novels to read

Interview with Simon Rose on “Shadowzone” Series

/ thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

.

My guest today is Calgary author Simon Rose, who has published nineteen novels for children and young adults, eight guides for writers, more than 100 nonfiction books, and many articles on a wide variety of topics. Today, we’re going to chat about his Shadowzone series, which was first published in 2017, with a second edition in 2025.

Nina: So, what’s the Shadowzone series all about?

Simon: The series involves the discovery of a grim dystopian version of Earth that’s ruled by a totalitarian dictatorship, the threat of a deadly virus, and a race against time to save the lives of millions. Without giving too much away, here’s a synopsis for each of the novels.

.

Shadowzone 

While watching intense flashes of lightning during a violent storm, Ben experiences mysterious and disturbing visions of another world, one that’s very different from his own. In the chain of events that follow, Ben encounters Charlie, a girl from a dark version of Earth, a planet doomed by the effects of environmental catastrophe, where the leaders will stop at nothing to complete their deadly mission. 

.

Into The Web 

On a doomed version of Earth, the sinister schemes of the Ministry are moving ever closer to completion, with dire consequences for the inhabitants of two worlds. For Ben and Charlie, an unlikely alliance, unexpected reunions, and the mysterious prophecy of the Chosen One offer a glimmer of hope, with the ever-present prospect of betrayal, as they embark on an unpredictable journey into the unknown. 

.

Black Dawn 

In a dark parallel world, following attacks by its most determined opponents, the Ministry has been forced to change its plans. Yet the ruthless Director-General is prepared to sacrifice anyone to achieve an entirely new beginning, no matter what the cost. In a deadly race against time, as events spiral out of control, Ben and Charlie must risk their lives in a desperate attempt to save two worlds from destruction. 

.

Nina: What inspired you to write these three books? What’s the story behind the story?

Simon: The original idea was about someone capturing mysterious images on a video camera of a person that no one else could see. It was around the time that a local hospital was about to be demolished. I imagined that my character was filming the event and captured the image of the person stepping seemingly unharmed from the rubble as the building came down.

For a while, that’s all I had, and it was one of those ideas that I was never sure would come to anything. It was early in my writing career, and I put it aside and worked on other stories, but I’d periodically add another element to the story about the camera and the mysterious individual. At one point, I decided that the person that the boy caught on film wasn’t a ghost but from another dimension or perhaps a parallel universe and they were attempting to contact him for some reason. I then began to add details of this other Earth and the reasons for the connection to our world, and it went from there. An initial concept involving kidnappings from hospitals didn’t quite work, so instead, and before the arrival of the recent pandemic, I developed the idea of a deadly virus, which was a good fit with the type of government running the other Earth. Once that was all in place, I was able to get to work.

Nina: Was it always going to be a series?

Simon: Shadowzone was originally only one novel, but once I’d finished it, I immediately realized that the story wasn’t over and that I need to write more. The final installment was written very quickly, and, in the process, I knew that I needed to expand the earlier sections too, so in the end I had a trilogy.

Nina: So of course, people need to read all three 🙂

Simon: You could certainly just read Shadowzone, but there’s a cliffhanger ending and hopefully most people will feel utterly compelled to read on and learn what happens next. Into The Web and Black Dawn also don’t make sense if you haven’t read the first book in the series. Taken together, it’s an exciting, fast paced adventure that I hope everyone will really enjoy.

Nina: So, is it a good idea for authors to write a series of books?

Simon: It can be, but only if you have enough material for multiple books. If readers are sufficiently interested in the story and the characters after completing the first installment, they’d usually like to read more. However, the story or theme has to be strong enough to warrant more adventures. The reader won’t appreciate a novel that’s overloaded with filler, just for the sake of creating a series, and might avoid any books by the same author in the future.

Nina: And you’re doing adaptations of the Shadowzone books for TV and movies, aren’t you?

Simon: Yes, I’ve created a synopsis for a three-season TV series based on the Shadowzone books. I’ve also created a script for the initial episode, based on the first novel in the series. The three books involve a dark parallel version of Earth, mysterious portals, and the threat of a deadly virus. The dystopian setting has proved popular over the years and will probably continue to appear on screen. There has been interest in the project from people involved in film and TV projects and I’m certainly open to working with others to bring this one to life. 

I’ve also seen some TV shows recently in which although there were adult characters, the main ones were in their mid or late teens and the show could be watched and enjoyed by adults. The lead characters were the same age as those in the Shadowzone books and in the novels in my paranormal Flashback series. That encouraged me to work on adaptations of the stories for the screen, since it seemed that there might be a market for them. I’m continuing to work on further episodes for the first season of the Shadowzone TV series.

Nina: What are you currently working on?

Simon: I always have a few current projects and right now, along with the script adaptations, I’m working on another historical fantasy novel series, this time set in the early years of World War II. I’m also working on more books in the same genre as my previously published paranormal Flashback novels, a fantasy series, and a historical fiction novel. I also teach writing courses at the University of Calgary and am working with some authors in the Alexandra Writers Centre’s Author Development Program.

Anyone interested in keeping up to date with the projects that I’m working on is always welcome to subscribe to my monthly newsletter, which you can do at www.simon-rose.com.

Nina: You work with other authors looking to publish, don’t you?

Simon: Yes, I offer coaching, editing, consulting, and mentoring services for writers of novels, short stories, fiction, nonfiction, biographies, and in many other genres, plus do work with writers of scripts and screenplays. I’m a writing instructor and mentor at the University of Calgary and served as the Writer-in-Residence with the Canadian Authors Association. You can find details of some of the projects I’ve worked on with other authors, along with some references and recommendations, at www.simon-rose.com.

Nina: So where can people buy all the books in the Shadowzone series?

Simon: The books can be purchased at most of the usual places, as follows:

Shadowzone

Ebook: Amazon Canada, Amazon USA, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Japan, iBooks, Smashwords, Scribd

Paperback: Amazon Canada, Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Japan

Into The Web

Ebook: Amazon Canada, Amazon USA, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Japan, iBooks, Smashwords, Scribd

Paperback: Amazon Canada, Amazon USA, Barnes and Noble, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Japan

Black Dawn

Ebook: Amazon Canada, Amazon USA, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Japan, iBooks, Smashwords, Scribd

Paperback: Amazon Canada, Amazon USA, Barnes and Noble, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Japan

The Shadowzone Series Box Set

Ebook: Amazon Canada, Amazon USA, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Japan, Scribd, iBooks, Smashwords

Thanks Simon, for being my guest today and the very best of luck with the Shadowzone series.

You can learn more about Simon and his work on his website at www.simon-rose.com, subscribe to his newsletter, or connect online.

Review of “A Diary in the Age of Water”: Women, Water, Numinosity, and the Transformation of the World

/ thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

“It is a novel to learn from, and it is a novel to take forward into life as inspirational guide. Each of us is called upon to examine, not only our relationship with water, but with all Earth gifts.”

Jane Buchan, author & educator

Vermont author Jane Buchan recently wrote a review of my 2020 eco-fiction novel A Diary in the Age of Water. Here is an excerpt:

As climate, social, and political crises escalate, one source of guidance becomes essential to our continued optimism and activism: a Numinous Story… A Diary in the Age of Water by Nina Munteanu, is, for many of us alive in these terrifying times, a numinous story. It meanders through our consciousness with the enlightening science of fresh-water lakes and rivers and streams, sometimes heavy with sediment and toxicity, sometimes fast flowing and cleansing, sometimes terrifying with truths smacking us down with the force of a tidal bore. Its characters are story tellers and story receivers, and despite their diverse natures, all the stories they tell reveal the many threats to our source of life on Earth – our water.

Nina Munteanu’s novel structure is perfect for the weaving of human scientific and mystical relationships with water.  It’s initial and final sections create a frame for the inner story of bitterness, despair, self-serving behaviours, and corporate rapaciousness described by a professional scientist, a limnologist named Lynna. In the outer story we meet Kyo and Nam, Kyo’s mentor, as well as Ho, a librarian and keeper of a remnant of rare books. These characters exist on the other side of a mysterious cataclysm, the causes of which are the novel’s key themes.

Kyo, a small, four-armed blue being whose story begins and ends the novel, introduces us to the characters who form the larger diary section framed by the opening Library section and final Seed Ship section. Kyo makes glancing references to Una, mother of Lynna, and Lynna, mother of Hilde. Only Lynna is fully realized through her own perceptions and thoughts, these expressed in diary entries beginning in the spring of 2045 and ending in the late fall of 2066. Her diary, taking up 250 pages of this 303-page novel, provides the chronological spine connecting our past and present to a possible future that is not the one most humans want to think about, let alone welcome.

A Diary in the Age of Water is best sipped and savoured rather than gulped. Gulping will lead to choking for most non-scientist readers, and this book deserves to be experienced as it is written, in slow, undulating, revelatory waves… Like all complex stories, A Diary in the Age of Water requires patience, something our video-oriented age does not foster. The richest stories ask that we learn to hold many apparently divergent story threads at once. One of my fears as I read the diary was that the darkness of greed and short-sighted thinking and feeling would win out over that wondrous mystical relationship with the world that Una carried. While Una does her best to pass the experience of the sacred on to Lynna, Una’s spiritual influence is eclipsed by Lynna’s oppressive dependence on scientific knowledge to the exclusion of all else.

Through these characters, Nina Munteanu offers a warning for our times. Science is vitally important to our understanding of natural systems but science best serves us when it is balanced with an experience of the responsiveness of the natural world, a responsiveness that evokes our reverence and respect. Every culture honours the spiritual nature of the greater-than-human world, encoding its reverence in mythology, folktales, and wisdom traditions. – all keepers of numinous stories that transform our relationships with one another and the world. When we live honouring the sacred nature of all life, we become partners and co-creators. When we do not, we are highly dangerous parasites…

Lynna is called to hold the science of water firmly in her mind as her heart slowly opens to water’s responsiveness, water’s intelligence, water’s generosity, water’s love. It is a huge transformation for her, because science has been her safe place, her refuge. But knowing how something works is only the first part of the journey for those of us alive on this watery planet; we must all experience the why – the joy of unbreakable interconnections that make our lives meaningful… It is not Una’s daughter, Lynna, who carries this numinosity forward. It is Hilde, Una’s granddaughter, whose name means, significantly, Warrior Woman. How Kyo fits in to this lineage is one of the novel’s most unique speculations, one best discovered by reading the entire novel.

This novel is rich with information about water’s evolutionary journeys; it also describes the horrors of human greed that directly impact our relationships with water. It is not an easy book, but it is an important one, especially for people ready to engage, to advocate, to stand against the corporate insanity currently destroying Earth’s delicate balances. It is a novel to learn from, and it is a novel to take forward into life as inspirational guide. Each of us is called upon to examine, not only our relationship with water, but with all Earth gifts.

Go to Jane’s site Winterblooms to read the full review, worth reading in its entirety for its rich and poetic narrative.

.

Jane Buchan is a writer currently living in Vermont and originally from southwest Ontario. Her books include Under the Moon, Kinder Sadist and her latest, The Buttes. She is also an emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) coach, Master Trainer and educator.

.

Jackson Creek flowing through ice formations (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)

.

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.

.

Climate Cultures Magazine Lists Nina Munteanu’s “A Diary in the Age of Water” Among Eight Eco-Fiction Novels to Read

/ thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

Writer and curator Mary Woodbury shares eight novels about water where fact and fiction mingle, tried by imagination, to reveal important truths about our shifting relationships with this vital and lively agent in an era of climate crisis,” writes the magazine Climate Cultures.

In an article entitled, “Where Waters and Fictions Meet,” Mary Woodbury opens with this:

“While facts are something we can and should pay attention to as we follow scientific integrity, models, and reports, another mode of telling the story about water has been alive forever: churned, spoken, and written by authors who dream up fictional stories related to our past, present, and future world. Where fact and fiction mingle like this is an area of reflection and speculation, tied by imagination. These tales of water ripple out once the pebble sinks in. The intersectionality of diverse water fiction results in reader empathy, learning, inspiration, and shared commonalities around the world. Local dignity comes alive against a backdrop of planetary crises.”

She chooses the following eco-novels to discuss:

“Land-Water-Sky (Ndè-Ti-Yat’a)” by Katłıà
“Oil on Water” by Helon Habila
“A Diary in the Age of Water” by Nina Munteanu
“The Water Knife” by Paolo Bacigalupi
“Memory of Water” by Emmi Itäranta
“Fever Dream” by Samanta Schweblin
“Lagoon” by Nnedi Okorafor
“Bangkok Wakes to Rain” by Pitchaya Sudbanthad

Here’s what she writes about my novel:

Ancient Eastern Hemlock in Catchacoma old-growth forest, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)

NINA MUNTEANU is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit  www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.