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Showing posts with label A Better World. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A Better World. Show all posts

Friday, January 22, 2016

Interview with Marcus Sakey and Excerpt from Written in Fire


Please welcome Marcus Sakey to The Qwillery. Written in Fire, the final novel in the Brilliance Trilogy, was published on January 12th by Thomas & Mercer.







TQWelcome to The Qwillery. When and why did you start writing?

Marcus:  Thanks for having me!

I've wanted to be an author for as long as I can remember. In fact, I made my first “sale” when I was about five years old, a rousing tale about the tooth fairy that I told my mom, who sent it in to our local newspaper, which, for reasons that are unclear to me, printed it. Bam, hooked.



TQAre you a plotter, a pantser or a hybrid?

Marcus:  A hybrid, though I lean toward plotting. For me, the notion of just blindly sitting down and typing is akin to hopping in a boat with no provisions and no maps. You'll end up somewhere, sure, but even if the destination happens to me marvelous, the journey will be harrowing.

At the same time, I need flexibility when I write. If a new idea occurs, or a bit of dialogue that changes things, well, that's where the juice lives. So I plan, with the understanding that plans can always change.



TQWhat is the most challenging thing for you about writing?

Marcus:  The days--or weeks--when you start to doubt everything, from the seed of the idea to the words you're typing. It's tricky because sometimes that doubt is justified, and your subconscious has spotted a problem. But often it's just part of the process. In my experience, the best thing to do is to keep going--while at the same time trying to diagnose the problem.



TQTell us something about Written in Fire that is not found in the book description.

Marcus:  Large swathes of it were written without pants.



TQWhich question about Written in Fire or the Brilliance Trilogy do you wish someone would ask? Ask it and answer it!

Marcus:  It's not exactly a question, but a lot of people have drawn comparisons between the X-Men and the Brilliance Trilogy, and the comparison drives me batshit. Yes, both are about a small percentage of exceptional individuals. So is every myth ever, Norse to Greek to Chinese; so are stories of the knights of the round table, superhero movies, vampire novels, Harry Potter, on and on. I love the X-Men, but this ain't them.

Okay, end rant.



TQIn the Brilliance Trilogy who was the easiest character to write and why? The hardest and why? Which character surprised you the most?

Marcus:  I loved writing Nick Cooper, the protagonist. He's a very talented, competent guy, and yet also a full-fleshed person, a devoted father, a patriot, and someone who is doing the best he can to make the world a better place.

But probably the most entertaining was one of the antagonists, a brilliant named Soren, whose 'gift' affects his perception of time. He can't control it, nor can he move any faster than the rest of us, but every second seems like eleven to him. It makes him an incredibly dangerous foe, but also a shattered individual. It was great fun to imagine what the world would look like to someone like that--how simple joys would become unbearable burdens.



TQWhy have you chosen to include or not chosen to include social issues in the Brilliance Trilogy?

Marcus:  Because that's the point. Books are about things. The car chases and knife fights are frosting. I love frosting. Everybody loves frosting. But it's a poor idea to eat a plate of nothing but.

The social issues are where the idea was seeded, and they are the parts that mean most to me. Questions of how we handle difference, of intolerance and xenophobia, of our seeming eagerness to embrace a twitchy sort of fear; questions of whether doing the 'right' thing is always the right course of action, and how people are to live in the shades of grey. That's why I read, and that's why I write.

Well, that and knife fights.



TQWhat are your feelings about finishing the Brilliance Trilogy?

Marcus:  They're mixed, honestly. The only thing I've created of which I'm prouder has pigtails and sings about farting. I loved playing in the arena, writing an epic saga that builds one book at a time. So there is sadness at leaving that behind.

On the other hand, I spent about five years working on it, and so there is a part of me that says, "So long, thanks for everything, don't let the door hit your imaginary butt on the way out."



TQWhat's next?

Marcus:  Funny thing about writing novels for a living, by the time one comes out, you're already deep into the next. I'm well into a new book, also a big-idea thriller, this one with an existential bent. It's an idea I've had kicking around my head for years, so I'm having a ball.



TQThank you for joining us at The Qwillery.

Marcus:  Thanks for having me! Cheers.





Written in Fire
The Brilliance Trilogy 3
Thomas & Mercer, January 12, 2016
Trade Paperback and Kindle eBook, 345 pages

For thirty years humanity struggled to cope with the brilliants, the one percent of people born with remarkable gifts. For thirty years we tried to avoid a devastating civil war. We failed.

The White House is a smoking ruin. Madison Square Garden is an internment camp. In Wyoming, an armed militia of thousands marches toward a final, apocalyptic battle.

Nick Cooper has spent his life fighting for his children and his country. Now, as the world staggers on the edge of ruin, he must risk everything he loves to face his oldest enemy—a brilliant terrorist so driven by his ideals that he will sacrifice humanity’s future to achieve them.

From “one of our best storytellers” (Michael Connelly) comes the blistering conclusion to the acclaimed series that is a “forget-to-pick-up-milk, forget-to-water-the-plants, forget-to-eat total immersion experience” (Gillian Flynn).

The explosive conclusion to the bestselling Brilliance Trilogy.
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound



        This must be what God feels like.
        A single glance at my outstretched hand and I know the number of hair follicles covering the back of it, can differentiate and quantify the darker androgenic strands from the barely discernible vellus hairs.
        Vellus, from the Latin, meaning fleece.
        I summon the page in Gray’s Anatomy on which I learned the word and examine the diagram of a hair follicle. But also: the texture and weave of the paper. The attenuation of light from the banker’s lamp that illuminates it. The sandalwood scent of the girl three chairs down. I can evoke these details with perfect clarity, this utterly forgettable and forgotten moment that nonetheless was imprinted in a cluster of brain cells in my hippocampus, as every other moment and experience of my life has been. With a whim I can activate those neurons and scrub forward or backward to relive the day with full sensual clarity.
        An unimportant day at Harvard thirty-eight years ago.
        To be precise, thirty-eight years, four months, fifteen hours, five minutes, and forty-two seconds ago. Forty-three. Forty-four.
        I lower my hand, feeling the extension and contraction of each individual muscle.
        The world rushes in.
        Manhattan, the corner of 42nd and Lexington. Cars and construction noises and throngs of lemming-people and cold December air and a snatch of Bing Crosby singing “Silver Bells” from the opening door of a café and the smells of exhaust and falafel and urine. An assault of sensation, unfiltered, overwhelming.
        Like descending a staircase and forgetting the last step, empty air where solid floor was expected.
        Like sitting in a chair, then noticing it’s the cockpit of a fighter jet going three times the speed of sound.
        Like lifting an abandoned hat, only to discover it rests on a severed head.
        Panic drenches my skin, panic envelops my body. My endocrine system dumps adrenaline, my pupils widen my sphincter tightens my fingers clench—
        Control.
        Balance.
        Breath.
        Mantra: You are Dr. Abraham Couzen. You are the first person in history to transcend the boundary between normal and abnormal. Your serum of non-coding RNA has radically altered your gene expression. A genius by any measure, you are now more.
        You are brilliant.
        People flow around me as I stand on the corner, and I can see the vector of each, can predict the moments they will cross and bump, the slowed step, the itched elbow, before they happen. I can, if I wish, screen everything down to lines of motion and force, an interactive map, like a fabric weaving itself.
        A man jostles my shoulder, and I entertain a brief whim of breaking his neck, picturing instantly the steps to do so: a palm on his chin, a handful of his hair, a foot planted for leverage, a fast, sharp swivel building from the hips for maximum force.
        I let him live.
        A woman passes and I read her secrets from her sloped shoulders and the hair falling to screen her peripheral vision, the jump of her eyes at the taxi’s horn, the baggy jacket and ringless finger and comfortable shoes. The hairs on her pant legs are from three different cats, and I can picture the apartment she lives in alone, the train ride in from Brooklyn, perhaps, thought not the fashionable part. I can see the abuse as a child—an uncle or family friend, not her father—that framed her isolation. The slight pallor and trembling hands reveal she drinks at night, most likely wine, judging by the teeth. The haircut indicates she makes at least sixty thousand dollars a year, the handbag assures she makes no more than eighty. An office job with little human interaction, something with numbers. Accounting, probably in a major corporation.
        This must be what God feels.
        Then I realize two things. I’ve got a nosebleed. And I’m being watched.
        It manifests as a tingle, the kind fools attribute to notions of “the collective unconscious.” In truth it’s simply indicators gathered by the senses but not processed by the frontal lobe: a tremor of shadow, a partial reflection in a glass, the almost-but-not-quite undetectable warmth and sound of another body in the room.
        For me, the original stimuli are easily examined, focused like a blurry image in a microscope. I call up my sense memory of the last moments, the texture of the crowd, the smell of humanity, the movement of vehicles. The lines of force tell a tale, much like ripples in water reveal rocks beneath the surface. I am not mistaken.
        They are many, they are armed, and they are here for me.
        I roll my neck and crack my fingers.
        This should be interesting.


Excerpted from Written in Fire by Marcus Sakey. Copyright 2016. Published By Thomas & Mercer. Used by permission of the publisher. Not for reprint without permission.





Previously

Brilliance
The Brilliance Trilogy 1
Thomas & Mercer, July 16, 2013
Trade Paperback and Kindle eBook, 452 pages

A 2013 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Paperback Original

In Wyoming, a little girl reads people’s darkest secrets by the way they fold their arms. In New York, a man sensing patterns in the stock market racks up $300 billion. In Chicago, a woman can go invisible by being where no one is looking. They’re called “brilliants,” and since 1980, one percent of people have been born this way. Nick Cooper is among them; a federal agent, Cooper has gifts rendering him exceptional at hunting terrorists. His latest target may be the most dangerous man alive, a brilliant drenched in blood and intent on provoking civil war. But to catch him, Cooper will have to violate everything he believes in—and betray his own kind.

From Marcus Sakey, “a modern master of suspense” (Chicago Sun-Times) and “one of our best storytellers” (Michael Connelly), comes an adventure that’s at once breakneck thriller and shrewd social commentary; a gripping tale of a world fundamentally different and yet horrifyingly similar to our own, where being born gifted can be a terrible curse.
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound



A Better World
The Brilliance Trilogy 2
Thomas & Mercer, June 17, 2014
Trade Paperback and Kindle eBook, 390 pages

The brilliants changed everything.

Since 1980, one percent of the world has been born with gifts we’d only dreamed of. The ability to sense a person’s most intimate secrets, or predict the stock market, or move virtually unseen. For thirty years the world has struggled with a growing divide between the exceptional...and the rest of us.

Now a terrorist network led by brilliants has crippled three cities. Supermarket shelves stand empty. 911 calls go unanswered. Fanatics are burning people alive.

Nick Cooper has always fought to make the world better for his children. As both a brilliant and an advisor to the president of the United States, he’s against everything the terrorists represent. But as America slides toward a devastating civil war, Cooper is forced to play a game he dares not lose—because his opponents have their own vision of a better world.

And to reach it, they’re willing to burn this one down.

From Marcus Sakey, “the master of the mindful page turner” (Gillian Flynn) and “one of our best storytellers” (Michael Connelly), Book Two of the Brilliance Saga is a relentless thrill ride that will change the way you look at your world—and the people around you.
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound





About Marcus

Photo by Jay Franco
Marcus Sakey’s thrillers have been nominated for more than fifteen awards. They’ve been named New York Times Editors’ Choice picks and have been selected among Esquire’s top five books of the year. His novel Good People was made into a movie starring James Franco and Kate Hudson, and Brilliance is currently in development with Legendary Pictures. Sakey lives in Chicago with his wife and daughter. For more information, visit www.MarcusSakey.com.







Website  ~  Facebook  ~  Twitter @MarcusSakey



Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Feature: Excerpt from A Better World by Marcus Sakey - June 25, 2014


The Qwillery is thrilled to share with you an excerpt from A Better World, the second novel in the Brilliance Saga, by Marcus Sakey.







       Air Force One was an hour shy of DC when the Secret Service agent told Cooper that he was wanted in the conference room.
       Across a military and agency career, Cooper had ridden on posh private jets and rattling Army transports, had soared in a glider over the Wyoming desert and jumped out of a perfectly good C-17 with a chute on his back. But Air Force One was unlike any aircraft he’d ever been on.
       A customized 747, the plane had three decks, two galleys, luxury sleeping quarters, a fully-equipped surgery, national broadcasting capabilities, first-class seating for the press corps and the secret service, and the capability to fly a third of the way around the world without refueling—which it could do mid-air.
       Cooper unbuckled his seatbelt and walked fore. The agents at the door of the conference room nodded at him.
       The room was a mobile version of the situation room, with a broad conference table and plush chairs. A holo-conferencing screen showed a sharp tri-d of Marla Keevers in her office at the White House. The president sat at the head of the table, with Owen Leahy at his right and Holden Archer at his left.
       Archer glanced at him, said, “Tulsa, Fresno, and Cleveland have lost power.”
       President Clay said, “Marla, how bad is it?”
       “Based off satellite imagery, we estimate that the entire metro area of all three cities has gone dark.”
       “Why based off satellite imagery?” Clay asked.
       “Because engineers in charge of the power grid for each region report no unusual activity. All substations report back green.”
       “A cyber attack,” Leahy said. “A virus tells the system to send massive amounts of power from the grid to individual transformers, blowing them out, while at the same time co-opting the safety systems so that there’s no warning indicator.”
       “Yes,” Keevers said. “That’s what’s got the engineers rattled. Work crews say there’s no damage to the substations. The transformers are working. They’re just not providing power to the cities.”
       “How is that possible?”
       “The Children of Darwin,” Cooper said.
       Keevers nodded. “It would appear our protocols have been rewritten. It would take abnorm programmers to pull that off.”
       “So what you’re telling me,” the president said, “is that a terrorist organization has turned off three cities like they flipped a switch?”
       “I’m afraid so, sir. With some anomalies. In each city, several regions still have power. Two in Fresno, three in Tulsa, and two in Cleveland.”
       The image of Keevers was replaced by live satellite footage. The view was haunting. Instead of the riotous glow of cities at night, the holograms showed deep black marked by faint ribbons of light that must have been highways. The only bright spots were in discreet blocks, roughly rectangular, where things looked normal.
       “So the virus wasn’t a hundred percent effective,” Archer said. “It’s a small comfort, but it’s something.”
       Cooper leaned forward, staring at the maps. There was a pattern, he was—
       Two areas in Fresno, three in Tulsa, two in Cleveland.
       What connects them? Some are on major highways, some nowhere near. Some downtown, some not.
       And yet this doesn’t look random. The virus was too successful everywhere else to have failed completely in these spots.
       These areas were left powered on purpose. Which means that they hold some value.
So what unites these seven areas?
       —certain. “Hospitals,” Cooper said.
       Archer looked at the screens, then back at him. “What?”
       “Those regions all contain major hospitals.”
       “Why would terrorists take out the power to three cities, but leave hospitals functioning?”
       “Because they need them,” Leahy said. He turned to the president. “Sir, I’ve spoken to the director of the FBI and the DAR, as well as the head of the national institute of health. They all believe, and I concur, that this may be the precursor to a biological attack.”
       “That doesn’t make sense,” Archer said. “Why leave the hospitals running if they’re trying to release a biological weapon?”
       “Because,” Leahy retorted, “hospitals are the best way to spread one. People get sick, and they go to the hospital. While there they infect others. Doctors and nurses and receptionists and janitors and patients and families. With a really infectious biological agent, the number of cases can expand massively even under normal circumstances. But because these three cities are lacking food, and now power, the situation is far worse. Instead of resting at home, people will flee. They’ll go to stay with relatives, or to second homes. And in the process, they’ll swiftly vector the disease across the entire country. Sir, we believe the COD created this chaotic situation to mask their real attack.”
       “That’s a huge stretch,” Cooper said. “Abnorms would be just as vulnerable to infection. What good would a biological attack do the COD?”
       “I don’t know,” Leahy said, with a hard look at Cooper. “But the COD are terrorists. We don’t know what their endgame is.”
       “Of course we do. They’re upset over the treatment of abnorms, and they want change.”
       “What are you basing that on, Mr. Cooper? Abnorm intuition?” Leahy smiled coldly. “I understand your sympathy for their situation, but that can’t be allowed to color our response.”
       Would you count my response colored if I called you a close-minded bigot mired in old- world thinking? Instead, Cooper said, “Response to what? You’re wasting time on a hypothetical situation when we have actual disasters in these cities. People are starving. With the power out, they’ll be freezing, getting desperate, violent. Instead of worrying about phantom attacks, why don’t we start getting them some goddamn food and blankets?”
       On the screen, Marla Keevers coughed. Press Secretary Archer made an elaborate show of looking at his watch. Leahy fixed Cooper with an icy stare. “Mr. Cooper, your passion is quite touching, but you’re a bit above your pay grade here. And you’re not qualified to speak to what is or is not hypothetical.”
       “Maybe not,” Cooper said. “But I can speak to what’s right.” He glanced around the room. You guys don’t get me, do you? I don’t even want this job, so I’ve got nothing to lose by telling the truth. “The people need food. They need medicine. They need electricity. That’s what we should focus on. That’s our job.”
       “It’s also our job to protect them from attack,” Leahy fired back. “Food and blankets in Cleveland don’t protect people dying in Los Angeles.”
       Before Cooper could respond, the president said, “Owen, what exactly do you suggest?”
       “Immediate quarantine of all three cities, sir. The National Guard has already been called up. Assume federal command, back them up with Army troops, and shut these cities down completely. No one in or out.”
       For a moment Cooper thought the plane was banking wildly, until he realize that was just his head. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
       “I don’t find anything about this funny.”
       Cooper turned to Clay, expecting to see the same thought, the belief that this was beyond preposterous. Instead, he saw that the president was nervous.
       Nervous.
       “Sir, you can’t possibly consider this. You’d be ordering military action on domestic soil. Turning three cities into police states, revoking people’s basic rights. It will cause unimaginable chaos. These cities are already on the brink. Instead of helping, we’re locking them up.”
       “No,” Leahy said. “We’re temporarily suspending freedom of movement for fewer than a million people. In order to protect three hundred million more.”
       “Panic. Hate crimes. Riots. Plus, if soldiers are busy quarantining the city, they can’t distribute food. All based on nothing but a wild theory.”
       “Based,” Leahy said, “on the collective analysis of the best minds in the intelligence and health services. A group that includes plenty of abnorms. Mr. Cooper, I know you’re used to doing things your own way, but this isn’t your personal crusade. We’re trying to save the country, not play some moralistic game.”
       Cooper ignored the barb. “Mr. President, when you asked me to join you, you said that we were on the edge of a precipice.” You’re an intellectual, a historian. You know how these things start. World War One was kicked off when a radical killed an obscure archduke. And nine million people died. “If you do this, we step toward that precipice. Maybe over it.”
       “And if you’re wrong?” Leahy asked. “You say the COD is interested in abnorm rights, but they’ve made no effort at dialogue. What if what they really want is to kill as many Americans as possible? There are a hundred biological weapons against which we have no ready defense—except quarantine.”
       The president looked back and forth between them. His hands were on the table, the fingers knit. His knuckles were pale.
       Come on, Clay. I know you’re scared. We’re all scared. But be the leader we need you to be.
       The president cleared his throat.

Excerpted from A Better World by Marcus Sakey. Copyright 2014. Published By Thomas & Mercer. Used by permission of the publisher. Not for reprint without permission.





A Better World
The Brilliance Saga 2
Thomas & Mercer, June 17, 2014
Trade Paperback and Kindle eBook, 390 pages

The brilliants changed everything.

Since 1980, 1% of the world has been born with gifts we’d only dreamed of. The ability to sense a person’s most intimate secrets, or predict the stock market, or move virtually unseen. For thirty years the world has struggled with a growing divide between the exceptional...and the rest of us.

Now a terrorist network led by brilliants has crippled three cities. Supermarket shelves stand empty. 911 calls go unanswered. Fanatics are burning people alive.

Nick Cooper has always fought to make the world better for his children. As both a brilliant and an advisor to the president of the United States, he’s against everything the terrorists represent. But as America slides toward a devastating civil war, Cooper is forced to play a game he dares not lose—because his opponents have their own vision of a better world.

And to reach it, they’re willing to burn this one down.

From Marcus Sakey, “the master of the mindful page turner” (Gillian Flynn) and “one of our best storytellers” (Michael Connelly), Book Two of the Brilliance Saga is a relentless thrill ride that will change the way you look at your world—and the people around you.
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound



Brilliance
The Brilliance Saga 1
Thomas & Mercer, July 16, 2013
Trade Paperback and Kindle eBook,  452 pages

A 2013 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Paperback Original

In Wyoming, a little girl reads people’s darkest secrets by the way they fold their arms. In New York, a man sensing patterns in the stock market racks up $300 billion. In Chicago, a woman can go invisible by being where no one is looking. They’re called “brilliants,” and since 1980, one percent of people have been born this way. Nick Cooper is among them; a federal agent, Cooper has gifts rendering him exceptional at hunting terrorists. His latest target may be the most dangerous man alive, a brilliant drenched in blood and intent on provoking civil war. But to catch him, Cooper will have to violate everything he believes in—and betray his own kind.

From Marcus Sakey, “a modern master of suspense” (Chicago Sun-Times) and “one of our best storytellers” (Michael Connelly), comes an adventure that’s at once breakneck thriller and shrewd social commentary; a gripping tale of a world fundamentally different and yet horrifyingly similar to our own, where being born gifted can be a terrible curse.
Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound





About Marcus

Photo by Jay Franco
Marcus Sakey's thrillers have been nominated for more than fifteen awards, named New York Times Editor's Picks, and selected among Esquire's Top 5 Books of The Year. His novels Good People and Brilliance are both in development as feature films. Marcus is also the host of the acclaimed television show "Hidden City" on Travel Channel, for which he is routinely pepper-sprayed and attacked by dogs. Prior to writing, he worked as a landscaper, a theatrical carpenter, a 3D animator, a woefully unprepared movie reviewer, a tutor, and a graphic designer who couldn't draw. Marcus lives in Chicago with his wife and daughter.




Website  ~  Facebook  ~  Twitter @MarcusSakey