Genre:
Science Fiction/Fantasy
Hometown:
Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri in the Tower Grove area. 1986 graduate of Collinsville High School in Collinsville, Illinois on the Metro-East side of the river.
Home on the web
Official Website of Mars Rising by Mark David Major at http://www.thesovereignty.com/
Facebook Fan Page of Mars Rising at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mars-Rising/228990690455278
Twitter @markdmajor
Past material:
Mars Rising is my debut novel. I’m also the playwright of The Persistence of Memory, which was performed for a short 1992 run in the St. Louis area. I have also been previously published in several different venues including academia, professional journals, and poetry magazines as well as newspaper articles for more than twenty years. Most recently, my poem “Purchased Inertia” appeared in the February 2011 issue of The View From Here Magazine. My poems have also appeared in the anthologies On the Wings of Pegasus, Patterns of Life, Visions, and Whispers as well as the German e-journal, Poems Niederngasse. Several of my telepoems are available for viewing on the Official Sovereignty Channel on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialSovereignty.
Current project:
I am currently working on several book projects. The Persistence of Memory and Other Plays is an updated and revised collection of three plays (The Persistence of Memory, The Truth of Glances, and Song of My Childhood) that I originally wrote in the early 1990s. It should be available in print and eBook in Spring 2012. I have also started collaborating with an artist on a graphic novel of Mars Rising, which I will work on simultaneously while I’m writing the sequel, Mars Ascending. Both should be available in print and eBook sometime in 2013. Finally, I am collaborating with Julia Starr Sanford on an architecture book about her design philosophy and projects, which should be available in Summer 2012.
Places where books are available for purchases:
Mars Rising is available in print from CreateSpace at https://www.createspace.com/3640943 as well as from Amazon and other online retailers. The Kindle eBook is available from the Kindle Store/Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005JPA9AW. Mars Rising is also available from the Kindle Store/Amazon in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. The NOOK Book is available from Barnes & Noble at http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/e/2940013012301.
Interview questions
How did you get your start in writing?
When I was in high school and started writing science fiction stories. However, I do not think the title “writer” officially applied until my play, The Persistence of Memory, was performed for a short 1992 run in the St. Louis area. At that point, the label could not be avoided. However, my career has been incredibly diverse because so many things fascinate me: architecture and urban planning, history and politics, academia and business, etc. The common thread running throughout my career has been my ability to write.
Who are your biggest influences?
Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy, Frank Herbert’s Dune Series, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings would be the first influences that come to mind.
What is your biggest inspiration when creating?
It could be anything but I have found that history is an inexhaustible source of ideas, taking historical people/events and re-imagining it in an entirely different setting. Of course, a writer can also never go wrong by stealing from William Shakespeare.
Could you give us the details of your current project?
There’s plenty of sex, plots and betrayals in Mars Rising for most readers. The book blurb is below:
In our distant future, a tale of things past… Humanity is isolated in its corner of the universe. The Sovereignty is an oligarchy ruling the planets and outposts in our solar system. It has endured for 1,000 years. But the foundations of its society are crumbling, eaten away by corruption, excess, and personal ambition. A struggle for dominion of the Sovereignty leads to the ascension of supreme power for one whose eventual fall will plunge the Sovereignty into chaos and civil war. Narrated from the perspective of a historian looking back on events that occurred many years ago, Mars Rising blends together the story and history of a distant future in a gripping drama that chronicles the epic people and events, plots and betrayals, instigating the fall of the Sovereignty and the rise of an Empire. Mars Rising is a fast-paced, character-driven political thriller in the science fiction setting of our future.
What is the next goal you would like to achieve with your writing?
The biggest goal is to complete the planned five-book series and companion graphic novels, of which Mars Rising is the first novel. Realistically, I anticipate the entire project from start to finish will take ten years to complete.
Final four (questions we ask all interviewees)
When the zombies take over the world where will you be?
Step One: Carefully maneuver myself to the nearest police station or arms retailer to secure plenty of weapons. Step Two: Rescue as many fair maidens as I can from the zombie menace. Step Three: Take myself and the maidens somewhere safe to re-populate a new society. Alternatively, I would dead in the first wave. Either way, my worries should be minimal.
Jedi, Ninja, vampire, were-wolf, pirate, fairy or Spartan?
Is there any debate? Jedi, of course though I would probably end up being a Sith in the long run. Jedi don’t even take a salary for all their good deeds and the celibate lifestyle would be my ultimate doom.
What one piece of art, be it music, book, film or picture, do you think people must experience before they die?
Leonardo di Vinci’s Madonna on the Rocks; the one in the National Galley in London, not the one in the Louvre in Paris or Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle of operas (The Rheingold, The Valkyrie, Siegfried, and Twilight of the Gods). I’ve only seen the New York Metropolitan Opera’s televised broadcast of the operas but I fully intended to see a live performances of the operas before I die. I did have the opportunity to see the Royal Opera’s production of the Ring Cycle in London but the ticket prices were criminal! For a book, Tolkien’s The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings is a must- read, of course. Film? The Empire Strikes Back.
Give one fact that most people would not believe about you?
Once upon a time, I jumped from a 4-5-story height off a highway bridge into a lake in the middle of night for a girl. It was worth it for the thrill. However, the girl turned out to not be worth it at all so that was disappointing. She was really just unstable after all and I could have been killed. Fortunately, I survived the jump… and the girl (but just barely).
