But Aaron Ryan’s Dissonance: Volume II: Reckoning shows us that gorgons are not the only monsters on Earth, as humanity has always had darkness within them.

We speak to the author in our second interview, to gather up what has happened since we last spoke, and to determine what we can expect as the third book in the trilogy, Dissonance: Volume III: Renegade, hits bookshelves soon.

Tellest: Welcome Back Aaron! Thank you for making your way back here. It’s been a wild ride for you in so short a time, because you’ve got a new book in the Dissonance series out, but you also have one that will be out on May 18th, closing the trilogy. I’m eager to see what your experience has been with this series, how you wrapped up the final chapter, and what’s next for you!

Aaron Ryan: Thanks for the hearty welcome back! Good to be back with you, Tellest. Yeah, it’s been such an incredible journey. I wept when I wrote the last few lines of Dissonance Volume III: Renegade, I truly did. It’s a 431-page behemoth, and it nicely rounds out the trilogy in an EPIC way. Air Force battles, gunfights, standoffs, gorgons, humans, aerial dogfights, naval battles… I mean, it truly has everything, and I’m so proud of how it turned out.

T: While I’m sure it came out looking spectacular, how taxing did it feel when you were writing it? A lot of times those big fight sequences, especially choreographing things so expertly, can be draining. How did you stay ahead of that?

AR: Oh man. Honestly, those types of scenes just get my blood pounding and my fingers flying. The tank scene on the highway and the cave scene in Volume II, the air force base fight and the dogfight in Volume III, the cat-and-mouse between Colonel Keegan and the primary villain (no spoilers) … Those really just get me going so fast and I just let my fingers do the work. I feel alive, intense, alert, and all senses go. I didn’t feel taxed during or after…I felt exhilarated; it was always such a rush!

T: When you are writing scenes like that, do you try to make them quick and punchy, or are you looking for epic, sprawling expressions of combat that can last an extended period of time?

AR: The scene has to tell itself. I mean, in some scenes, the violence is brutally calm. There are many versions of violence. To quote Alanis Morissette: “These versions of violence…Sometimes subtle, sometimes clear…And the ones that go unnoticed…Still leave their mark once disappeared.” That’s so insightful. So, there are some scenes involving verbal combat. Others involve physical combat. Both can be equally powerful. I think in some cases the scenes where two people are trying to outsmart each other, those can be more effective than just typing up a line “I threw a grenade and it detonated.” It depends on how high the stakes are and who you’re rooting for. I just try to let them flow as best as I can and do justice to the tension of the moment without robbing the scene of its integrity.

T: When last we spoke, you had just finished getting Dissonance Volume I: Reality launched and ready for purchase. There are always some jitters when doing something for the first time, but you must have felt like an expert when you were ready to unleash book two. What did you find easier, or different, this time around for Dissonance: Volume II: Reckoning?

AR: Well, there are lots of pitfalls in publishing a book. Choosing the correct categories, writing a catchy blurb, publishing at “the right time”, making sure the cover is correct, more thorough editing, better narration of the audiobook, etc.—all of these things I really wanted to pay attention to in order to ensure a healthier and more robust launch that would be catchy. And, as with Dissonance Volume I: Reality, Dissonance Volume II: Reckoning hit the bestseller #1 mark in a few categories, and that was thoroughly satisfying to see. There are definitely things to pay attention to in terms of packaging and marketing, but when it all comes down to it, the story must come first. It must be superior to what you’ve previously written, it must raise the stakes, and it must propel the protagonist further along their character arc. I love the quote by Vladimir Nabokov: “The writer’s job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them.” How true that is!

T: I had never heard that quote before now, and I absolutely love it. You certainly were doing that in book one, but I suppose in books two and three, you’ve had to find taller and taller trees! How did you elevate the stress for Cameron, and raise the stakes for our world alongside it?

AR: Easy. Take him and put him up in a tree and throw rocks at him. Seriously though, I put him in a claustrophobic tank with a gorgon, in caves with gorgons, in a narrow hallway with a gorgon, in the sky with gorgons, in a cockpit with a gorgon right outside, and all of them flying and swarming around him. It just takes a lot of conjuring up intense predicaments that I can sit my protagonist down into and realize that if I’m scared while I’m writing it, then the audience is probably going to be scared while reading it.

T: Throughout this interview, we’ll learn that you tend to express your feelings alongside the characters, whether that’s empathy for what they’re going through, or fear for what might take them down. With that in mind, do you ever feel or worry about going too rough on any of your characters?

AR: No, not really. Cameron, the main protagonist, is very much like me. He’s cynical, untrusting, brash, opinionated, snarky, and ready to fall on the sword of his own beliefs. Art mirrors life, they say, and so I think I would be doing a disservice to my characters if I didn’t make them as real and tangible as possible, and, where appropriate, true to who I am and how I think/feel/function. For instance, Cameron is not the protagonist in the prequel that I’m now writing (Dissonance Volume Zero: Revelation)—he’s only 7 years old. But you can see some of those same behaviors and personality traits coming out even then through the protagonist of that chapter, his dad, Andrew. It’s actually been super refreshing to write this prequel because characters who died are alive again, they are young, they are adorable, they’re learning and growing, and even though you know the trauma and malevolence that’s coming (which in itself lends to a lot of fear and tension and worry as you draw near to the inevitable invasion), it’s been such a rich experience writing them at a different place and time in their lives.

T: A humongous draw of your series, as we discussed in the last interview, was these creatures that you’ve brought to our world, the gorgons. But as we’re quick to find, they’re not the only threat to deal with, as Cameron soon learns that some monsters are home-grown. What was it like balancing the dangers that come from outside our world to the ones that we’ve come to put our trust in?

AR: Good question. In all cases, the enemy we don’t see is the worst one: operating nefariously behind the scenes, unraveling the yarns we’ve painstakingly raveled, undoing our victories, and eroding our earned confidence in the system. It’s always those who labor against us in whom we had placed a measure of trust that cuts the deepest. Betrayal from a friend stings far more than the enemy’s nuke. Cameron is learning who he can and cannot trust, and he’s taking some painful wounds in the process.

T: Does it get to a point, do you think, that a regular person would just be unable to trust anyone if they were in Cameron’s boots? I mean, we have a cataclysmic event that just terraformed our planet into a feeding trough for alien life, and the people that Cameron works for and with prove time and time again that he might be better off looking for refuge alone out in the wilderness.

AR: I think we have people like that already. But it’s our sense of trust that keeps us in a community. Once you’ve been burned enough, you become a cynic, and the cynics tend to go it alone. But thankfully, there are plenty of people in Cameron’s life still who do foster trust, who do communicate integrity and decency, and keep him on the straight and narrow. It’s oftentimes that we feel so frustrated by the ones that wreck it for everyone that make us want to go Lone Ranger, but when we have compelling voices in our corner, such as Ally, such as Pastor Rosie, such as other new characters introduced in Volumes II and III, that we find the strength to stay in community and fight it out.

T: In the version of the world that Cameron finds himself, how does he allow himself to get close to anyone, knowing that there are such extensive dangers all around them?

AR: The dangers will never go away. It’s instinctual to trust, and Cameron is no exception. Innocent until proven guilty. I know there are anomalies: those who go through life certain that everyone is out to get them, arms-lengthing everyone, sidelong glances at every single other human, and that’s a pitiful and pathetic way to live. Such an existence doesn’t foster community or invite belonging, it only furthers hostility. So, while at first he’s suspicious of Bassett (suspicion not being the same as distrust), he learns that he’s actually okay, and his trust in him is rewarded tenfold. Same with Ally…same with Foxy…same with Cardona…same with Monzon…same with Rosie…same with Stone, eventually.

T: The gorgons are terrifying when we first meet them, but we also need to continue to fear them as the series races forward. In a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction, the catastrophe itself begins to feel secondary to the world the characters have grown comfortable with. But you’ve found ways to keep the terror alive. What are some of the secrets that you can divulge?

AR: Well, in Dissonance Volume III: Renegade our protagonists find themselves in the dark, with gorgons running around. Uh…no thank you. That hits at a primal fear that all of us have: a fear of the dark. I can’t wait to see THAT on screen. It’s going to be epic. And there’s a highway battle in tanks, where a gorgon actually gets inside one of the tanks. Talk about claustrophobia to the power of fear. I knew when writing that scene that a gorgon HAD to actually get in the tank with them. That terrified me in the writing! And there are more that I can’t spoil yet of course. You’ll see. They truly are more and more terrifying, with varying broods being introduced in Volumes II and III.

T: One of the things you’re known for is your ability to vividly describe what your characters are experiencing. And because of the nature of your series, sometimes you must do that with eyes closed. How do you put your spin on the world when you can’t trust one of your most integral senses?

AR: Being deprived of sight, well, that’s one thing… Being deprived of the ability to make any sound as well, well, you truly become handicapped. That’s one thing I really appreciated about A Quiet Place, and how they painstakingly lived an utterly silent life in order to not attract the aliens to themselves. It’s so paralyzing and castrating in a way, to be cut off from everything else because you can’t shout “yay!” or even look at it. Your senses are revoked, and you must make do by feel. Then, to plunge our heroes into Mammoth Cave in Kentucky when they already can’t see, and now they’re in the dark, I felt that would be tremendously effective. It’s also claustrophobic being down in cavern tunnels well below the earth’s surface… You lose all sense of direction, so you’re handicapped in that sense as well.

T: And yet you’ve done so well navigating that handicap as a writer! Sure, your characters are experiencing those hurdles, but you write what they’re going through with an elegance that helps the reader feel what the characters are feeling, but without losing sense of things. Yes, the walls might feel a little closer to them, but it’s still impressive how much you’re able to show with your words.

AR: Thank you! I appreciate that. I think I’m just imagining myself in their shoes, and because of that, it feels relatable. That’s my goal, is to make it relatable for the reader.

T: Dissonance could work just on the premise of its peculiar and scary alien intruders, but it’s also able to be described as a military thriller. How do you keep that machine running under the threat of the monsters, the infighting among the survivors, and the growing scarcity of resources and safe havens?

AR: I think the mechanism speaks for itself here in that the military always survives. Guns always get people out of scary situations for a while, or at least can hold them at bay. Well, at the end of Dissonance Volume I: Reality we find that the military has quietly been building up a presence in the region and now they’re armed with LSTs, tanks, battleships, guns, masks, and a horde of DTF emitters ready to protect them. It gives humanity a fighting chance, and that breeds hope, which is what all of them have craved. They finally have a chance to strike back now.

T: In a perfect world, where at the end of these three books, the marauders from another world are driven off, do we ever find our way back to a normal society? Or is the idea that there is life out there putting an impetus to be strong upon us? Do we forevermore at the point become militaristic in order to persevere against such threats in the future?

AR: I think that’s inevitable. We let our guard down. Many of us would solemnly breathe, “never again.” But I think there’s an inherent sense of unity and coming together that keeps us going. There’s a strong theme of this in Volume III where innocent lives are on the line, but we have nothing in common with them. Do we throw them to the wolves and release them from our care, simply because they’re not like us? No, because our moral compass disallows it, if we have one and if we listen to it. So, we band together, and then we fix things, but yes, this happened once, and it might happen again, so now, all of us working together, we can stay vigilant and hopefully be ready when and if Dissonance Volume IV: Revenge comes around. Oops, spoiler! No, just kidding. I haven’t thought that far into the future, and it would be somewhat anticlimactic, unless there was a savage demand for it by my readership.

T: Hey now, a sequel could be great for fans, but maybe you let it breathe and see what comes of the world you’ve played in. There’s a bigger universe out there than we know, and you introduce a version of it in Dissonance that could go in a fair number of directions!

AR: Thank you! I have LOVED writing this. I actually found myself weeping when I was done with Dissonance Volume III: Renegade. When I had typed up “The End”, it was so much like the scene in Romancing the Stone where the author does the same thing and then exclaims “Oh God that’s good!” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKfKLj9wbrk) – such a true scene. I felt the same way, but I was more sad than happy, because I had worked so hard on the trilogy, it was such an emotional rollercoaster, and I’m SO proud of how it has turned out. I did an enormous amount of research on all three of these novels, exponentially so as they grew in sequence. That research helped me achieve authenticity, and where you have authenticity, you have real. It was wholly real to me because I wanted it to be so. That sense of real lingers, as if I was there myself.

T: Now, let’s shift gears to talk about the third book in the series. You’re close to having a full trilogy on bookshelves, and that’s something that few people get to see come to fruition. First off, how proud are you to have this set completed?

AR: I cannot even begin to describe my pride, or to put it into words. I have had SO much help from people for this book…to say nothing of the fact that the internet is replete with resources like Quora, Reddit, private and governmental websites, YouTube videos, and more, to round out the edges of details I’m not privy to. But it’s been the people who have really come alongside me for Volume III: a 35-year retired aircraft carrier captain, an Army chopper pilot/aviator, two senior Air Force airmen, and a Lt Col in the USAF…all of them have been instrumental in helping me really get the details right here, and that has helped me achieve verisimilitude, which is something I’ve really striven for. It is EPIC, Tellest…it truly is. Had you asked me if I had known that it would grow this large when I was back at Volume I, I would not have been able to forecast how amazingly monstrously this trilogy concludes. It’s EPIC, and I’m not kidding.

T: We’ve woven together some threads throughout our conversation that are leading to some really interesting questions. You mentioned A Quiet Place earlier, and there are certainly some similarities that can be drawn. But it’s this massive warfare opportunity that you have which helps to bridge the gap more toward something like Independence Day.

Do you think that Dissonance could have ever worked from the perspective of a smaller, more intimate tale? Or was it always destined to be big and bombastic, with tremendous stakes and a wide scope?

AR: That’s the way I always intended it to be. I’m very much “go big or go home.” Always has been. I don’t really do anything small. It’s against my programming, ha! I just really wanted an epic showdown, and all the great trilogies have that. The epic space battle in Return of the Jedi. The Battle of the Pelennor Fields in Return of the King. The huge (and rather drawn-out yawnfest, although massive) fight at the end of The Matrix Revolutions (if you liked that movie). All of the greats have them, but I think they also (wisely) incorporate the more intimate battles that are part and parcel of the bigger picture as well. Leia is having a battle against her own urges with Han while they’re fighting the greater battle. She likes him because he’s a scoundrel. So, there you go. I have my own scoundrels in my stories, with their own little intimate battles set in the thick of the greater war.

T: What can you tell people about Dissonance: Volume II: Reckoning that they might not know just from reading the blurbs you’ve provided?

AR: Well, there are wins and losses. There are tales and countertales. There are accounts and corrections, and Cameron constantly has to question what the truth actually is. No one likes being lied to. We want the truth, even if, as Colonel Jessup so eloquently put it in A Few Good Men, we “can’t handle the truth.” We want it. We need it. And Cameron needs and deserves it. He is slowly awakening to some new truths in this book, particularly from a new character who provides a ton of backstory as to how the real nemesis came into place, and that greatly helps him and continues his character arc of pursuing justice vs. revenge.

T: Cameron has the necessary skills to survive what is coming at him, whether it’s the gorgons or humans with ulterior motives. Would a civilian just trying to make it through the day have any chance?

AR: If they had a weapon and some smarts, yes. But overall, system attracts community. Planning attracts optimism. Strategizing attracts hope, and you would need to be at least on the periphery of such community in order to have a chance. You’d need training. You’d need weapons and some marginal militarization in order to understand how to fight back. Otherwise, you freeze in your own shoes, and then you’re frozen, and eaten.

T: So, what I’m hearing is “way scarier than a zombie apocalypse”. Unless you’ve already got some training and a group you can quickly militarize, you’re alien chow.

AR: Potentially. I mean, sure, you can find a place to hide and ride it out. But for sixteen years? Like I said earlier, those who arms-length others and are not in system, community, planning, optimism, or strategizing, well, they eventually lose hope. Some of them resort to desperation, as we saw Amos do in Volume I: Reality. And others would just off themselves, seeing no hope, and giving up long before any flowers of eventual deliverance had a chance to germinate and grow.

T: Now that your trilogy is wrapped up, have you put any more thought into what comes next? We talked a couple of months ago about what the plan would be, and you seemed pretty locked into Dissonance, but there were other ideas scratching at the periphery.

AR: I have! I really wanted to deal with the antihero, and a book on that, but frankly, I didn’t exactly feel “released” to pursue that yet. So, perhaps predictably, since there is so much time that has elapsed between the alien invasion of 2026 and the fast-forward to 2042 that we find in Dissonance Volume I: Reality, it was inevitable that I pursue a prequel. So that’s what I’m working on. And now is the time to disclose another detail: I’ve entered into a contract with a notable screenwriter to convert the first volume, Reality, into a screenplay for pitching to producers with Netflix, Paramount+, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime, etc., and I could not be more grateful or excited. I truly have high hopes and am super optimistic about the future of Dissonance.

T: I’m glad that we get to talk about that! How did you start that process, what’s your relationship like with your screenwriting collaborator, and what else can you tell us about your experience so far?

AR: I did have to vet him online, and he’s vetted. He’s got lots of contacts on LinkedIn, he handles naysayers graciously, he won an award by Gale Ann Hurd (former wife of James Cameron, the producer of Aliens, my favorite movie of all time, so YES PLEASE!!!), he knows what he’s talking about, he’s registered as a Hollywood “fellow” (whatever that means), and he is no BS. I felt confident going into it that he was legitimate, and I’m confident he has the contacts to make it happen. I’m super excited. They approached me, and I really didn’t have to weigh it too much. His cost was right in the middle of what I expected a screenwriter to charge, but he also includes all the marketing in there as well, which is a huge bonus to me and worth the investment, as I don’t have those contacts nor any knowledge on how to approach them. He writes the screenplay AND the treatment, as well as the character bible.

T: You had mentioned that they came to you. What do you think you did right in order to be on the “headhunter” list, besides writing a compelling book series?

AR: I’m not sure, other than maintaining good visibility in the social circles. Ultimately, “ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die,” as Tennyson said! I’ll do and die, thankyouverymuch! I won’t ask questions. Just SO glad they found me!

T: You’ve now got two books out, with the third scheduled for release on May 18th. You’re no doubt going to have a lot of fans clamoring to learn more about the series and its writer. Where could they go to find out these details?

AR: Always love these questions. Thanks! They can visit either https://www.dissonancetheseries.com or www.authoraaronryan.com to find out more about the series, or my authoring, respectively. At the first site, https://www.dissonancetheseries.com, they will find all of the purchase links (Amazon, Kindle, Audible, direct copies, etc.).

T: Aaron, I would like to once again thank you for spending your time with us! It’s always great fun getting to see what you’ve done with this version of the world, and the greater universe, and I’m excited for your new release, and for the future sequel that you’re working on. Best of luck with all your endeavors, and I hope to talk to you again soon!

AR: Thank you SO much for the opportunity to share about this whole story that has so impacted me. I’m beyond grateful for how it turned out. I can’t even begin to express. It has become colossal in its scope, and from the very beginning, putting pen to paper for the first words of Dissonance Volume I: Reality, I had no idea how big it would become. My heart is full.

Thanks again for the interview!

T: And thank you once more, Aaron.

Readers, if you’ve joined us on this journey, you know that the Dissonance series is one that is not to be missed. Aaron Ryan has been working very hard at this content, and by the time you’ve read this interview, it will be ready for consumption. Don’t stay hungry. Be satiated by a great science fiction series, and check out the Dissonance series on the author’s website today!

The post Second Interview with Aaron Ryan appeared first on Tellest.

In Aaron Ryan’s Dissonance: Volume I: Reality, the survivors of Earth must acclimate to their new normal.  Monsters roam the planet, and they are unlike anything that we’ve ever faced before.  With one look, they can establish a psychic link that freezes humans in their tracks, and leaves them as easy prey.  But Ryan’s characters are not all such easy marks for the alien invaders.  He writes them with wit and determination (and a little bit of luck), and establishes them as worthy adversaries to the formidable gorgons.  Across the entirety of the series, the author builds up our broken world into something spectacular, assuring that something new and impressive rises out of the ashes of what was there before—using what preceded it to great effect, but carving a new path nonetheless.

“One look, and it’s all over.” There are some rules you never forget. Above all else, whatever you do, you never look directly at a gorgon. Now, plug your ears… because the war for humanity is all right here in the “Dissonance” volumes. “Reality” debuted 1.1.24. “Reckoning” debuted 3.20.24. “Renegade” will debut 5.18.24.

The aliens invaded our world in the year 2026. They hovered there for three whole months, while the world watched and waited, wondering what they wanted with us. Then, on September 3rd, 2026, they activated, hunting us down with a terrifying power to immobilize us with their telepathy, paralyzing us where we stood, allowing them to eat at their leisure.

Sergeant Cameron Shipley lost everything to the gorgons in that invasion. 16 years later, he and mankind are eking out an existence in the shadows: hiding, trying desperately to survive.

Bestselling author Aaron Ryan crafts harrowing tales of epic tension, set amidst a gritty post-apocalyptic Earth, in this bestselling alien invasion military thriller series.

Readers of the “Alien Invasion” series by Johnny B. Truant and Sean Platt, the “Heartland Aliens” series by Joshua James, “The Hunger Games” trilogy by Suzanne Collins, and the “Legend” series by Marie Lu will appreciate this post-apocalyptic aliens thriller.

Whether readers are looking for a resistance against an alien invasion, or an inward look at the kind of monsters that were here before the gorgons arrived, Ryan has them covered.  The author starts with the warring emotions of hope and dread, and expands on the ethos of the story by pitting parts of humanity against one another.  Fans will find characters to root for, monsters to fear, and a new world to witness as it begins to build up from the shattered pieces of the past.  If that sounds like it is something you’ve been waiting for, don’t wait.  Start your journey into the Dissonance series with the first book, Dissonance: Volume I: Reality.  Then, when you’re ready to learn more, and bring the fight to the gorgons, check out the rest of author Aaron Ryan’s website!

The post Sci-Fi Promo – The Dissonance Series, by Aaron Ryan appeared first on Tellest.

Tellest: Greetings Aaron!  I wanted to thank you for introducing me to your story, and to the greater Dissonance series.  You’ve tackled something that’s been done before—the alien invasion story—but you’ve injected it with so much character growth, ethos, and introspection among the thrills and chills that it really stands on its own.  I know that it took a long journey to arrive here, and that this is just one stop among many.  I’m excited to learn more about you and the worlds you’ve built, and the ones yet to take form!

Aaron Ryan: Thank you for having me, I’m very grateful!  I’ve loved writing Dissonance, and grateful for where it’s taken me.  I feel very much a part of the characters’ arcs and journeys and have thoroughly enjoyed partaking of their journeys.  There’s really a strange phenomenon that happens when you author a novel: you start to ruminate on the characters often to the point where they actually exist somewhere in your day; they really seem like reality, and it’s easy to miss the fact that they’re only fictional: you care so much about them.

T: To fully appreciate a favorite new storyteller, I’ve found that you need to understand the path they’ve traveled.  Most of my interviews start with a foundational question: What was it that inspired you to write your first words?  Did you have a favorite author growing up?  Or did you have other family members, or people in your community that helped to foster a creative spark?

AR: Well, I do mention in my About the Author sections that I wrote a fictional story when I was in second grade called “The Electric Boy.”  It was SUPER lame, haha!  But I was only 7 or 8, so that can be excused.  I still have it in a box somewhere.  It was an assignment given to me by my teacher, of course, and I was heavily influenced by E.T. at the time.  So that influenced my formation of the character, and his story.   I absolutely love J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings.  It’s been foundational to my creative journey and is the first creative work I remember partaking in that really tremendously inspired me.  My parents were very formative in my journey, recognizing right away that I was fairly right-brained, and they encouraged me to push forward in all kinds of creative pursuits: writing, music, poetry, dance, acting, etc.  My authoring has really come full circle in that I’ve pursued so many other creative ventures over the years, and only recently came back to this.  I appreciate dystopian novelists such as Suzanne Collins and Marie Lu along the way, and Stephen King for the way that he handles horror.  They’re all brilliant.

T: How many of your previous creative pursuits have found their way into your written stories?  Music and poetry can lend a cadence and pacing to your story.  And I’m sure you could attribute dance to things like choreographing action.  You’ve done things like tech support, videography… It’s almost like you’ve run the whole gamut.  Do you try and incorporate all these experiences into your stories where you can?

AR: That’s a really interesting question, and something that I hadn’t really thought about.  But I suppose subconsciously, that’s pretty true.  There are definitely elements of cinematography I’ve tried to consider while fleshing out the story.  I have a picture in my mind of how this or that scene plays out, blocking, where things flow from and to, etc., and I try to really envision it with clarity.  So, for videography or cinematography, yes, that has found its way into it.  With poetry, yes, I think there’s something to be said for the rhyme and meter of your story, how the pendulum swings, and is there a symmetry between what you’re writing and where the story needs to go.  What people are saying, and is it in tandem with the story, and all that.  Again, on a subconscious level, I think that’s factored in, yes.  Poetry is, after all, creative writing, as is writing a novel.  And lastly, for music, yes, there has to be a musicality in what I write.  Music tells a story; songs tell a story, and that’s all I’m doing here too, is telling a story.  It doesn’t have quarter notes or treble clefs, but it does have a musicality to it, and hearkening back to the cinematography aspect, I can imagine a running score flowing through certain scenes of my novels: stirring, compelling, quiet and pensive, evocative, rhythmic, terrifying, arcane, loud and obnoxious at points, etc..  Rises and falls.  Crescendos and decrescendos.

T: Let’s, as you put it, swing the pendulum the other way.  While you’ve certainly done plenty with your life ahead of writing this story, were there any quirks, hobbies, or interests that your characters had that you’ve brought into your personal life?  Or at the very least, were there things they had done that interested you enough to go down a rabbit hole or two?

AR: Well, I’d say the reverse is truer.  There are phrases attributed to some characters that are totally what I, or my wife, or others in my life, are either notorious for saying, or would say.  There are two different words at play in authoring: exegesis (pulling out of the text what you think it means), and eisegesis (putting into it what you think it means based on your own values and perspective).  I’m much more an “eisegetic” writer, and an “exegetic” reader.  But that doesn’t mean to imply that I pull things out of the writings and incorporate them into my own life…it feels more natural the other way around: I incorporate into the stories familiar elements of my own life, thoughts, experiences, etc..

T: Though your Dissonance project is your focus now, you’ve been creating for years, and this is not your first fiction project.  And whether it was intentional or not, you’ve felt the loss of creating a story and losing it to the aether.  Can you tell us what that was like, and how you were able to pick yourself up after staring down the digital oblivion?

AR: Oh man, that’s a hard story.  My first felt authoring tragedy came when I inadvertently deleted my only copy of “The Omega Room” when I was in my early twenties.  I had no intention of doing so…it was a complete accident.  I don’t remember the computer I was working on at the time but it was incredibly rudimentary: it had a screen that had four colored graphic blocks on it, and one of them was a word processing solution.  I wish I could remember what it was!  I don’t even remember if it had an accessible file system.  It was some kind of visual DOS interface, but beyond that, beats me.  Anyway, I deleted the file and remember sitting there staring at my computer for a hot five minutes, mouth agape, and coursing with horror.  There was no CTRL-Z back then.  It was gone.  It disassembled me.  I don’t recall how, but I eventually scraped myself off the floor and regathered.  I figured “if at first you don’t succeed, try try again” was good enough for me.  And in the end?  The next iteration proved to be better and richer than the first.  So ‘all’s well as ends better,’ they say.  Man, I’m full of idioms today!  But this project never saw the light of day as, at the time, it wasn’t where I wanted to go with my career: I was much more into pursuing music at the time.

T: With you writing your latest trilogy as quickly as you are, do you see yourself ever returning to The Omega Room?  Or is that something that will be from a previous life, and used to inform parts of the Dissonance books, and nothing beyond that?  What about a reboot or a sequel to The Electric Boy?

AR: Wow, no is the short answer on that one, only because I only have fragments and bits in my memory of what it was about, who factored in it, etc.  I remember two characters: Will and Marshall, and there was the villain who smashed one of his erring subordinates in a swiftly closing electronic hatch, and something about being surveilled and tailed, and the Omega Room being where the climax happens.  But other than that, no, I think it’s six feet under, for good reason: it was only my first work, and a draft at that.  BUT—the Electric Boy has DISNEY written all over it!  Wouldn’t that be something.  I should run THAT one up the flagpole and see who salutes!

T: You’re certainly able to visualize your stories cinematically.  Have you thought of the Dissonance stories the same way?  Do you envision these getting that sort of treatment in a perfect world?  And with that in mind, do you ever sort of fancast any of the characters in your mind?

AR: No, not really.  But truth be told, in the writing, I was acutely aware that I wanted it to eventually become a screenplay and see it adapted into movie form.  That would be SUCH a huge payoff, and utterly thrilling.  I can conceptualize everything to a degree, and cast the imagery only so far in the realm of my imagination, but to see it take shape on the silver screen: I would probably pass out from delight.

T: When it came time to write Dissonance: Volume I: Reality, how did you know that story was one that needed to be committed to page?  Was it an idea that was always taking shape in your mind, or was it something that had a sudden spark, and lit a fire in your imagination?

AR: I relate very well to trauma, and I was going through a bit of a traumatic period after the death of a dream to return to music in 2023.  I figured, if I can’t write it and set it to melody, then I’ll write it and set it to page.  So, this story is basically music—albeit haunting—without the treble clefs, bass clefs or quarter notes.  But it has to have a cadence and a rhythm to it.  I feel pretty naturally inclined and gifted to write out something compelling, but I knew it had to come from a place of trauma: something dystopian in nature, and something that stacked the odds against our hero(es).  I really have a great fondness for Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games” series, and Marie Lu’s “Legend” trilogy, and knew those would be ideal starting points.  And, I knew that in order to be successful, the threat (in this case being the alien beings) had to be real and unique: stemming from ideas and visions that had always terrified me.  Thus, I went back to Greek mythology and started from Medusa the gorgon.  Don’t want to spoil anything, but that’s how it started and that’s where it went.

T: Since it has served you well, do you see yourself reimagining other famous monsters with sort of new flavors in order to craft additional thrilling tales?  Do you imagine you would stick to dystopia, or would you explore other genres?

AR: Possibly, but this one just felt so natural to me.  However, in all fairness to the story, and transparency for me, the monsters were originally called druids, and they were too conspicuously close to The Lord of the Rings’ Nazgul, or Harry Potter’s Dementors.  They needed to be adjusted, and so I thought about what terrified me, and as my kids are constantly rehearsing scenes from 1981’s Clash of the Titans Medusa scene (that’s the only scene they’ve seen from the movie; I promise I’m a good daddy) the name “gorgon” was a natural fit, especially since their paralysis ability pre-existed them actually taking on the moniker of “gorgon.”  It just fit.  I do appreciate dystopia, but I don’t have to remain there.  I can expect that my next book or series would be about something different: exploring undiscovered country as an author is pretty stretching and satisfying.

T: That is a very good point, and it could very well have you stretching other parts of your creative muscles.  While your book was dystopian, it was still kind of constrained into the land mass and landmarks of this fictional version of Tennessee.  But crafting something from scratch has its own intrigues and challenges.  Do you think that excites you more, or terrifies you more?

AR: Well, I think everyone authoring a fictional tale today that takes place on Earth really has a leg up on those of years past.  There is SO much information readily available now, free for all finders, and I found myself tracking my characters’ movements along the ground in satellite view, sometimes even in Google Street View, and I found that incredibly helpful to see where they exactly were. It also greatly aided me in the storytelling, because I had written passages, for example at the church in the chapter “Holy Ground”, but for anyone who goes there, they would instantly know I was off kilter, because they were at first factually incorrect; Google Street View rectified that for me by showing me precisely where they could get in, and where they couldn’t, for example.  And the characters threading their way through the cities, I could watch all of that overhead and plot it correctly.  So it was more or less fiction transposed as a film over real-life terrain.  Much like “tracing” for kids when they’re learning to draw, I had my boundaries, and now I just had to fill them in with what I wanted to see in there.  It was never really from scratch.  I think if you are crafting something from scratch that has no basis in actual tangible Earthly reality as we know it, you have far more freedom.  Rules can be broken with little consequence because our rules don’t apply there.

T: The gorgons being a part of the invasion of Earth is obviously a huge, central aspect of what is going on with your story.  But they came from somewhere.  Do you know where that is?  Do you think you’ll ever explore the planet or place they came from?

AR: Once the rights are granted and contracts are in place for the movie trilogy adaptation, I’m sure we’ll find that out in the prequel(s).

T: A dystopian version of our world has to be difficult to truly appreciate building.  As much as you are tearing down, you’re creating in some ways.  And you went deep into a research hole to truly get an understanding of the part of the world that you constructed.  What was your process like in building a version of Tennessee after what must have felt like our world had ended?  How did you get into the minds of those who surely felt like they had lost everything?

AR: Well, Tennessee is the microcosm of course; the Earth being the macrocosm.  I did do my research, and took my cues from both literal and fictional pointers.  Fictional from movies like “I am Legend”, and “28 Days Later,” and literal from friends and colleagues who had working knowledge of what the earth might function and appear like after such an apocalypse.  How would we survive?  What would we eat if nearly all the animals were eviscerated?  If humanity itself were annihilated, where would we find solace?  How long would it take to build up some working defenses and the ability to mount a counteroffensive?  There couldn’t be any kind of immediate panacea; that would be too easy.  But little by little, scrape by hard scrape, humanity is finding ways to claw back from the brink, because that’s what we do.  However, yes: as Cameron (“Jet”) and his cohorts go through their odyssey, you are greeted with traces of dissonance, disunity, discord, disadvantage, and all other dis-’s, and they see evidence of the initial invasion and its ensuing aftermath, all around them.  (I had some great help from some trusted friends, but I’m positive that there will be a gaping hole or two, some yawning chasm that I hadn’t thought to leap prior to publishing.  But that’s what revised second editions are for, ha!). Additionally, however, Cameron begins to see evidence of these dis-’s in humanity itself, and that leads to the greater struggle.

T: While the first Dissonance novel is very much an alien invasion theme, it’s also, as you mentioned, a study on the failings of humanity.  In a lot of ways, the creatures feel like variants of zombies, as in zombie mythology, a lot of the time it is humans that are the true monsters.  Was that the route you intended on going when you developed this tale?

AR: It wasn’t at first, no. But with any good plot twist, it’s the things that you don’t see; you have to peel back the onion and expose the subterranean elements of what’s really going on.  There’s always someone behind the someone: you point at “that” and say “that’s” the problem, when really that other thing is the problem behind it.  It’s cause and effect.  And it’s a sad—but true—reflection and indictment on modern society and the “cellulizing” (I just coined that) that social media and narcissism has wreaked on our society.  We’re all so nuclear and isolated, and that breeds mistrust.  It’s about asking a fundamental question: can we ever really trust a person unless we’re right there with them and seeing who they really are and what they’re really doing and saying?  Is everyone nefarious deep down?  That’s the problem.  Here we all are fighting gorgons, and yet you have these distracting elements that are eroding your support and causing you to lose focus.  And they’re supposed to be on your side!  They’re your fellow humans, for crying out loud.  They should be supporting you.  In a sad way, it’s an invoked echo, crying out down through time from Rodney King: “Can we all get along?”

T: In a lot of ways, stories like these help us to understand the concept that humanity is not monolithic.  Sometimes that can be helpful, and sometimes it can be a hindrance.  Our differences can make us or break us.

But with something like the gorgons, who can feel so primal, it might be hard to see them as anything other than monsters.  Do they have these sorts of ethical failings too, do you think?  Or is keeping them the boogeymen in the shadows something that works well enough for you and the tale you aim to tell?

AR: One of the greatest movies of all time, I consider, is the original Predator movie with Arnie.  That movie had its plot, its mission, and these guys were all seasoned commandos who could handle anything.  But what the heck is this?  We went into the jungle to rescue Hopper or whoever it was, but all the sudden their standard plot and mission are completely and unexpectedly interrupted by something no one has ever seen before.  It’s a massive disruption and diversion from everything the characters, and us, have ever known.  In that light, I think keeping the gorgons as unexpected monsters serves the greater subtext, and that is that the real enemy is still out there.  At that point, the gorgons become little more than a nuisance as our protagonists find they’re dealing with something far more nefarious.  Think Burke in “Aliens” sabotaging the Marines’ escape from LV-426, because he works for The Company, and they have aims of their own.  Those are the ethical failings that I’m really much more interested in.

T: You set out to create a terrifying creature with the aliens you’ve brought to Earth in your series.  How did you conceptualize these frightening beings, and what ideas raced through your head as you were coming up with some of the scenes in which we experience their nature?

AR: 1981’s “Clash of the Titans” was a staple of my youth.  I remember running home from school, putting on some beef Top Ramen, and eating a whole pack while watching that movie before my parents came home.  In all of the scenes, I couldn’t wait to get to the one with the gorgon slithering around her temple seeking her prey, Perseus and his fellow warriors.  Granted, there was primeval CGI back then, and it was nothing flashy.  But it did the trick: the way that they had Medusa’s stop-motion face emerge from the shadows, and her eyes light up bright green like sickly torches, accompanied by that frightening high-pitched strain….yeeshk.  Still terrifies me to this day.  I wanted something like that.  Something that had the potential to completely immobilize you, and then feast on your flesh.  I suppose, to that effect, that there may also have been a germ of thought in my brain harkening back to the dilophosaurus from Jurassic Park: spitting its paralyzing venom onto its prey before it consumed it.  Overall, I knew it couldn’t just be a capture-you-and-claw-you-to-death kind of alien.  It had to possess some creepy additional element which would further restrict your ability to fight back.  A truly “no fair” aspect.  Thus, the “You just…don’t…look” tagline.  You could swing your fists at it, but it would just be shadowboxing, because you weren’t looking; and if you did, you were toast.  That concept terrifies me more than being mauled by a bear, a lion, or anything.

T: I definitely sensed a bit of Jurassic Park in there as well.  The gorgons have a bit of a hard time seeing as well, so in some ways it evens the playing field a little bit.  As much as they might feel like the dilophosaurus, they also feel like the T-Rex.

Even early on, though, you allude to other versions of the gorgons.  Do you think we’ve seen them all by the time the final page is turned in Reality?  Or are there more to come in subsequent books?

AR: Spoiler alert!  Oh no.  You will see different adaptations of gorgons.  They are evolving too, just as we are, and the universal principle of “adapt and overcome”: well, they’re not immune to that either, and they are far from home, on an alien world for food and water, and they have to figure out how to fulfill their needs.  But you have to remember that they’re essentially drones: and drones aren’t independent; they’re tethered to, and controlled by, something greater.  That’s all I’ll say about that part of it.  But the berserkers, too: you learn about them in the first volume as well, and why they’re “special”, and more terrifying.

T: Once you put aliens on Earth, you answer the time-old question: are we alone in the universe?  But with that in mind, are there other lifeforms in the Ryan-verse?  Is that something that you might explore in the future?

AR: Hey, it worked well (at first, kinda) for Aliens vs. Predator, right?  I think Aliens vs. Gorgons would be an entertaining movie to see.  Not sure who I would root for there.  I think it’s safe to say that there are, but Earth has been around for at least 6,000 years…and, at least in my story, this is the first major contact that we’ve had where mankind has been flipped on its head so severely.  It’s pure comedy to have the gorgons come wipe out eighty-five percent of mankind and then have a more dangerous species come wipe out eight-five percent of the gorgons shortly after that.  Kind of like when a team like the Yankees beats our Mariners in the playoffs, we want the Yankees to then beat the next team that they face off against, because then it might make our elimination more worthwhile and those who eliminated us more formidable.

T: You completed this story in a very short timeframe.  Did you know ahead of time the breadth of what you were going to be describing?  Or was it a sort of “seat-of-your-pants” storytelling experience?

AR: Oh it was definitely seat-of-my-pants organic storytelling.  However, there were chapters like “LoJack” and “Holy Ground” during which my fingers just flew off the keyboard.  I swear that if I hadn’t written those two chapters, I’d still be writing the book today.  They just propelled me forward like a red-lining superset: I sped through those like a missile, and they became powerful.  The rest of the story, particularly while they’re journeying on the road together, took some time to write, as I had to plot their courses, literally, from aerial Google maps, using actual street names, and determine how long it would take between each point.  And for the twists and turns, those came pretty naturally.  Some wonderful “Aha!” and “What if?” moments reared their heads pretty readily, which surprised me.  I don’t want to give anything away but you’ll find them too, and I pray they accomplish their purpose: to terrify, inspire, delight, move deeply, and more.

T: Did you have to do any sort of railroading for your characters?  Did they want to go off and do their own things, or did you keep them in line, and they behaved for you?

AR: No, not really.  I think I get a good sense of the character when I first envision them.  Sometimes, if they appear villainous at first, they’re actually noble.  If they feel decent at first, they’re really inherently evil.  I think Cameron, or “Jet”, is the only one whose vantage point you’re seeing it from anyway, being first person.  Because of that, you’re learning organically with him, and he tends to make decisions in the heat of battle too, that take him in different directions than originally planned.  Sometimes emotions begat by certain developments necessitate that the character change, whether that’s the protagonist, a supporting character, a villain, a gorgon, whomever: and you just have to roll with the punches and see where it leads from there.  It’s all a fairly natural evolution, like dropping a Plinko puck down the board on The Price is Right.  You never know where it will go.  Or like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates: “you never know what you’re gonna get.”

T: While you’ve just released this first book, you have two others that you’ve committed to telling through 2024.  Is that where the story definitively ends, or have you had ideas to tell spinoffs, prequels, or other parts of this universe?

AR: Oh, I’ll never tell, haha!  Like the character of Bassett, I have to keep those cards close to my chest.  Yes, I have to leave room.  I’m fond of cliffhangers, and I’m equally fond of the absence of any finality.  Any good story can be continued: if there’s a worthy seed of continuance in there that can be harvested, any gem of furtherance that can be mined, I like to keep the doors open for that if I can.  For now though, I had always envisioned a trilogy, although I didn’t have the epiphanies of the subtitles for each book at the outset.  That took time.  Speaking of time, time will tell.  Sign up at the blog at www.dissonancetheseries.com/blog for updates!  But I did know that I sought to follow the pattern of Beginning-Middle-End: three acts in a play, like any of the great magnum opuses.  I’m a great fan of sequels, like so many are.  You develop a relationship with the characters in a book or a movie, and you want to know how their life pans out, because you care deeply for them, good or bad.

T: So then, Dissonance aside—and we did mention other books earlier, but we’ll dive in a bit further here—what sort of stories are you itching to tell as you work your way through your current to-do list?

AR: For now, I’m super absorbed with this series, and that’s all I currently see.  But I do keep coming back to a possible storyline with a being like The Phoenix from X-Men that is terrifyingly powerful and uncontrollably deadly, and what do you do with such a being?  If they truly are immortal, will they be noble or ruinous?  Will they work for us, or against us?  I’ve always been impressed and interested in the indestructible antihero, like Doomsday actually killing Superman.  Whoa.  They’re so interesting to me, because you thought your superhero was indestructible!  So…maybe.  We’ll see.  The gorgons have to be driven off first, and mankind has to settle back into some semblance of unity first.

T: So, just to clarify, that would be part of the Dissonance part of your universe?  That’s spectacular.

AR: Ha!  I don’t know.  Although now you’ve got me thinking SuperGorgon wouldn’t be so bad of an idea.  *scribbles down ideas furiously*

T: With the first book having released, and the sequels soon to follow, readers are going to want to know more about you and the world you’re building.  If fans wanted to discover more about Aaron Ryan, or the Dissonance series, where could they find you online?

AR: Well there you go!  I’d love that.  Nothing more fulfilling than when someone buys my books or signs up on my blog for more information.  It’s such a rich reward when they do.  So thank you for asking!

My website is at https://www.dissonancetheseries.com.

Subscribe to my blog at https://www.dissonancetheseries.com/blog for updates!

Follow, like, subscribe and more at https://dot.cards/authoraaronryan, which includes Facebook page, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.

And thank you for the interview!

T: And thank you as well, Aaron!  I appreciate you spending time with me getting into some granular details with your version of Earth, and the stories you tell.  I also appreciate you clearing up some of the fog, and helping to give readers a greater sense of who you are, and how you came to walk down this leg of your journey.

And now, to those readers: Do yourself a huge favor and check out the Dissonance series.  You can use any of the links that Aaron Ryan has provided here, and if you want, you can check out Dissonance: Book 1: Reality on Amazon!

The post Interview with Aaron Ryan appeared first on Tellest.

While a traditional science fiction story can still be plenty entertaining, there’s something about a decent hook, presented early on, which can really turn a reader into a fan.  So it is with author Aaron Ryan’s new book, Dissonance: Volume I: Reality.  This sci-fi, set in a dystopian world and abound with militaristic survivors, has some resemblance to some of your favorite sci-fi stories, from Alien, to A Quiet Place, and even Jurassic Park.  It’s a tale of invasion, by monsters who the author has carved out with interesting lore, and explored enough of a history for that we pick up years after they’ve arrived to eradicate humanity.  There is ominous terror waiting around every corner, and it is quiet and surprising as the author unveils the narrative.

Plug your ears. Don’t look.

The war for humanity has begun.

Cameron “Jet” Shipley was there when they arrived in 2026. He, and everyone else, lived through the next decade and a half, learning to hide. Learning to never make a sound. Learning the most important rule of all:

You just…don’t…look.

The year is now 2042, and humanity is eking out an existence in the shadows. Cameron and his team are sent out on a recon mission in Clarksville Tennessee, with events and developments that may alter the trajectory of Earth’s fate…and his own.

Joined by newcomers Bassett and Trudy, Cameron and his brother Rut will have to contend with a powerful force that has laid waste to the planet and annihilated over eighty-five percent of civilization.

Will Jet’s expeditions lead him on a slippery slope of discovery that demands accountability and answers?

Or will it plunge the earth, and everything in it, into further dissonance?

“Aliens” meets “A Quiet Place” in this dystopian sci-fi thriller series.

Ryan also does something about the presentation of these cosmic foes.  Rather than keep them in the shadows, only unveiling them in the last third of the story, he sets the light on them from the beginning, introducing us to the creatures to let us know the horrors they can unleash, and the way they move and sound.  While the creatures are very interesting, the author doesn’t leave the human cast in the darkness.  There are some interesting bits of development, fun relationships to watch evolve, and surprises to be on watch for.  With two more stories coming before long, now is a great time to learn about the Gorgons, and fight for what remains of Earth.  Check out Dissonance: Volume I: Reality on Amazon today.

The post Sci-Fi Promo – Dissonance: Volume I: Reality appeared first on Tellest.