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Monday, March 17, 2014

Blog Tour: Anstractor Vestalia


Sci-Fi Romance

Date Published: 1/6/2014

: Born an outcast, raised a soldier, and chosen as a savior. Rafian VCA is humanity's only hope against a vicious new race of predators aimed at taking over the galaxy of Anstractor. In Anstractor: Vestalia, the first book by author Greg Dragon, the planet of Vestalia has been completely taken over by the Geralos. After losing their home and being forced into space, the revengeful Marines of Vestalia decide to take the fight back to the Geralos and win their planet back.



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Interview

What is the hardest part of writing your books?

The hardest part about writing Anstractor is that I am writing to represent a multiverse of several galaxies. Each galaxy has its planets, each planet has its continents and each continent has its people. There are hundreds of races, species, looks and customs. There are political differences, exotic technology, languages, all of which I need to keep track of and reference accurately throughout the various stories. Had I written a book about earth, or something we all know about historically then it would have been a bit easier since all I would have had to focus on was the characters and the situations.

The other hard part about my writing is that my genre for Anstractor is Science Fiction. With a genre that has pop culture influences like 1984, Star Wars and Star Trek you have to really be impressive or fans will put your book (and your person) into check with extreme prejudice.

I look at the times when I've gone full on nerd arguing over things in Star Wars with a fellow fan, or the realism of discovering Warp technology and it reminds me of how passionate we Sci-Fi fans are. Many of the older Sci-Fi novels that I have read impacted me in a way that made them treasured gems to me in literature and so I can honestly say that “Sci-Fi” is much more than a genre. This being said, if you get in good with a Sci-Fi fan base then you and your world are golden, but if you come at it half-assed or bad, then you will be burnt.

Knowing all of this has made me very timid with releasing Anstractor and I am by no means a timid guy.

What songs are most played on your Ipod?

It varies for me, like many men of my age my musical taste is all over the place but for writing specifically I go with anything that lacks vocals. When I worked on Anstractor I listened to a lot of Jazz, specifically John Coltrane. Writing many of the action scenes within the book was extremely easy over the rising and falling of a master saxophone player so he was my go-to artist.

There are a few chapters in there where Mozart’s Requiem or Chopin’s Nocturne was used to drown out the noise of the cafeteria where I sat typing away (since those can be loud without killing my eardrums).

Leisurely I am a Janelle Monae fanboi, so The Electric Lady has been on rotation in my car.

Do you have critique partners or beta readers?

Now I do! Ha, let me tell you something, when you tell people that you are working on a novel they treat it the same way they treat people who make New Year's resolutions. Basically, they assume that you will post about it all day on Facebook, won't commit, and will not finish. Authors can fix this of course by having enough nibbles and bites of the book to sell potential readers on but I didn't think to do that early enough.

After releasing segments of the book unto social media I got a lot of interested people but none of them wanted to risk committing to reading what could be some guy's poorly written attempt at sci-fi. Now that Anstractor is out and available for sale, the people in my life that have finished it have all come to me with interest in playing all sorts of roles in the next book. So the answer to this question (finally) is yes. I have a large blog following that supports much of what I write and I have a team at home that have read Anstractor and believe in me as an author.

What book are you reading now?

I am currently reading A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, it is a dirty Vodka Martini in book form, and I am having a blast reading it. Having been a fan of the Stanley Kubrick movie and Malcolm McDowell’s acting, I’ve always wanted to read the source material for their film and I am taking the time to do so now.

How did you start your writing career?

I've always written online (mostly for my blogs) but writing short stories was a personal love that I would share with only people in my life. Anstractor is my first novel at 80k+ words and it was born out of the pressure that a few people I know put on me to expand “The Chronicles of Raf” which was one of my more successful short stories.


Lady Hell Gate! This is a novella of sorts that comes out of the world of Anstractor. Helga ATE is a character in Anstractor that is a major influence on the protagonist. Readers that finished Anstractor will know who Lady Hell Gate is from her legend. This new book goes into detail about her rough childhood as a half-human/half-Cathanian and her ascension as one of the best fighter pilots in the galactic war. I am having a good time writing this book because of how complex the main character is and I am a bit worried that I may not be able to stop at 20k words. Beyond anything my goal is to have it finished and edited by this summer so that I can concentrate on Anstractor Book 2… I just can’t promise that it won’t be another 80k


Greg Dragon hails from sunny South Florida and has worked in the creative field for several years. He has written extensively on the web with articles on gaming and lifestyle improvement and continues to do so on several websites.


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