Ian Lewis prefers not to be bound by a particular genre.
Though the inspiration for his work varies, it often finds roots in something
he dreamt. He strives for a gritty realism and maintains an interest in the
humanity of his characters. His hope is that readers find themselves haunted by
his stories in the sense that the narrative sticks with them long after they've
finished reading, leaving them with a subtle restlessness for more. Mr. Lewis is the author of The Camaro
Murders, Lady in Flames, and Power in
the Hands of One, all novellas. His first full length novel, Godspeed, Carry My Bullet, was released
in April of 2016. He has been writing since 2002.
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Bobby Clyne has nothing to lose. Two illegitimate
governments have taken the place of the fallen United
States: The Directorate in the East and the
United States Valiant in the West. And he's just learned that a man who once
terrorized his family as a low-ranking member of the Military Police is set to
become the Grand Marshall of the Ohio Region. Armed with his father's Dragunov
sniper rifle, Bobby embarks on a mission of revenge with consequences far more
reaching than his personal vendetta.
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- Godspeed, Carry My Bullet is available at Amazon.
- Pick up your copy at Barnes & Noble.
Tell us a little about
yourself.
By day, I work for a software
company, but that just pays the bills. I have a compulsion to write, and every
scrap of free time I get, I’m writing. I would write full-time I could. I’ve
released three novellas since 2009: The
Camaro Murders, Lady in Flames,
and Power in the Hands of One. My
first novel, Godspeed, Carry My Bullet,
was released this year. The novellas are all available through Untreed Reads
whereas the novel is my first attempt at self-publishing.
Give us a brief overview of
your previous releases.
The
Camaro Murders is sort of a murder mystery with a supernatural
twist. It’s told from four different first-person points of view, one from
beyond the grave. The narrative is told out of order from a chronology point of
view, but in the order that the reader should read it. It was once compared to
Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying.” I don’t know whether that’s a compliment—there are
many fans of that book, but I couldn’t get through it myself. At any rate, I
wrote this one for selfish reasons. I wanted to write something that I thought
I’d find engaging as a reader. Sure, I wanted others to like it just as much as
me, but I never thought it would get picked up because it was so unorthodox.
It’s still probably my favorite thing I’ve written.
Lady
in Flames sees the return of the Driver, the ghostly character
introduced in The Camaro Murders.
This story is once again told from multiple first-person points of view, but
it’s told in order this time, and the narrative exhibits more of a storytelling
quality, I think. The Driver finds himself mixed up in the desperation of a
small, economically depressed town. His sense of self-righteousness causes him
to intervene in the lives of the people in the town whom he deems as “good.”
It’s sort of a character development study in the sense that it lays the
groundwork for what will become the Driver’s “besetting sin” in future books.
Power
in the Hands of One was written to pay homage to shows like Voltron
and the Big O. I started out with a simple idea: write a giant robot story. As
fantastic as that sounds, my tendency to keep things down-to-earth prompted me
to place the story in present day and keep as much of it as I could grounded in
a semblance of current technology. The pace of this story was ratcheted up so
that right from the beginning, you’re flying through it. An interesting side
note: as I began to examine Troy (the
main character) and his motives, the story turned into a subtle commentary on
moral relativism. The idea was that no one really believes that right and wrong
are relative. As William Lane Craig aptly points out, no one would bother
reading the back of the Aspirin bottle if that were the case. When pressed,
nearly everyone will admit to some sort of absolute. This becomes evident when Troy, after
much protestation, relents and gets involved in the struggle between the
story’s two antagonists: a right-wing extremist group and the scientific elite.
Can you tell us about your most
recent release?
Godspeed,
Carry My Bullet is part thriller, part action/adventure story.
It’s the first of a two-book series that follows an alternate history. The
premise is that the recession of 2008 gets so bad that the United
States sees full economic collapse.
Banks fail, infrastructure is disrupted, riots and looting ensue, and
government officials are assassinated. Fast forward to 2013 where the book
begins, and the reader sees the government has split into the Directorate in
the East and the United States Valiant in the West. The narrative follows
several different points of view: a would-be assassin nursing wounds from the
past, a nomadic survivalist trying to forge his own path, a single mother
struggling amidst financial distress, a novice undercover operative working to
restore Constitutional government, and an itinerant preacher turned vigilante
tracking a predator who has kidnapped a young girl. Their stories interweave in
unexpected ways and keep the reader turning the page. Stylistically, it’s a
departure from my previous work in that it’s a bit more accessible and
mass-market. I didn’t do anything experimental with the format like I did with The Camaro Murders. Though I wouldn’t
describe it as formulaic genre fiction either—I think the characters are
stronger than what you’d get in a run-of-the-mill thriller.
Of all your characters, which
one is your favorite? Why?
I like the Driver the best (The Camaro Murders and Lady in Flames). He’s brooding and
introspective, and very much a loner. I think he feels like no one really
understands him, and that it’s up to him to do something about the evil he sees
day in and day out. Anyone who’s honest with themselves would likely identify
with him because his weakness and failures are all rooted in his noble
intentions. There’s often something there in the beginning that starts out as
good, but gets twisted and corrupted and made to serve our selfish
impulses—some gift we’ve been given that we use the wrong way.
What projects are you currently
working on?
I’m currently writing the
sequel to Godspeed, Carry My Bullet.
If all goes well, it will be available in 2018. Just this year I started doing
some ghost writing for a new Science Fiction series. This slows down the
writing process for my own stuff, but keeps me creative and prolific. I also
have a completed (albeit short) novel that will stand as the third entry in the
loose series that features the Driver from The
Camaro Murders and Lady in Flames.
I hope to release that in 2017.
What advice would you offer to
new or aspiring authors?
First and foremost, I would
suggest he or she join a critique group. This has been the single most helpful
thing I’ve done as an author. Active participation in such a group not only
helps improve your writing, but it serves as motivation to keep writing because
you’re surrounded by like-minded individuals.
I would also recommend
outlining one’s novel before starting to write. You can get away with pure
organic story development with short stories, but anything of length will
greatly benefit from an outline. It doesn’t have to be anything that involved
either. Writing a paragraph for each chapter will suffice. Not only does an
outline keep you on track with the plot and character development, but it gets
you over the hump of the first few chapters. I don’t know how many aspiring
writers have told me that they sat down to write a novel and either couldn’t
get past the first few chapters, or found that their idea only filled the first
fifty pages.
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