Welcome to my weekly Author Spotlight. I’ve asked a bunch of my author friends to answer a set of interview questions, and to share their latest work.
Today:
- Year of hatching: 1976
- Last seen: Lower Mainland, B.C., Canada
- Blood type: Red and tangy
- Identifying features: Drives a manual wheelchair fuelled by taurine.
- Do not approach. Suspect won’t shut up, especially if his books come up.
- Known to be easily distracted by polyhedral dice. And crows. And dogs. And kids.
- And the colour 47.
A generally creative type, a lifelong interest in writing became a greater focus when a short story spawned a sequel… and another sequel… and a prequel. Fleshing them out and cleaning them up eventually became his first novel, Lifehack.
While cycling to a computer repair job in 2001, Joseph was struck by a car, resulting in T5/6 paraplegia. Since then, he has married, and had two children, Caitlin and Lachlan.
Later dealing with significant paraplegia-related pressure wounds that resulted in months of hospitalization, Joseph gradually recovered to a healthy paraplegic condition…. Until Multiple Sclerosis got in on the act.
Before the MS, Joseph began volunteering at the local seniors’ centre, leading to a job. This position ended less than a year later due to Covid-19. A few months later, Joseph began working for another non-profit organization dealing with community projects and seniors, and a company catering to family services until the MS hit.
Meanwhile, the next story beckons…
Thanks so much, Joseph, for joining me!
J. Scott Coatsworth: How would you describe your writing style/genre?
Joseph Picard: [F-word redacted by JP, cuz I’m a good lil boy.] That’s been a toughie all along. My gut reflex says ‘sci-fi’. But that carries so much baggage. My sci-fi elements serve as part of the world that my characters have to deal with. Yes, several of my characters couldn’t exist without sci-fi elements, but I focus on the ‘human’ struggles of… such things as being an entirely synthetic person created by a madman who used nanotech to unleach a zombie assault on multiple cities.
….All very humanist… yes? We can all identify.
Heck, the first 2 books of the Rubberman series don’t even have any fictional science in them. Not even any post-70s tech. It just has that sci-fi feeling. But hey have human problems. Odd, ignorant problems.
I also arguably qualify as hard sci-fi. I’ve never done space, aliens, transporters… just much more feasible rail cannons, EMPs, and nanotech. We baaaasically already have it all already. Syths and zombies are right around the corner.
So huck a flahbang to rustle them out.
But I’m making it sound like my stuff is all heavy-military based. The military of my fictional nation is involved, in some of my books more than others. Sometimes as the heroes, sometimes as an obstacle, sometimes not present at all. But when big things happen, they have to stick their nose in, in varying capacities.
I’m rooting for my protags. One’s a civie, one’s a captain, one’s a terrified experiment questioning her validity, some are dorks living in a hole hiding from the world. Who can blame ‘em?
JSC: What was your first published work? Tell me a little about it.
JP: That would be Lifehack, the book that started the series of the same name. It gave birth to the big bad Erebus. Moderate spoilers ahead: Jonathan was a dispassionate nerd who was engineering nanotech to assist soldiers, but after a minor disagreement with his boss…. and whoops! Zombies. Old-fashioned slow zombies that collect tacky things.
Regan gets caught up in the outbreak after breaking on with her girlfriend and moving in with her brother.
Jonathan ends up abandoning his humanity altogether, renames himself Erebus, and jams his mind into an artificial consciousness, and … generally makes himself a national hazard. Because it’s fun! When zombies get boring, it’s just to see what else you can make from human bits.
This is all very distracting for Regan, looking for her brother, and trying to figure out this new redhead in her quarantined city. Regan’s got a full plate.
Regan’s love-life is a tragedy drizzled in humour. Or the other way around. Surely Alisia wouldn’t mind if.. oh frig, hold that thought. Zombie mob. Brb, checking ammo.
JSC: What is the most heartfelt thing a reader has said to you?
JP: Someone in my extended family let their son get a hold of Lifehack. He was…. 11? I can’t remember. He purportedly came out of his room holding Lifehack with a big smile, “They love each other! It’s not just about sex!” Aaaaaand that’s the day a tweener learned that being gay isn’t just a sex thing. Better to figure that out before puberty hot too hard, and ya embarrass yourself!
JSC: How did you choose the topic for Rubberman’s Exodus book?
JP: It wraps up the series and brings everything… everything… together. You don’t need to have read Cage and Citizens to ‘get’ Exodus. The characters’ innocent ignorance (and occasionally not so innocent ignorance) were due to be addressed.
Internal injustices that they didn’t even recognize, had to be pushed into the light, and an entirely external force (with entirely different ignorance) ignites the change needed in the facility. With the help of past trials of strangers, the facility reaches for new understanding, and a new sense of identity.
JSC: Tell us something we don’t know about your heroes. What makes them tick?
JP: In The Rubberman series? They’re all ignorant idiots. They have been from book 1. But even the antagonist in Rubberman’s Exodus holds no real malice. Irritation? Overreaction? Sure. But everyone is trying to do what’s best for everyone. They just have different perspectives on what needs to be done.
JSC: What secondary character would you like to explore more? Tell me about them.
JP: Kris Taylor from Lifehack has a whole 2 missing years during the outbreak, where she went from bar lush, and ends up as a military aircraft operator, before coming back to the book. My headcannon is that she was affected by Regan being swallowed up by the quarantined city, and somehow got her **** together. I plan to tell some of that in the second Daugther of Erebus book. Eeeeeh, want a non-spoiler I held unto until the last book in the Rubberman series came out? The Lifehack series and the Rubberman series are in the same world.
JSC: What pets are currently on your keyboard, and what are their names? Pictures?
JP: My newest author photo also features “Pepsi”, who technically isn’t mine. She belongs to my daughter’s boyfriend. But Pepsi goes where she wants. Which is kinda everywhere, but she spends half her nights curcled up behind my knee.
My dogs, both Taiwan mountain dogs, (polite term for a pack of wild mutts partly descended from Taiwan dogs) are showing their age a little, but that doesn’t stop Charlie from being the same nervous yet stalwart defender as ever, and Ella from being her usual fabulous 3-footed Farrah Fawcett worshiper.
On the cover of Echoes of Erebus, you can see Dublin, my son’s bearded dragon,who accepts the role of Eidechse in my books.
JSC: What other artistic pursuits (it any) do you indulge in apart from writing?
Thanks to my son, who got into acrylic paints last year, I’ve been as busy as he has, trying to refine my technique. Where he’s big on landscapes, which he often shows through worlds of vrious games, (GOW: Valhalla inspired a series he did of all the realms) I’ve been toying with kaiju and various fandom-themed pics, like godzilla in Starry Night, firing a beam that going through the corner of another painting that’s home to King Kong, before the beam lands in a 3nd painting, striking my attempt as a Mass Effect reaper. My most recent one is of P0rtal’s GlaDOS. My skills aren’t top tier, but I like to think they’re at least eye-catching.
JSC: What qualities do you and your characters share? How much are you like them, or how different are they from you?
JP: I am none of them, and I am all of them. Each with different attributes tweaked this way or that. One theme that a character tries to impart to others was kindness first, supported by wisdom, and backed up when needed by strength.
When both of my kids were under 15 minutes old, I told them I hoped they’re grow up kind, wise, and strong. They’re both teenagers now, and they seem to be mostly following those orders. 😛
JSC: What are you working on now, and what’s coming out next? Tell us about it!
Phew- there’s a couple irons in the fire right now. My second book, Watching Yute, is getting an Audible thanks to the unstoppable Clare Butterfield-Elséy. And at the same time, Daughter of Erebus: Sparrow is in the hands of my editor, Michelle Patricia Browne.
Meanwhile, I should be working on the 2nd book in the Daughter of Erebus series. It continues the life of Sarah from Echoes of Erebus, as she finds her place in the world. She’s synthetic, built by a (dead) mass murderer, is confused by the validity of existece, and her sexuality. Meanwhile, the after-effects and copycats of of father’s crimes…. Well… he was a problem. His admirers are a problem. The people who hated him often hate Sarah just as quickly- Problem.
No lack of stuff to throw myself at!
https://books2read.com/u/38LpjLAnd now for Joseph’s latest book: Rubberman’s Exodus:
A story of oppression and loss, of uprising and joys. Rubberman’s Citizens pushes through grim tyranny with the courage, compassion, and humour of those forced to fight troubled times.
In Citizenry, Leena knew cruelty was normal.
Order was kept by Warren, through intimidation and abuse.
Normal meant deliveries from above, supplies from the great, unknowable, Actual.
Normal meant hating the lessers who live below.
Normal meant routine public degradation.
Normal meant hearing screams, and knowing no one dared help.
Normal was knowing that tomorrow, it could be your own screams being ignored.
Leena found a way to help.
Leena found a chance.
Leena discovered revolution.
Universal Buy Link
Excerpt
Here’s a bit from Chapter 6: The Void. Other characters have seen the void in previous Rubberman books, but this will be the first time for Tara and Sasha:
“I’ll sit this one out,” Messenger said, “I’ve seen it.”
Sasha’s eyes widened, her colour drained. “The… the war land?”
“Yes,” Actual said, handing her one of the suits, “I’ve called it war-ground, but war-land, or battle-field, or whatever… fit as well.”
“Where the war was?” Sasha’s stare was locked on the opposite door.
“Yes, well, a small part of the war,” Actual replied. “The entirety of the war was much larger than what we’re about to see.” He went over to the door, with little regard to Tara and Sasha not yet having the headgear on. They scrambled to get them on – Sasha with a bit more panic.
Actual unlatched the lock, then pushed the door up, revealing an empty room that was about half the length of the first, before another, identical door. Light brown powder was on the floor, mostly around the far door. The powder showed faint tracks in it. Some from feet, some from wheels.
Now fully suited up, Tara stepped into the newly opened space, and spread out her arms. “Observe!” she declared through the muffling of the mask, “the horrors or war!”
“Very funny, Tara,” Sasha said, sounding relieved, “this is just a-“
Actual heaved up the other door, revealing the wastes. Unimaginable width and breadth, a floor that seemed broken, and barely able to hold itself together, a ceiling that stretched savage smears of colours from the edge of oblivion, right across to the precipice of nowhere. Tucked in the edge of that nowhere was a light beyond reason, that bled into the scant figment of reality that sprawled before them.
Tara knelt to touch the fractured floor. It was hard, and at the same time, edges of the pieces wiped off, becoming the same powder she had seen just inside the door. The floor seemed to go on forever, with the walls too far to be seen. Or maybe the impossibly high ceiling, with all these colours, tapered down at some point to meet the floor. Could a person walk to the edge of-
Sasha screamed, fell to her knees, and vomited in her mask. Taking a moment to realize what had just happened, Tara looked away from this unthinkable endless room, and rushed to Sasha’s side. By that time, Sasha was crawling back inside blindly. Vomit dripped from her mask unto the floor, as she sobbed and gagged. Once Actual had drawn the outermost door shut, Tara got Sasha’s headgear off. Sasha grabbed onto Tara, still shuddering.
“Sasha, Sasha, it’s okay. That room is closed off now, you’re safe.” Tara pulled off her own headgear, and held Sasha tight.
Actual look his off. “That… that’s a new one,” Actual said. “You’re okay? You were never in danger in the suit. And the Enemy was pretty far.”
Sasha was slowly settling down, but had no interest in anything beyond hanging onto Tara.
“I didn’t see any enemy,” Tara said, partly to comfort Sasha, partly to ask Actual about it.She looked at the door, and back to Sasha. “What did it do to her?!“