Bio: Mike Berry was born in the Midlands of England and now lives in Brighton with his partner and two children. When not reading or writing he likes to go on camping trips/apocalypse survival simulations. He describes his main hobbies as 'sinister lounge music, drunken martial arts and arranging words in sequence.' He does not, to date, have a computer chip in his head although he would like to point out that he is 'trying to sort it out.' His recent ebook Xenoform is his first indie release.
Product description: Xenoform is a dark urban sci-fi set in the de-facto corpocracy of City Six. It is a brutal place, rife with crime and drugs. Gangs rule the streets of the Undercity and every private police corps is for sale. In this harsh environment an unprecedented threat is emerging. Whistler and her team of professional abductors start to see a new parasitic organ in the bodies of their victims. Debian, a young cyber-terrorist turned professional hacker, finds a terrifying computer virus in the databanks of an AI-research company. An unknown enemy is attacking the city, altering the populace into nightmarish creatures and decimating computer systems. It seems unstoppable. Can these unlikely heroes find a way to fight it? Or will City Six fall prey to an environmental and technological catastrophe on an unimaginable scale?
Q: What will e-readers like about your book?
Product description: Xenoform is a dark urban sci-fi set in the de-facto corpocracy of City Six. It is a brutal place, rife with crime and drugs. Gangs rule the streets of the Undercity and every private police corps is for sale. In this harsh environment an unprecedented threat is emerging. Whistler and her team of professional abductors start to see a new parasitic organ in the bodies of their victims. Debian, a young cyber-terrorist turned professional hacker, finds a terrifying computer virus in the databanks of an AI-research company. An unknown enemy is attacking the city, altering the populace into nightmarish creatures and decimating computer systems. It seems unstoppable. Can these unlikely heroes find a way to fight it? Or will City Six fall prey to an environmental and technological catastrophe on an unimaginable scale?
Q: What will e-readers like about your book?
A: Because of the subject matter (AI-viruses, computer technology) I think the book is more at home on an electronic format than a physical one. Some readers have enjoyed extracting and decoding sections of the book written in binary code! Xenoform plays on many themes that might be familiar to the modern urban dweller – gangs, drugs, music, clubs and real people, who don't necessarily fall into either the 'good' or the 'bad' category.
Q: Why did you go indie?
Q: Why did you go indie?
A: It is getting increasingly hard as a new author to be picked up by an agent/publisher and I only have so much time on my hands. I decided that my time would be better spent in actually pushing my book myself than in chasing agents!
Q: Who are your favorite authors in your genre?
Q: Who are your favorite authors in your genre?
A: Jeff Noon, Iain M Banks, Alastair Reynolds. Xenoform on amazon.com
I sympathize entirely with the choice not to waste time trying to get approval / acceptance from agents and publishers. Self-marketing is so much more self-reliant.
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