INTERVIEW: Bryon Vaughn on NEUROGARDEN

Do you ever wish you were someone else? Who?

I’ve spent so much time in my skin that the question is almost inconceivable. I can honestly say that I haven’t wished to be somebody else, but that’s not to say that I haven’t wished for some of what another has going for them. I wish I wrote like Clive Barker, or Douglas Adams, or James Joyce. I wish I looked like Brad Pitt, or George Clooney. I wish I had Bill Gates’ money. I wish I had the patience and grace of Mother Theresa, and the brains of Albert Einstein. I wish I had the soul of Maya Angelou.

What did you do on your last birthday?

I’m very much the kind of person that would love to let my birthdays pass without fanfare or notice, though there are people around me that insist on thwarting that at every opportunity. Funny story about this last birthday: My wife made a reservation for the family to eat at our favorite Yakiniku restaurant in Midtown Manhattan days in advance. My son, in town from California, and my daughter who also lived in New York at the time, joined my wife and me for what was supposed to be a rollicking evening of sake and grilled meat. Unfortunately, they lost our reservation and the wait was going to be around two hours. We ended up walking to the local Irish pub and I had the best shepherd’s pie since visiting Dublin nearly six years ago.

What part of the writing process do you dread?

The blank page is the most dreaded part of writing for me. Getting started is the hardest part, but once the floodgates are opened the words come spilling out with a force that is difficult to control. After getting past the beginning, I would say the next part that I dread is editing that stream of words into something that people would actually want to read. Deleting entire chapters that seemed so perfect in the moment, but just don’t fit the story as it evolved, can be so painful.

Do you ever suffer from writer’s block? If so, what do you do about it?

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. I would say I was blocked for the last twenty years. Not actively, staring at the page, blocked, but I didn’t have a story that needed to be told. Life got in the way, as it does, but once the idea for my latest work came to me, I was right back in the flow that I left way back in the day and it was a welcome change of pace.

I wouldn’t recommend to other writers to sit back and wait twenty years for an idea to present itself like I did. My best advice would be to find your story and start writing it down. Get those wheels turning and something good will come from it.

Tell us about your latest release.

Neurogarden is a strange amalgamation of science fiction, action and adventure, and a suspenseful techno-thriller set in modern day New York City. The technology is well within the capabilities of our current world, though there are some sinister details that would certainly push the boundaries of acceptable science. In our current age of questionable ethics, greed, and the ever-increasing dependence on technology for every aspect of our lives, Neurogarden will make you think about how much you really need all of the tech that you so graciously invite into your home.

Where can you run when there is no place to hide?

Brenna Patrick is a brilliant technologist specializing in neural-cognitive functions and AI. She has cracked the code to solve one of the most troublesome problems in the field, and turned that into the multi-billion dollar NeuralTech Corporation.

Working quietly with the U.S. Department of Defense, NeuralTech is poised to leapfrog the competition with a revolutionary system for tracking people, starting with the world’s most wanted terrorists. But there are only so many terrorists in the world, so who’s next?

When a pair of Columbia graduate students, Jenny and Leo, stumble on the dark secret of NeuralTech’s success, it kicks off a tense game of cat and mouse. As they fight to defeat the powerful forces arrayed against them, nothing less than the fate of humanity hangs in the balance…

NEUROGARDEN is a roller-coaster ride of a thriller, one that will have readers pondering the nature of memory, and of reality, long after they’ve read the last page.

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Ever since reading Douglas Adams back in my formative years, I have had an interesting relationship with humor, science fiction, and technology. My first computer was a TI-99/4A, so yeah, I’m old, but only until scientists have cracked the code on transplanting our brains into shiny new vessels.

My body may be showing signs of wear, but I’m keeping my brain tight.

When I am not dreaming of far off worlds and writing, I am living a semi-normal life working in New York City, and watching movies with my wife and her spastic cat, Moss.