels.  Series add an additional dimension, allowing for even more depth and development both in the character and world building departments.  But I remain at heart a divergent thinker, so, no surprise, I seem to have more series going than follow up installments at this point.  That too may change over time; we’ll see.  Until then, it may be best to just think of these books as one-offs if you’re fond of my writing style and some of the themes I work with.

My current catalog of twelve books represents a little over five years' worth of work.  I'm currently averaging a couple books annually.  Of my existing franchises with multiple installments, The Hundred Year Clone books can be read in any order, while the 5 books of Renaissance 2.0 must be read in sequence as they form part of a singular story arc (much as with A Game of Thrones.) 

I live in the country where I breed bluebirds, which are endangered in these parts, as my small contribution to restoring nature's balance.  When I'm not writing, or researching my next book, I may also be found socializing with friends, or working in my organic garden.

Interview:

Where are you from?

I had a colorful childhood in Trinidad, an island in the Caribbean, where I remember dodging quicksand pits on the beach, riding out typhoons, and earthquakes that bounced the house better than a Ping-Pong ball.  The windows were always open, the breeze always blew and we slept under cotton mesh nets and burned coils to keep the insects off of us. I had a pet snail whose shell was bigger than an adult’s closed fist.  When he finally slime-trailed away, escaping the walled yard, I remember being quite devastated.  But being a child, I rebounded quickly, and recall a pet butterfly that used to ride with me for some time, never leaving the handlebar of my enormous bicycle.  It was a monarch.  I’m not sure monarchs are endemic to Trinidad, so he may have blew there on one hell of a trade wind.  His shell-shocked state upon arrival might explain his hesitance to leave the handlebar of my bike.

Tell us your latest news?

I’m currently converting my e-books to audiobooks and print books to accommodate a wider palate of tastes.  I was slow to come around to the audiobook concept, because I personally tried a few titles and it wasn’t for me.  I just don’t learn well that way.  I’m a need to see it and touch it to absorb the material kind of guy.  But once I made the connection that some people do indeed process information better through their ears, I was eager to jump on the bandwagon.  I’m glad to finally shed my bigotry as regards different learning styles. J  That said, audiobooks are a bit of a project, so the printed books will make it to the finish line well ahead of them.  If you’re a determined audiobook listener, get on my email list by way of my contact form on my website and I’ll let you know the instant they’re available.

  

When and why did you begin writing?

Whenever I’m asked this question I feel like what I really write is revisionist history, because each time I change the backstory a little.  It’s sort of like asking a person when they first became self-aware.  There probably is a specific answer available only under hypnosis.  Ironically, I’m a certified hypnotherapist so I still shouldn’t be able to dodge this question.  For today, the answer is, as memory serves, with seventy-five percent reliability, providing Saturn is not in retrograde and thus pressuring nerves in my brain to access not my past in this timeline but a parallel universe where my formative years did play out a bit differently…

I was strolling across Sproul Plaza at Cal Berkeley, when a movie started playing out in my head.  My movie.  I was a huge Trekky fan back then (still am), and I just saw the next installment in my head play out from beginning to end.  It would be far better than any Star Trek episode or film ever.  This was a naïve, presumptuous conclusion to arrive at because I’d yet to actually commit a word of the story to paper, and anyone who’s ever written a first draft will tell you it takes many drafts to get to anything even close to something someone actually wants to read (including the writer.) 

When I did actually pen my never-to-be-surpassed Star Trek movie it only then dawned on me that I had no rights and permissions to scrawl such a document and would be sued into oblivion for even daring to release it.  You’d think I’d have learned a lesson from that.  Nope, the next few things I wrote were all superhero extravaganzas.  Take my word for it, if you’re determined to write the next Spiderman or James Bond film, just don’t.  Wait for them to approach you first with a ton of money.  Only very famous seasoned writers get a crack at these things.  Of course, this was before fan fiction became such a big thing.  Today, who knows, this might actually not fall under self-destructive behavior.

As to why I began writing these things?  Other than feeling driven to dash them off, I couldn’t tell you.  Certainly not back then.  Looking back and seeing how the themes have carried over to my sci-fi and fantasy books over the years, I’d say I’m pretty obsessed with the whole man into superman, woman into wonder woman idea.  I’m less interested in what we are than what we’re evolving into.  And in my universe, you can bet the more advanced version of ourselves exhibit all sorts of paranormal powers.  Though sometimes my heroes also possess cybernetic and genetic upgrades.  Of course, that depends on if I’m contemplating using technology as a crutch or if I’m going au natural, with nothing but some auming and Zen meditation to procure the transformation from the human to the transhuman. 

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

My first novel was a sci-fi ditty, Escape From the Future, penned many years ago.  It’s still a fairly prescient bit of futurism, though back then it was Nostradamus-grade prophetic.  I found a small publisher willing to co-publish it with me, but at the time I didn’t have the few thousand in hand for the initial printing.  But just getting someone to believe in me, and of course, actually finishing something I thought well enough of to send out the door, constituted a turning point.

Ironically that early book no longer exists.  It was turned into a screenplay, and then back into a novel again.  It continued to evolve each step of the way.  In its current incarnation it’s very Blade Runner meets the Matrix with a little Sin City noir attitude stirred in for good measure.  Give it a try if surreal, mind-bending sci-fi with a dollop of dry humor is your cup of tea.  Putting aside the film analogies, as author parallels go, it has a very Phillip K. Dick on speed flavor, to borrow from one reviewer’s comments.  Fair warning: this book also qualifies as paranormal and urban fantasy.

What inspired you to write your first book?

This is another question with an answer that morphs every time I reply.  Maybe I am more in touch with the many-states-of-Dean as he exists in any number of parallel universes than I give myself credit for, explaining my vivid memories that are somehow never the same twice. 

Of course, that was a long time ago.

I recall I’d just finished a screenplay about two old spinsters who occupied their time by spying on their neighbors from their high rise apartment.  Their minds going a bit senile in two part harmony, they are visited by an entourage of colorful ghosts that even Pixel would struggle to bring to life.  Of course the ghosts turn out to be real as opposed to a product of their dementia.  The whole thing was very Hitchock’s Rear Window meets Batteries Not Included.  Sadly, this script has been lost to the annals of time.

But immediately afterwards, I wrote Escape From the Future.  It was as if I needed the prolonged secretion of neurochemicals in my brain from contemplating such a surreal fantasy film to reorganize my neural net, and to grow the additional connections necessary to visualize the future with any accuracy.  I’ve been expanding my mind in a similar manner ever since in order to open the gateways to even more mind-bending realities.  You’re welcome to join me on the kind of sustained acid trips that really do give the mind the flexibility to go anywhere and return forever changed, but still alive and in one piece, though barely. 

  

What would you like my readers to know?

  

I actually have twelve titles all in all published as of this tour.  Most fall under the headings of sci-fi and paranormal fantasy, with some hybrid mixtures of the two genres.  And then there is Love on the Run, a romantic comedy slash action adventure slash heist book.  Think The Thomas Crown Affair with Pierce Brosnan and you’re right on the money for what it feels like to read Love on the Run. 

I tend to use dark humor to take the edge off, which is the one thing that unites all my writing, regardless of what genre I’m in, the way the authors do who scribed the screenplays for Jurassic Park, Transformers, Star Trek Into Darkness, and the Indiana Jones franchises. 

In short, if you like what I have to offer, rest assured there’s a lot more of it and more on the way.

I have big plans for 2015 with another couple titles on the drawing board.  2015 is my year for paranoid conspiracy theories, though dressed up in sci-fi and paranormal fantasy garb. 

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