Writer’s Talking with E.B. Brooks

Today, we are interviewing E.B. Brooks the author of Emissary. 

(if you would like to be featured in Writers Talking contact us)

 

How long have you been writing?

I’ve been writing (creatively) since 2014. My wife is also an indie author, and her work drafting inspired me to try my hand at it. I’d recently watched Sword Art Online, and I got to wondering what kind of situation would drive people into game worlds for life. Then I thought about what the people left behind would make of the situation, and I had the basic idea for Emissary.

 

What advice would you give a new writer just starting out?

Be patient. Whether you’re a plotter or a pantster, whether you’ve got a demanding day job or all the time in the world, give yourself the room to develop your stories. There are days you’ll be on fire and can’t stop writing, and there’ll be days (or longer) where you can’t muster the focus or energy to even look at your work. Be patient.

Also, one of the things I’m happiest about with my series was that I drafted out each book before going back to edit the first one. That gave me many, many opportunities to turn plot holes into plot twists.

 

Do you have any tattoos?  Where? When did you get it/them? Where are they on your body?

Nope! No tattoos, or piercings. Just a constellation of moles and freckles, along with the remnants of a piece of gravel in my arm from a bicycle crash when I was a kid.

 

Is your life anything like it was two years ago?

Yes and no, naturally. Probably the biggest change has been the rotation of pets. Since 2021, our family has seen three cats and one dog cross the rainbow bridge. (We’d lost a cat in 2020 as well.) It’s always hard, no matter how familiar the routine gets. Each loved one is different, and special, and everyone in the homestead feels their absence. But we’ve also adopted two more dogs and four more cats (five, if I reach back to 2020). This July, our oldest remaining cat passed away, and we realized he was the only one to have known all our pets throughout his life. Now we have the tiny toons generation settling in, and with them come all the pleasures and pains of young pet care again.

 

Tell us something about your newest release that is NOT in the blurb.
This rerelease of Emissary is full of small changes that add up to a substantial tonal shift, but one thing that remains is Ewan’s love of music. He still plays his guitar to help Tree get to sleep, and he still “stinks up the halls” in the Centre with the Veridian birthday song.

 

Emissary

by E.B. Brooks
GENRE: Science Fiction

Two Worlds. One Future.

Ewan O’Meara is no stranger to death: in recent months, he’s found his way to limbo at least once per week, much to his parents’ concern. It’s a necessary price for getting experience to become the greatest adventurer his homeland of Veridor has ever known, but the overbearing Veridian Church has him pinned down, soaking him for the penance gold to unlock his stats each time he respawns. And because the Church’s ancient war put an end to both the godlike Gems and the epic quests they once bestowed, Ewan has no better alternative.

That is, until he encounters a young woman fleeing arrest from the Church’s soldiers. At first glance, Treanna Rothchild needs it: she’s clueless about Veridian life. But she has other skills that defy Ewan’s understanding, and she knows things. Unsettling, seditious things the Church wants kept secret at any cost.

And she’s in Veridor to raise an army, to fight an enemy only she can see.

Risking both life and soul, Ewan follows Treanna where no Veridian has ever been and there is no respawning. But for him to have a chance at making a real difference in the strange, harsh world she reveals to him, he must first come to terms with it. Especially as he and Treanna discover how much it has in common with Veridor—and how much they depend on each other to survive.

New-adult science fiction, wrapped in gaming and fantasy around a hopepunk core, Emissary is an immersive, thought-provoking adventure with a little teen romance and a lot of heart.

 

Excerpt

 

Tree broke contact, then looked at the others. “I’m taking command. Samuel, move Nathan to cover by the lift. Put his feet up, and keep pressure on that wound. We’ll throw down a kit once we can.”

Sam hesitated but nodded, then knelt to scoop Nathan up.

“Love,” Tree said, locking hard, frightened eyes on Ewan. “You’re with me. Loot the corpses. We’ll disguise ourselves, then retake the camel and retreat.”

“What about Gabe and Vincent?”

“They’ll escape with us, if they’re quick enough.”

Ewan swallowed. “Yes, ma’am.”

She darted off to one of the bodies, and he stepped over to the robed figure he’d impaled, thinking a bloody gash in his outfit might be less of a giveaway than a giant frapping hole. But when he pulled the robes free, he knew with a sickened jolt that blood was the least of the differences in appearance.

The man’s copper-skinned face was scarred all over in what was obviously a deliberate, artistic pattern, as though he’d mistaken a knife for a pen. His nose and ears were pierced through with bits of metal, with hair and beard braided and bound in wire that could have come from the ruin’s walls. His muscles were lean and hard, far better fed than should have been possible for someone from the Wastes. Even in death he had a feral air about him, a lingering lethal intent that had Ewan half expecting him to leap out of the sands again.

His hand still clutched a gun, hardly bigger than a tablet. Ewan reached for it, hesitated, and left it to retrieve his thrown sword.

 

About the Author

 

E.B. Brooks lives in the southeastern USA, where he splits his time between writing, research, and homesteading. He enjoys building fictional worlds, real houses, and landscape models, but he’s most at home with his wife and children, and their many, many pets.

Website – YouTube – GoodReads – The StoryGraph – Bookbub – Amazon

 

 

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