Today, I'm excited to feature indie author Ian Price and his debut cyberpunk novel Dystopia's Edge.
I'd heard of
cyberpunk before but never really looked up what it meant. So, I took the
opportunity to ask Ian what cyberpunk is along with his research process, who does he imagine his main character would look like, and more!
This post
includes an exclusive interview with Ian Price along with an excerpt from Dystopia's
Edge. I look forward to reading the book over the summer :) so stay tuned
for the review.
First,
here's a quick bio about Ian followed by the synopsis for Dystopia's Edge.
About
the author:
Glad to have written a novel during the COVID-19 pandemic, Ian is
looking forward to his next project while raising a newborn daughter alongside
his wonderful wife.
Connect with Ian Price via his Website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and Amazon.
Synopsis:
The year is 2121. The world has changed a lot, but in ways that you’d
probably expect.
I’m Benjamin Edge, mercenary for hire. Running guns, carrying out hits,
I’ve done it all. When you grow up as a child soldier fighting for one
city-state against another in the crumbling ruins of a fallen civilization,
killing becomes second nature.
This newest job seems a breeze, though. Smuggling lab equipment from San
Francisco to New Tijuana means running a harsh gauntlet, but it’s nothing I
can’t handle. A few hired guns—even a reformed drug addict who let me down in
the past—should be enough to blaze a trail through the Badlands.
Or at least I thought it was.
Until a corpse came back from the dead.
Sergeant Reaver, a bio-engineered super soldier I killed a decade ago,
is somehow still breathing. Not only that, but he’s brought all the crime
syndicates in Los Angeles under his banner. Now that he knows I’m on his turf,
it’s me against an army all the way to New Tijuana.
Good thing I packed plenty of ammo.
Interview with Ian Price by Nadaness In Motion
1. Can you tell us a bit
about yourself and your writing?
Ian Price: I was originally born in New York City and grew up in
that area before moving up to Boston for college. I was a biology major at
Brandeis University, but I frequently took literature classes for fun (it was a
liberal arts school with a strong science program). By the time I found myself
in a creative writing class, I found that I’d taken enough courses to pick up
an English minor.
My writing style tends to have a sense of humor to it
while attempting to tackle serious issues. A holdover from contributing to the
humor magazine on campus.
2. What are your
favorite reading genres? Can you name a few favorite authors?
Ian Price: I like to read a bit of everything. In terms of
non-fiction, I can’t recommend the works of Candice Milard enough. She writes
historical novels about pivotal points in the lives of Theodore Roosevelt,
Winston Churchill, and other prominent figures.
For fiction, I don’t think it’s controversial to say
that Neil Gaiman is one of the best out there.
3. Your novel Dystopia's
Edge is in the 'cyberpunk' genre. What is cyberpunk exactly?
Ian Price: Cyberpunk is a genre pioneered in the early 1980’s by
artists like William Gibson in his work ‘Neuromancer’ and Ridley Scott’s ‘Blade
Runner’.
It explores the idea that advancements in technology
aren’t inherently linked to advancements in how people treat one another; that
the human condition could involve the rich getting richer and the poor getting
poorer. The 1% getting flying cars while everyone else is forced to build those
cars in corporation-run work camps. ‘High tech, low life’.
Ian Price writing and editing tip - from his interview with Nadaness In Motion
4. Is Dystopia's Edge
your first book or have you published other books?
Ian Price: I was a hobbyist cartoonist all throughout college
and published comic strips in various school-run publications during my time
there. I later collected all of ‘em in a paperback published through Lulu, so I
guess that’s my first book?
I’ve had other outlets for my creative side since then
(a little stand-up, some extra work in a couple Boston produced movies, etc.)
but I guess Dystopia's Edge is my first proper fiction novel!
5. What inspired you to
write Dystopia's Edge?
Ian Price: Short answer—when the pandemic hit and the world
seemed to be falling apart around me, I tried to distract myself by playing
video games in my free time. My April wedding got cancelled due to safety
concerns, watching the news had my nerves on a razors’ edge, and eventually I
just needed to do something more constructive with all that anxiety.
So, one night at 3 AM, I was physically unable to fall
asleep. Not knowing what else to do, I picked up my laptop and started writing
until I was able to fall asleep. That’s what I did for about a year. The result
was completing the first draft of Dystopia’s Edge.
Cyberpunk just seemed like the best genre to express
the anxieties I felt at the time. Eventually, after I submitted the first draft
to a few beta-readers, I was told that the story also had some Western vibes to
it. So that’s cool.
Some characters in the book let me explore themes like
drug addiction, the value of nature, and how much I idolize the children’s’
entertainer Fred McFeely Rogers. But I won’t talk too much about them. I
wouldn’t want to get into spoilers.
6. If Dystopia's Edge
were to be made into a movie or series, who would you like to play the main
character Benjamin Edge?
Ian Price: Oh gosh, Jason Mamoa? Or maybe Bo Burnham if he went
on one of those Hollywood workout regimens to get absolutely jacked? If some
studio somewhere wants to adapt my novel, they’re welcome to cast whoever they
please.
7. Dystopia's Edge has a lot of military-and-gang-themed parts
How did you go about researching this?
Ian Price: In my novel, California isn’t really a unified state
anymore. It takes place about 50 years after a period of tremendous global
instability that subdivided that area into 3 regions.
The area around San Francisco is what we would
consider the most normal. It’s where the wealthier population lives a
comfortable lifestyle that’s equitable to our own. Political power is in the
hands of big corporations. My day job is as an office-worked in the
pharmaceutical industry, so that was easy to write.
In Dystopia's Edge, the area around Los Angeles
has been taken over by a fascist dictatorship. I’m a big fan of history. I
studied the rise of Stalin and the Soviet Union back in college, watched more
than few documentaries on pre-WWII Italy / Germany documentaries, and even
visited Argentina shortly before the pandemic happened. Military coups are no
joke and I wanted to express the anxiety they give me when I think about them.
The land just outside those two cities is largely
decentralized. They’re controlled by a loose collective of organized gangs.
Growing up in a well-off New York suburb, I always thought the divide between
rich and poor was obscene. All one needed to do was walk over a tiny bridge
into an underprivileged neighborhood and find themselves in a place where the
crime rate had tripled. I spent some time on that other side and based the gang
stuff on my experiences there. I’ll leave it at that.
8. Dystopia's Edge is quite a big book :D – how much editing
did you have to go through? Can you tell us a bit about your writing and
editing process?
Ian Price: I did A LOT of editing. I spent about a year on the
first draft and a second year on post-production work. After reading through
the book and editing a 2nd draft myself, I then submitted it to 6 beta-readers.
Three were close friends and 3 were people I hired on Fiverr. In addition to
catching typos I might have missed, they also helped me fine-tune the plot. If
1 beta-reader doesn’t like a portion of your book—it might just be personal
taste on their part. But if 6 beta-readers don’t like a portion of your
book—it’s something that just doesn’t work and needs changing.
I also hired a professional proofreader. Always hire a
professional proofreader.
9. Have you set a
Goodreads goal for 2022? If yes, how many books would you like to read this
year?
Ian Price: I have not set a Goodreads goal for 2022. My wife is
due for a baby in April and I’ve got a few more baby books I need to finish up,
though. Shout-out to The Expectant Father by Armin Brott. It’s a
baby book written by a Navy Seal who became a stay-at-home dad.
10.
While we're still not sure how travelling will work in
the summer of 2022, if you could travel anywhere this year or in coming years,
where would you go? (This is an invitation to come visit Egypt, where I'm
from ;) )
Ian Price: I would LOVE to come to Egypt. My wife and I were
supposed to have a honeymoon in Italy back in 2020, so at some point I’d like
to do that to. Heck, it’s a wonderful world out there and I want to see it all!
Watch Dystopia's Edge book trailer
If you're thinking Nada (me) and Ian are chatty – I must admit we are! But there's a lot to be said about Dystopia's Edge, which I'm looking forward to reading in a couple of months.
Now here's an exclusive peak at Dystopia's Edge, the cyberpunk novel that's kept Ian busy during the pandemic.
The book is written from the first person perspective of Benjamin Edge (the Jason Momoa maybe-lookalike ;) )
Excerpt from Dystopia's Edge by Ian Price
We kept heading east, veering ever slightly to the south as we went. I
told Rita that we’d need to go that way to steer clear of some old, abandoned
copper mines that could be found nearby. Those caves had been stripped clean of
their precious metals a century ago. Now their winding, underground caverns
functioned mainly as the perfect hideout for marauding raider clans.
Corvin, myself and the rest of our old mercenary company had once been
hired to go there for a job. A group of about thirty or so crazed barbarians
had taken up residence in those caves. This particular clan had been vigilant
in their apparent goal of robbing every passing cargo truck they laid their
eyes on. The lot was especially violent in their methods too.
So violent, in fact, the U.S. government itself actually took notice.
They were willing to pay a flat fee to any private mercenary group that went in
there, rooted them out, and brought back proof of their eradication.
When our troop got there, the first thing I remember noticing was the
smell.
There was a sick, sweet aroma floating out from the underground… a stale
odor wafting from the mouth of those caves like bad breath.
Once everyone got inside, we realized it was the dead bodies of all the
passengers they’d robbed. We’d been briefed that they’d gone missing, abducted
for some twisted purpose by the raiders. Honestly, though, I still believed
we’d find them alive… forced into manual labor at gunpoint. I thought they’d be
tired, a little beat up, but still capable of rescue.
Instead... the raiders had cannibalized them all for food. I was the
sole member of our group who was surprised by this, so maybe I was just more
naive back then.
Our shootout with those barbarians was won easily enough. There were a
lot of ‘em, sure. But we had much better guns and even better training. The
hostiles were only used to dealing with one or two security guards who’d been
hired to protect any cargo transports they’d robbed. Against us, they didn’t
stand a chance.
Most of my team spent the day behind cover, waiting patiently for the
barbarians to get aggressive and charge us. They were cannibals, after all, so
it didn’t take much to get them angry. A few smoke bombs, a couple well-placed
taunts… that usually set them off enough to make ‘em fight sloppy. They’d rush
out from cover, guns blazing. Then we’d pick ‘em off.
A few of them tried to retreat, fleeing the caves through tunnels we
hadn’t known about. When they got outside though, Corvin was waiting for them.
He’d found a perch from where he was able to snipe the yellow ones at a
distance. Most of them couldn’t make it ten feet before they received a bullet
in the head.
Their war chief had been a little more challenging to deal with. Every
time his clan had raided an armed truck, he’d always pilfer their best weapons
for himself. Our team eventually fought our way into his deepest lair (an
underground lake located at the bottom of the mine). I remember thinking that
the fella looked like a walking arsenal.
Buddy, this guy was carrying everything except the kitchen sink.
Submachine guns in each hand, every inch of him covered in body armor,
night-vision goggles, a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher…
He looked ridiculous. We ended up killing
Don't forget to connect
with Ian Price via his Website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and Amazon.
