Pacific Book Review   

Author Interview with Mitchell A. Duncan

Deeper Into the Void

Today we are talking with Mitchell A. Duncan, author of the sc-fi/psychological novel Deeper Into the Void.  Mitchell, thank you for spending some of your time with us.

MAD: It is my pleasure!

PBR:  Please tell us how you chose to become an author, and what challenges did you face getting your book published?

MAD: Interestingly enough, I did not set out to write a novel when I began creating this story. I enjoy writing, and first intended only to record my thoughts for a small team that is sent out into a hostile alien environment. How people interact with each other under stress has always been interesting to me, and this was the idea that began it all.  Over several months I created this story to which I produced no outline.  After pulling myself into this story, I decided that others might wish to read about it.  I began writing in September 2010, and I originally planned on releasing the kindle version only.  After I spent a few more months writing, I decided to try and have a paperback version published as well.  My biggest challenge in the overall process was creating and formatting a work that could hardly be regarded as conventional in any sense.

Another challenge that I faced in the creation of this book is that I am also a full-time student. This made it more difficult in that one day I would be writing an academic paper and the next I would be creating a work free from the boundaries of sanity.  I spent weeks in my schoolwork, unable to switch gears into a creative mode before inspiration came to me.

PBR:  What is it about writing in the genre of science fiction that you find so appealing?

MAD:  When reading and writing science fiction, we are able to imagine characters, situations and environments untethered to the traditional bounds of our perception of the world.  We are free to escape to places which we construct in our minds; we are assisted in our journey by the author’s pen. Before I made the decision to write Deeper Into the Void, I found a hypothetical situation playing out in my mind that required a distant backdrop.  Mars provided an arena in which I could forge reality from the deviant perception of my characters.

PBR:  Who are some of your favorite authors that you feel had a role in motivating or inspiring you?

MAD: While I have been impressed and inspired by dozens of authors over the years, I have several that come to my mind more readily than others.  Jules Verne continually captivated my mind and imagination as a child.  Such works as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and A Journey to the Center of the Earth held my attention and my imagination for many hours.  I later realized the significance of Verne’s works when I fully came to understand how many of his ideas were many decades before their time. Orson Scott Card moved me with Ender’s Game shortly after that, deepening my fascination with science fiction.  Brian Jacques’s Redwall series entertained me for countless hours as a young adult reader.  More recently, I have found Dan Brown’s writing style and stories to be convincing and entertaining; the detail and accuracy of his research is astounding and inspiring to me.

PBR:  Now, getting into your book, there is one part of Deeper Into the Void that may not add up for a reader, as I found it perplexing.  The Reconciliation only carried five, fairly benevolent crew members to Olympus-Mons, the red planet’s highest mountain range.  Given the great importance of this mission, saving the planet and the fact finding about the first team as to why they may have vanished already; was there a reason, other than perhaps financial, there was not a large military or security crew sent to protect this scientific team so they could concentrate on their work?  To me it seemed a little naïve, even for a corporation,not to send a larger protective force to protect this second team.

MAD: This is an excellent question; I am glad that you asked it.  The intentions of the corporation, Badlands Defense Group, which dispatched the Reconciliation, are not fully disclosed in Deeper Into the Void.  Badlands Defense Group sent this second small group out into the solar system under the assumption that no rival had the resources to tamper there.  After the first team’s disappearance, the corporation felt that the stresses of an alien environment probably caused the team to crack. The second team was selected after a carefully balanced set of personalities and backgrounds could be formed.  The interaction of these five individuals should have been sufficient to stave off insanity long enough to complete the mission.  If they had sent many more individuals, the team dynamic would be impossible to predict or understand, and the probable loss of life would have been staggering. The precautions taken by the corporation seem to them sufficient, yet they fall prey to that which no one can fully understand.

PBR:  You wrote this science fiction in script; was there a reason for that? Do you see this book becoming a movie one day?

MAD: The decision to write all of the dialogue for Deeper Into the Void in script format was the product of a long and difficult creative process. Initially, I attempted the dialogue in more conventional formats, but found that the length and number of speakers in many of the conversations made it difficult to follow.  As a reader, I have a difficult time reading dialogue in general, and I don’t finish some books I start as a result of the difficulty that I have following dialogue.  I did not want my readers to have to read back to try and figure out who the current speaker was, as I often have.  After several months of dialogue revisions, I decided that the script format was easiest for me to follow.  If it is easier for me to follow, I can only assume that there is a group of readers that may also enjoy it.

That being said, I could imagine a motion picture based on this story. It would be interesting to see how someone might interpret the delusion, hallucination and anxiety which permeate the various sub-plots in the book.

PBR:  The ending of your book leaves a reader wanting more. Are you writing a sequel to Deeper Into the Void?  If so, when do you expect its publication?

MAD:  I am in the process of creating a sequel, which I hope to have published at the end of 2012.  I have yet to decide on a title for the upcoming novel, but I can tell you that the reader will have an opportunity to confront many of the malicious forces that were presented in Deeper Into the Void. Ultimately, I intend to create a prequel to this series as well; hopefully the prequel will be released in 2013. I also have plans for further books about Badlands Defense Group and their dealings, whether they be for virtue or vice, in the convoluted and torn world of the future.

PBR:  This has been very interesting, and we all wish you the very best of success with your new book.