Mom With A Kindle: Book Tour [Interview + GIVEAWAY] Untimed by Andy Gavin

Friday, January 18, 2013

Book Tour [Interview + GIVEAWAY] Untimed by Andy Gavin

Welcome Author Andy Gavin

Andy Gavin is a serial creative, polymath, novelist, entrepreneur, computer programmer, author, foodie, and video game creator. He co-founded video game developer Naughty Dog and co-created Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter. He started numerous companies, has been lead programmer on video games that have sold more than forty million copies, and has written two novels including The Darkening Dream, a dark historical fantasy that puts the bite back in vampires.

If you could live in any book “world” which book would it be?

Some “Culture” novel like Consider Phlebas, that way I could use the advanced technology to download myself into an AI and become immortal.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

I expected to be EMPEROR OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE, or perhaps the architect of a new revised humanity 2.0. I’m not really kidding. Still, I turned out pretty well .

What was your favorite book as a child/teen?

I used to love the Alexander Key novels like The Forgotten Door, Escape from Witch Mountain, and The Case of the Vanishing Boy. They combined kids with cool powers with really excellent writing and characterization. As an early teen, some of my favorite authors were Piers Anthony, Jack Chalker, and Orson Scott Card. Later, I added in more sophisticated stuff like Gene Wolfe.

You are stranded on a deserted island, what 3 things would you want?

My laptop, a coconut powered generator, and a satellite modem.

M&M’s or Skittles?

Skittles. It isn’t even close, they’re my favorite candy.

Favorite icecream?

Really good Gelato (which means Italy) in complex dessert flavors like tiramisu or cassata. For example: http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/07/21/eating-florence-gelateria-santa-trinita/

What’s your favorite season/weather?

I like those Los Angeles days when the air is perhaps 78, breezy and warm with just a touch of cool. I’m also very partial to balmy nights like they get in coastal Florida.

Beach or pool?

Pool. I’m a neat freak and don’t like getting too sandy.

If you had a time machine where would you go back in time or ahead? And who would you like to visit?

I’d go forward and have myself upgraded into an indestructible cyborg, then I’d go back and explore the past, particularly the ancient Mediterranean. In Untimed, poor Charlie is so busy putting history back together, he doesn’t have a chance to sightsee.

Any advice for writer’s just starting out?

Read, read, write, write, edit, edit, edit. And hire good professional help too. Friends and family can give you a sense of how the book reads, but they can't usually tell you how to fix anything serious. I've read a lot of half-decent Indie books on my Kindle that are at their core good, but just need some serious tightening and polish. Hell, I've read plenty of big-six bestsellers you can say this about.

Any pet peeves?

Phone support people where they make you repeat all your basic info every time even if they have the case ID.

Please tell us in one sentence only, why we should read your book.

Untimed dares to imagine a world where not even history can be taken for granted.

Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published.

I love when people tell me it’s the best book they’ve read in the last couple of years. What author wouldn’t?

Any other books in the works? Goals for future projects?

Yep. Right now, I’m writing two more novels and adapting Untimed into a screenplay. The new books are the Untimed sequel and a totally separate short novel that involves old school fairies and iambic pentameter.

Untimed

by Andy Gavin

Paperback, 325 pages

Published December 17th 2012 by Mascherato

Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, even his own mother can’t remember his name. And girls? The invisible man gets more dates.

As if that weren’t enough, when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously.

Still, this isn’t all bad. In fact, there’s this girl, another time traveler, who not only remembers his name, but might even like him! Unfortunately, Yvaine carries more than her share of baggage: like a baby boy and at least two ex-boyfriends! One’s famous, the other’s murderous, and Charlie doesn’t know who is the bigger problem.

When one kills the other — and the other is nineteen year-old Ben Franklin — things get really crazy. Can their relationship survive? Can the future? Charlie and Yvaine are time travelers, they can fix this — theoretically — but the rules are complicated and the stakes are history as we know it.

And there's one more wrinkle: he can only travel into the past, and she can only travel into the future!