Obscura Burning by Suzanne van Rooyen Book blitz

Obscura Burning by Suzanne van Rooyen - December 7th 2012 / Etopia Press}}

The world's going to end in fire…and it's all Kyle's fault.

Kyle Wolfe's world is about to crash and burn. Just weeks away from graduation, a fire kills Kyle's two best friends and leaves him permanently scarred. A fire that Kyle accidentally set the night he cheated on his boyfriend Danny with their female friend, Shira. That same day, a strange new planet, Obscura, appears in the sky. And suddenly Kyle's friends aren't all that dead anymore.

Each time Kyle goes to sleep, he awakens to two different realities. In one, his boyfriend Danny is still alive, but Shira is dead. In the other, it's Shira who's alive...and now they're friends with benefits. Shifting between realities is slowly killing him, and he's not the only one dying. The world is dying with him. He's pretty sure Obscura has something to do with it, but with his parents' marriage imploding and realities shifting each time he closes his eyes, Kyle has problems enough without being the one in charge of saving the world...

 

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Suzanne van Rooyen:

Suzanne is a freelance writer and author from South Africa. She currently lives in Finland and finds the cold, dark forests nothing if not inspiring. Suzanne is the author of the cyberpunk novel Dragon’s Teeth (Divertir), the YA science fiction novel Obscura Burning (Etopia) and has had several short stories published by Golden Visions Magazine, Space and Time and Niteblade. Niteblade nominated her short story Where dreams are grown for the Pushcart Prize. Her non-fiction articles on travel, music and other topics can be found scattered throughout the Internet. Although she has a Master’s degree in music, Suzanne prefers conjuring strange worlds and creating quirky characters. When not writing you can find her teaching dance to ninth graders or playing in the snow with her shiba inu.
Suzanne is represented by Jordy Albert of the Booker Albert Agency.

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Authoy Interview

1        Would you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I grew up in South Africa, and after a brief stint in Australia where it was far too hot, I settled in Finland. Must be my Viking ancestors that make me feel at home in the snow and forests. After dedicating more than twenty years of my life to studying music, I started writing fiction and haven't looked back. I write YA and adult speculative fiction and am represented by the lovely Jordy Albert.

2        Can you tell us a little bit about your book?

Sure! The idea for Obscura Burning came to me while listening to the Friday Night Light’s soundtrack by Explosions in the Sky. I started with a character and the story grew from there, becoming a YA science fiction thriller far darker and grittier than I expected. I should probably warn prospective readers that this is upper YA and maybe not suitable for younger readers.

3        Your book’s going to be made into a movie, who would you cast in the leading roles?

Landon Liboiron as Kyle

Tyler Posey as Danny

Seychelle Gabriel (with blond hair) as Mya

Vanessa Hudgens as Shira

4        Are you working on anything at the moment?

A YA science fiction novel about a girl and an android who share a passion for music. I’m also in the planning stages of a YA/NA novel involving Finnish mythology - it’s got a way to go still.

5        Why this genre(s)?

I love the creative freedom SF/F gives writers. My imagination can run riot, conjuring up the weird and wonderful without being fettered by current technological capabilities. I also enjoy the research that goes into my stories for the sake of verisimilitude. I do tend to stretch the possibilities of tech in my stories and mangle it with some fantasy but I want my worlds to remain plausible as far as possible.

6        What is the hardest part of writing in your opinion?

Getting past that 20k word mark. If I can break the 20k barrier, I’m usually ok. I think it was Neil Gaiman who said writing is just putting one word after the other - it’s as easy as that; it’s as difficult as that. Writing is hard work but I love it!

7        Is there a genre that you love to read, and would like to write, but just cannot?

Literary fiction. I love the dense verbose works by the likes of David Mitchell and Carlos Ruis Zafon but I don’t think I could pull it off. I prefer writing dialogue to exposition.

8        What is your favorite part of writing?

The moment an idea takes hold and makes you excited about the world, about the characters you’re about to create. I love that thrill as you start working out the back story and world building for a new story. I also love revisions. Getting through a first draft is laborious but once I’ve got words on the page I can get stuck in and fashion the story into something shelf worthy.

 Guest Posr

FSetting a Story Somewhere You've Never Been

Of the 13 countries I’ve visited on 3 continents, I have never been to the US. Why my story insisted on being set in New Mexico remains a mystery, but that’s what my characters were telling me so that’s where I set the story despite having never set foot on American soil.

Setting is vital to any story. Setting becomes a character unto itself and should be made as real as possible. This is not easy when you’ve never been to said location. In the interest of verisimilitude, I did extensive research. This involved reading everything I could about New Mexico, specifically the Four Corners where my fictional town is located. I also watched documentaries about the State and its oddities. I even trawled through Youtube to find posts by New Mexican teenagers so I could listen to their accents and slang. (Apparently, thanks to an honest reviewer, I still got it wrong).

Thanks to the online writing community Scribophile, I was able to compile some anecdotes about life in NM as well - what a sunset looked like, which way storms blew in, what storms smelled like, what small town residents did to celebrate the 4th of July, what people typically ate, what the vegetation looked like etc. There was tons of research that went into this book and I still managed to get things wrong. Yup, I mangled the Spanish expletives and used Britishisms where I shouldn’t have.

From this experience, I’ve learned some extremely valuable lessons. 1) Better to write about a place you’ve actually been. 2) Know your stuff inside out - there is no such thing as too much research. 3) Own your mistakes even if you (embarrassingly) refer to the wrong city as the capital.

There’s nothing wrong with setting your story somewhere you’ve never been but brace yourself for backlash from readers when they find your mistakes, which they will because authors cannot get every nuance of a culture they’ve never experienced right without seeing, hearing, tasting and feeling the place for themselves. That said, I don’t think I did too badly writing this book as I did from my spot in the forests of central Finland.

 Giveaway:

Prize is:

-1 autographed paperback of Obscura Burning
-1 ebook of Dragon's Teeth (epub, mobi or pdf)
-1 $10 GC for Amazon
-3 surprise items from each of the main characters

Open internationally and ending January 31st.

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