Stephen H. King Q&A and synopsis of soon to be released "Cataclysm"

"Cataclysm"is set to be released November 23rd,here is the synopsis and author Q&A:

The world is rebooted from its technology foundation into a mythical existence controlled by powerful flows of elemental magic as small pockets of humans scramble to live through the resulting cataclysmic disaster.  Crystal, one of those scrambling humans, survives only through the surprising powers of her husband, who teleports the family to safety.

When it turns out that he's actually Mars, the God of War, she struggles to figure out what it means to be the wife of a god.  More to the point, what does it mean to be Mrs. Of War?  As she comes to grips with her new reality, she suffers a series of jealous encounters with Sorscha, a shape-shifting dragon and her husband's servant who spends most of her time in stunningly beautiful human form. 

Crystal soon learns, though, that her true enemy is Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love and her husband's ex-wife.  Worse, the goddess wants her husband back, and the game that unfolds takes Matt and Crystal to Atlantis and on an evening jaunt to Olympus, the dive bar for the gods, before ending in an epic battle for Crystal's life. 

Q&A:

Q: How long have you been writing?

A: I started early but took time off.  My first creative effort was as a very young boy; I wrote a 16-page booklet with notebook pages cut in half and then folded in half again.  The title was “Things I know about girls” and the pages were every bit as blank as they should have been.  My parents yelled at me for wasting paper, though.  A friend and I also started making a comic book back in middle school, but once again the critical reviews weren’t positive at all.   I was fairly noncreative for decades after that.  I finally succumbed to internal pressure and attempted a NaNoWriMo in 2007, failing miserably but at the same time succeeding in breaking out of the shell I’d encased myself into.  I didn’t actually start writing seriously till this year, though.

Q: How many of the characters in Cataclysm are based on real people?

A: Many of them.  I literally wrote some of my good friends into the book because I thought they belonged there.  Aphrodite, who ends up being the crazy lady antagonist, is actually a composite creation of several people.  Others are artistic renditions of reality, while some characters including Sorscha are entirely made up.  I think most authors, at least most newbies like me, fall back on known personalities to help make our characters interesting and believable. 

Q: Where do you get your ideas from?

A: All over the place, really.  The basic ideas for this story line came from way back when I was reading Piers Anthony’s Adept series.  The concept of alternate realities, one based on technology and one on magic, resonated with me as something I could believe in.  I gave it my own twist and created the world of Cataclysm: Return of the Gods. 

Q: Shapeshifting dragons isn’t new, either, is it?
A: No, it’s not a new concept at all.  Then again, brand new concepts bring with them the challenge in fantasy novels of having to explain themselves.   Readers accept a shapeshifting dragon almost by default.  Sorscha came to me early on as a foil to Crystal’s character, but she grew into much more than that as I developed her more. 

Q: Where did you get your ideas for the pantheon of Cataclysm from?

A:The story came first.  I wondered what it would be like to find yourself married to a god, and what kind of woman might find herself in that position.  Then I added what it would be like to find yourself in competition with a flawless humanoid dragon (Sorscha).  Then came the evil goddess, who overtime became Aphrodite.  Once I had two gods, I had to ask myself what the world would look like given the conditions I’d set up, and then I looked back through mythology to see where the various cultures’ views of pantheons and my story could be interwoven. 

Q: Are you a student of mythology, then?

A: Yes, I am, though only informally.  Someday, given time and money, I’d love to make a study of cultural mythology as it relates to sociology.  My research for this book taught me a great deal about how the Greeks, Romans, Vikings, and others crafted their god-personas to match their cultural ideologies.  I flipped it around in this book to deal with the question of whether the deities were actually guiding that, of course. 

Q: How long did the book take you to write?

A: A few months, if you’re referring to the first draft.  No, you probably know better, but I would have been before going through the process myself.  I prided myself in college on my ability to write a first draft that could earn a passing grade as a final submission.  Cataclysm, though, has been through months of revision and editing.  It’s been exhausting, but thrilling at the same time as I watched the story improve. 

Q: Now that this book is written, are there any more in you?

A: Oh, absolutely.  I have a second novel and a novella in the Return of the Gods series already drafted.  There are two more stories in that series in various stages.  I have some other projects on the back burners for other genres as well.  So much to write, so little time to do it!