Altered Europa Interview: Murray Braun

Hello, and welcome to our latest series of author interviews.  The long anticipated anthology "Altered Europa" will be coming out April 2, 2017 (ORDER YOUR COPYHERE)!  In preparation for this grand release we'll be running interviews of various contributors.

Today I'm interviewing Murray Braun, who contributed Voyage.

MTI:  Starting off, could you tell our readers a little bit about yourself?

MURRAY BRAUN:  I practiced medicine for 29 years as a chid neurologist because it was intellectually stimulating. As an academic I wrote several papers on my research and articles in my field.

Six years into early retirement, I began to write short stories, attended workshops and classes at Grubb Street Writers, Boston, and worked with an editor (“doctoring”) online from Gotham Writers Workshop in NYC.

MTI:  Now, the next question I generally ask new contributors is this; what first compelled you to weave fiction, and what's your favorite type of story to write?

MB:  I was compelled to write fiction as a second generation Holocaust survivor, describing the experience of growing up in America after immigrating from Austria where I was born in a DP camp.  My favorite story to write turned out to be alternate history, although like most fiction writers I write semi-autobiographical pieces.

MTI:  If you had to pick just one author who has influenced or inspired you, who would it be?

MB:  If I had to pick one author who influenced or inspired me, it would be Philip Roth, an exemplary writer of the American Jewish experience in the 20th century. His 2004 “The Plot Against America” is as alternate as history can get.

MTI:  Your story, Voyage., appears in Altered Europa, an anthology devoted to alternate history and altered reality.  Tell us a little bit more about this contribution, particularly, how does it deviate from known history?

MB:  “Voyage” was conceived after months of research on the life of Columbus. It presents the discrepancies in his motives to sail to India at the time of the Inquisition, his navigational skills, and his apparent religiosity — all of which could be said to be alternate.

MTI:  If you could go back to any point in time and change any historical event to create an "altered" world, what would you choose to change?

MB:  If I could go back to any point in time and change any historical event to create an “altered” world, it would be the rise of Nazism and its aftermath.

MTI:  A truly popular point of divergence.  For further pondering, if a wormhole leading to an alternate reality suddenly appeared in front of you, would you dare to take the plunge and discover what awaits on the other side?

MB:  Like in “Alice in Wonderland,” if a wormhole leading to an alternate reality suddenly appeared in front of me, I would definitely dare to take the plunge and discover what awaits on the other side, knowing full well that the other side held both positive and negative realities.

MTI:  Finally, someone willing to take the plunge!  Shifting back to your writing, can you tell us a little about what you're working on right now?

MB:  Presently, I’m rewriting the story of a fallen angel who attempts to save the people of Jerusalem from a massacre at the hands of Antiochus Epiphanes and his Assyrian troops in 167 BC.

MTI:  Intriguing!  Other than your work appearing in Altered Europa, do you have any other stories being published in the near future?

MB:  I continue to submit stories, but have no other piece that is slated for publication in the near future.

MTI:  Get that fallen angel story polished up and hopefully that’ll see the light of day soon.  The premise sounds fascinating.

On a lighter note, have you watched any good tv lately?

MB:  Good TV watching abounds. “Westworld,” “Stranger Things,” and Philip Dick’s alternate history adapted for TV, “The Man in the High Castle,” come to mind.

MTI:  How about music?

MB:  I’ve focussed on listening to early music lately: classical music on period instruments, especially Corelli; Jazz from the 20’s to the 50’s.

MTI:  Can you name three movies that you could watch over and over again and not be bored?

MB: Hitchcock's “39 Steps,” “North by Northwest,” and “Rear Window” are movies I could watch repeatedly and not be bored.

MTI:  True classics.  Readers love samples.  Do you happen to have a story excerpt you'd like to share with us today?

MB:  Excerpt from “The German Tutor” (Poetica, 2015):

Graz, Austria

June, 1968

On a deceptively bright summer day, I walked from the tram stop to the address of my new tutor. Blushing poppies and pale wilting hydrangea were contrasted by dour boxwood hedges. The lush greenery veritably gushed but the lilacs already had begun to wither. The perfume of flow-ers mixed with the musty smell from nearby weed patches. The orderliness of yards and floral window boxes, admirable as they were, couldn’t but make me wonder if Jews killed after the Anschluss in 1938 lay beneath the well-tended gardens. A crazy thought, I know.

            If ever those who were murdered reached the Jewish cemetery, itself vandalized, trash-ed and left in ruin on Kristallnacht, those bodies must have been thrown into mass graves dug there and throughout Austria and Germany in the days following the “night of broken glass.”

            Coincidentally, on the way to the tutor I passed the forlorn Jewish cemetery. Astonished

to see toppled headstones still lay on untended grounds, I asked myself if enough Jews remain-ed to rectify such neglect?

            I walked past strewn broken headstones and squatted down in wildly growing grass in front of a still-standing grave marker with Katz in block letters and gestorben 1932 inscribed upon it. Engraved in Hebrew below the Star of David: “May God bless you, Yeverekhaka Adonai,” followed by Mein hertz roll in Israel zein, my heart is in Israel.

            What have you done, Ben? You’ve chosen the most inappropriate country in which to attend medical school. I considered turning around right then to leave Austria before my studies had even begun. Used to fleeing from those situations that were the slightest “threat” — a “second generation” trait no doubt — it was a means of self-defense from the outside world, rooted in my Holocaust survivor family’s paranoia.

            Of all the places, I went to Austria, my birth country, to study medicine after my rejection from American schools. Encouraged by another New Yorker in the third year at Graz, I adopted the university’s suggestion for success: live with an Austrian family and study German with a tutor.

             How could I have returned to the scene of the crime! Seemingly unaware that the re-mains of the Holocaust, veritably a conflagration, were both the foundation of my very existence and the source of my depression, I’d jumped at the opportunity to study medicine in a language that I knew after English-speaking schools said no. Thus, I had found myself in a country in which they spoke the language of the aggressor.

MTI:  Thank you for a fantastic interview!  Those who wish to check out Murray Braun’s story on Columbus, along with 20 other alternate histories, can pick up Altered Europa!

Altered Europa Interview: DJ Tyrer

Hello, and welcome to our latest series of author interviews.  The long anticipated anthology "Altered Europa" will be coming out on April 2, 2017 (ORDER YOUR COPY HERE)!  In preparation for this grand release we'll be running interviews of various contributors.

Today I'm interviewing DJ Tyrer, who contributed the solo story The Archers.

MTI:  Starting off, for those readers who haven't run into you before, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

DJ TYRER:  I’m the person behind the Atlantean Publishing small press, based in Southend-on-Sea in the UK, which has been going for two decades, and am a writer and poet who’s had work in a number of anthologies and magazines.

MTI:  Now, the next question I generally ask contributors is this; what first compelled you to weave fiction, and what's your favorite type of story to write?

DJT:  I’ve always done it and would be doing it even if I wasn’t being published. The bulk of my writing tends to be horror fiction, but my favourite is whatever I’m writing right now; I like to try my hand at different types of story, even if the result isn’t always successful.

MTI:  If you had to pick just one author who has influenced or inspired you, who would it be?

DJT:  That’s a tough one! Starting out, it would’ve been Tolkien. Then, Lovecraft became a major influence upon my work (and still is). But, probably it’s R.W. Chambers, whose Yellow Mythos has become a regular playground for my own writing, and the inspiration for my most successful fiction.

MTI:  Your story, The Archers., appears in Altered Europa, an anthology devoted to alternate history and altered reality.  Tell us a little bit more about this contribution, particularly, how does it deviate from known history?

DJT:  The story had its inception in the claim that, when the British railways moved from steam to diesel, the government stockpiled the steam engines in hidden tunnels for use in the event of nuclear war. The deviation from known history takes place during NATO's Able Archer military exercises. As in reality, the Soviets believe them to be the prelude to an attack on the Communist bloc – only, in my story, they launch a preemptive nuclear strike. While they nuke the NATO military forces in Europe, their attack on Britain is restricted to a high-altitude detonation causing an electromagnetic pulse that puts a lot of modern technology out of use. The arrival of a steam train is both the symbolic and literal start of a return to normality, although it proves a fraught journey.

MTI:  If you could go back to any point in time and change any historical event to create an "altered" world, what would you choose to change?

DJT:  To be honest, I don’t know if I would. There are certainly things I wish had been different, but having no way of knowing what the knock-on effects of any change would be, there’s no way to know if even the most positive-seeming changes wouldn’t lead to something worse. I doubt this is the best-possible world, but it could probably be a lot worse.

MTI:  For further pondering, if a wormhole leading to an alternate reality suddenly appeared in front of you, would you dare to take the plunge and discover what awaits on the other side?

DJT:  I suspect I might just wuss out, but curiosity might just get the better of me and pull me through!

MTI:  Shifting back to your writing, can you tell us a little about what you're working on right now?

DJT:  Primarily, I’m focused on stories and poetry for submission to anthologies, along with a ‘fictional non-fiction’ booklet for my Buxton University Press imprint. I’ve got a long list of projects I want to get to work on, but my plans to focus December and January on writing a novel were derailed by the discovery of a damp and mould problem that has had me spending an inordinate amount of time on drying and salvaging books. Still, I’ve learnt a surprising amount about mould and it’s inspired a couple of stories and poems, so it’s not all bad!

MTI:  Other than your work appearing in Altered Europa, do you have any other stories being published in the near future?

DJT:  I’ve just had a novella, Different Masks, published across two issues of The Yellow Sign magazine (Rainfall Books). I’ve got stories in forthcoming issues of Xnoybis, Dunhams Destroys Lovecraft and Frostfire Worlds, amongst others, and anthologies such as What Dwells Below (Sirens Call Publishing) and More Bizarro Than Bizarro (Bizarro Pulp Press).

MTI:  On a lighter note, have you watched any good tv lately?

DJT:  I don’t watch much TV, but I do enjoy Death In Paradise. In watch a lot of DVDs and recently discovered Big Love.

MTI:  Ah, yes, I've heard interesting things about Big Love.  So sad about Bill Paxton passing recently.  Now, how about music?

DJT:  Very little recent music has caught my attention (The Handsome Family and Meghan Trainor being the main exceptions), although my tastes cover a ridiculously-wide range.

MTI:  Can you name three movies that you could watch over and over again and not be bored?

DJT:  Murder By Death would be first, as it’s one I rewatch a lot. Addams Family Values, definitely. The third would probably be Franklyn, as it rewards rewatching as I seem to notice something new each time.

MTI:  Readers love samples.  Do you happen to have a story excerpt you'd like to share with us today?

A sudden jolt wrenched me awake. Despite the discomfort of the carriage, somehow I had managed to fall asleep on the wide red-leather seat, although my dreams, nebulous as they were, hadn’t been pleasant. I seldom remember the details of my dreams, but I could recall a shadowy figure looming over me with a bloody knife in hand. I shivered at the thought, despite the warmth of the day.

Clearly we had left the highway. From the way in which the carriage rattled along, lurching and bouncing, the road that we now took hadn’t been maintained in years. That meant we were likely drawing near to our destination, which was deep in the middle of nowhere.

I was on my own in the carriage, the coachman being seated up top. My parents had decided to send me away to stay with my cousins in the country due to the war. Father was in the army and Mother was doing some sort of important war work. Most of the servants had left to fight or work in the factories. From what I recalled, it had been said that the country was safer than the city. Not that I knew the details, it was also rather hazy. I couldn’t recall ever having met Camilla and Cassilda; something about their names made me think that they must be an obnoxious pair whom I would hate. I wasn’t looking forward to my stay.

Feeling curious, I leant my head and shoulders out of the carriage window. It was marvellous to feel the breeze on my face and whipping back my hair. We were passing a bright-yellow field of rape that looked amazing in the golden sunlight. The rape was the same colour as the dress I had on, my best, the one Father had given me for my birthday, and of the bow in my hair. It was also the colour of the house that came into view a moment later as we crested a hill. It was an oddly garish colour to paint an otherwise grand house. I had heard someone call it The Yellow House, but hadn’t really given any consideration to what the name implied. I didn’t particularly like the look of the building, although I couldn’t really pinpoint why.

My novella, The Yellow House, is available on the Kindle and in paperback from Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Yellow-House-D-J-Tyrer/dp/1490433295/

MTI:  A truly tempting sample!  Thank you for this insightful interview.  Those who wish to read more of Mr. Tyrer’s work can pick up a copy of Altered Europa!

Altered Europa Interview: Alex Shalenko

Hello, and welcome to our latest series of author interviews.  The long anticipated anthology "Altered Europa" will be coming out April 2, 2017 (PRE-ORDER PRINT OR KINDLE HERE), and in preparation for this grand release we'll be running interviews of various contributors.

               

Today I'm interviewing Alex Shalenko , who contributed The Great Bear to the collection.

MTI:  Starting off, could you tell our readers a little bit about yourself?

ALEX SHALENKO:  While I have only received my first publishing contract a few years ago, I have been writing for as long as I can remember, first in my native Russian language, then, upon moving to the United States, in English. I have always considered myself a storyteller, whether through fiction, music, or other creative endeavors, and I was fortunate enough to learn that others were interested in what I had to say. When not writing fiction, I am a heavy metal enthusiast, and have been a part of many musical projects over the years.

MTI: Now, the next question I generally ask new contributors is this; what first compelled you to weave fiction, and what's your favorite type of story to write?

AS: I have been an avid reader since early age, and my imagination was captured by the fantastic worlds from the very beginning. It was only natural that after a time, I wanted to craft my own stories. I remember the bittersweet feeling when the characters we grow attached to finish their story arcs, some in satisfying manner, others making us with that things turned out differently, others yet leaving on cliffhangers which may never be resolved. It was this desire to craft stories that continue on, the stories that reflect the world around me and spread out in unexpected directions, that prompted me to consider writing.

I have always had a soft spot for the darker side in fiction, from fantasy stories flirting with antihero archetypes to space operas dealing with rise and fall of civilizations. As such, my favorite kind of a story has realistic and typically flawed characters, ambiguity driven by all sides of human nature – both good and bad – and complex internal worlds for the characters who are neither paragons of virtue nor utterly irredeemable.

MTI:  If you had to pick just one author who has influenced or inspired you, who would it be?

AS: I would say that my love for darker fiction was heavily influenced by Michael Moorcock. The use of an antihero protagonist in considerably more grim settings than traditional heroic fantasy was, and still remains, a great source of inspiration in my writing, and is something I still enjoy to this day.

MTI:  Your story appears in Altered Europa, an anthology devoted to alternate history and altered reality.  Tell us a little bit more about this contribution, particularly, how does it deviate from known history?

AS: In our own world, the great space race of the 1950s and 1960s was a momentous development from scientific standpoint. It brought out the best in humanity, and proved that we could achieve amazing things if we remain focused on it. While our own space race was largely over with the American landing on the Moon, my story The Great Bear posits a question – what if the Soviet Union decided to continue the space race? What if USSR decided that they could not let the American achievement stand, and that they had to one-up it?

As a side note, the story was inspired by similarly-named album by a Colorado-based heavy metal band Silencer, a long-time friends of mine. I had an opportunity to participate in the making of the album, and the story came organically as a result of it.

MTI: If you could go back to any point in time and change any historical event to create an "altered" world, what would you choose to change?

AS: I have always been fascinated with late-era Rome and Byzantium, and a part of me wants to see what could have happened had some of the catastrophes which diminished Byzantium in our own history did not happen. Can you imagine what the world would have been like if Justinian’s plague did not happen, and if the reconquest of the West was a lasting success? Would the Dark Ages as we know them have been avoided with the Mediterranean remaining a Mare Nostrum, a hotbed of commerce, innovation, and travel?

MTI:  Now, for further pondering, if a wormhole leading to an alternate reality suddenly appeared in front of you, would you dare to take the plunge and discover what awaits on the other side?

AS:  Tough question! In the real world, having a family would make it a deal-breaker, but for a pure thought exercise, why not? Let’s have an adventure!

MTI:  Shifting back to your writing, can you tell us a little about what you're working on right now?

AS:  I am making progress on “Graveyard Empire”, my next grand space opera novel with a distinctly grim original setting. The great apex civilization has fallen, and all that remains is a decaying society only dimly aware of its origins, using irreplaceable ancient technology and dwindling corps of guardians to just barely stave off the depredations of the things waiting outside its borders. And then, it gets worse!

MTI:  Other than The Great Bear, appearing in Altered Europa, do you have any other stories being published in the near future?

AS:  At this time, I do not have any other scheduled publications, as I am focusing all my literary efforts on getting “Graveyard Empire” finished. Once it is done, hopefully in the near future, there will be plenty more stories to tell!

MTI:  On a lighter note, have you watched any good TV lately?

AS:  I am not much of a TV watcher in the best of times, though I do play a good amount of video games. Lately, it has been all about Final Fantasy series for me… does that count?

MTI:  How about music?

AS:  I don’t think there is a day when I don’t spend at least several hours listening to music. My preferences tend to be on the metal side of things, but the actual artists vary based on the mood. Lately, I have been listening to a lot of Candlemass, In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, and Falconer, but I am all over the map. In addition, I sing in several metal bands, so any time I am not writing fiction, I am usually writing, recording, or performing music!

MTI:  Can you name three movies that you could watch over and over again and not be bored?

AS:  Star Wars Episodes IV, V, and VI! In all seriousness though, throw in The Dark Knight and Die Hard, and you will have a holy trifecta of all that is entertaining, in various ways.

MTI:  Readers love samples.  Do you happen to have a story excerpt you'd like to share with us today? 

AS:  A little while ago, I wrote several novel-length works of fan-fiction, essentially reimagining a popular universe of Warhammer 40,000. Being that these works are not publishable, I thought they still presented a good sample of how I write, and tell entertaining stories. Interested? Check out the dedicated blog for the project:

http://twisthammer.blogspot.com

I will leave you with a short sample to give you an idea of what to expect.

*          *          *

Yusuf al-Malik was nine years old when he saw a god.

Slight breeze broke through the monotony of hot, humid Apellan summer, making the decorative flags on the roofs give an impression of movement. Garish banners covered the white brick walls, obscuring the rectangular designs which marched parallel to the cobbled stone of the streets. Wooden shutters kept the worst of the afternoon heat out of the windows, where curious eyes looked down onto the throughway, where thousands of Apellans waved to the militant procession passing by.

Aristocrats in their pristine citizen's togas and elaborate turbans decorated with flowery designs mingled next to beggars in filthy rags and courtesans braving the sun in their gaudy silks and garments showing off more than they hid. Excited children ran to and fro, chasing after mangy dogs or playing countless games of skill and imagination as their parents kept watchful eye over them. Wives and daughters of respectable citizens filled the balconies of two- and three-story houses, wreathed in flowery garlands, while their servants held on to the bouquets to be thrown down when the time came.

Today was the momentous day. Today, the Legion came home.

MTI:  Interesting sample.  Thank you for an exceptional interview, Alex.  Those who wish to read The Great Bear and 20 other exciting stories of alternate history can pick up Altered Europa!

Altered Europa Interview: Mike Jansen

Hello, and welcome to our latest series of author interviews.  The long anticipated anthology "Altered Europa" will be coming out on April 2, 2017 (ORDER HERE), and in preparation for this grand release we'll be running interviews of various contributors.

Today I'm interviewing Mike Jansen , who contributed The Fire Tulips to the collection. 

MTI:  Starting off, could you tell our readers a little bit about yourself?

MIKE JANSEN: I’ve been around for 47 years and most of that time I have been involved in writing and publishing. I started off in my native language, Dutch, but during the nineties I taught myself English and later honed my English skills to such an extent that I could write stories in English and get them published. My writing is varied, ranging from literary to whatever strange and wonderful stories I can come up with. I’ve won several Dutch literary prizes for best short story. In 2011 I debuted with my novel The Failing God, an epic dark fantasy.

MTI:  Now, the next question I generally ask new contributors is this; what first compelled you to weave fiction, and what's your favorite type of story to write?

MJ:  I was already used to writing material for some of the role-playing campaigns I held with friends. When one of them challenged me to participate in the biggest genre-award of the Netherlands, I accepted. I won the prize for best newcomer and the year after the prize itself.

My stories are diverse, depending on mood, interests or imagination. I prefer intelligent stories, sometimes with a philosophical point of view. For that I often do extensive research to get all the details just right. Sometimes that makes my stories difficult to read, but always interesting, with layers of meaning for those willing to read between the lines. So no favorite type, more a favorite style.

MTI:  If you had to pick just one author who has influenced or inspired you, who would it be?

MJ:  Hmm, difficult one. Going to take a bit of leeway here. When I was young a Dutch author named Tais Teng introduced me to alternate histories. Later on I found Glen Cook’s Black Company and Dread Empire series. Then, end of the last century, I discovered the writing of Iain M. Banks. These guys shaped my reading and writing.

MTI:  Your story, The Fire Tulips, appears in Altered Europa, an anthology devoted to alternate history and altered reality.  Tell us a little bit more about this contribution, particularly, how does it deviate from known history?

MJ:  There is a specific inflection point mentioned in the story. End of the 18^th and beginning of the 19^th century the power of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) had dwindled significantly. It was still a formidable, multinational trading company, however, its influence was vastly reduced when Napoleon invaded Holland. In this story that never happened. Additionally certain events further in the past never occurred. Britain never ruled the seas and never industrialized and the Spanish tried to conquer the New World, but were met by stiff resistance from the natives, while at home revolutions and invasions weakened the Spanish empire, leaving it struggling for its very existence. Interesting? Read The Fire Tulips and find out what else happened.

MTI:  If you could go back to any point in time and change any historical event to create an "altered" world, what would you choose to change?

MJ:  One point that always intrigued me was the death of Julius Caesar. What if that never happened? What would the world look like then? I really liked L. Sprague de Camp’s take on something similar in Lest Darkness Fall.

MTI:  Now, for further pondering, if a wormhole leading to an alternate reality suddenly appeared in front of you, would you dare to take the plunge and discover what awaits on the other side?

MJ:  Actually, I liked my previous timeline better…

MTI:  Shifting back to your writing, can you tell us a little about what you're working on right now?

MJ:  Well, there is the third novel in my epic dark fantasy series of which The Failing God was the first book. I’m always working on a few short stories simultaneously. And I have about a dozen book projects I’m trying to find time for.

MTI:  Other than The Fire Tulips appearing in Altered Europa, do you have any other stories being published in the near future?

MJ:  I’m pretty sure that getting published is ongoing business for me. I usually have a dozen or so stories out at various anthologies and magazines. In several languages also, not just English.

MTI:  On a lighter note, have you watched any good tv lately?

MJ:  Ha, I never watch TV. I might watch a movie, once in a while. And then mostly to indoctrinate… I mean educate, of course, my eldest daughter on the great movies of the last thirty years.

MTI:  How about music?

MJ:  Most of my fiction is written to music. I’ve recently done a few post-apocalyptic pieces that were written while listening to ‘Godspeed You Black Emperor!’ Dark fantasy I write with Howard Shore’s Lord of the Rings pieces or the album ‘Illusia’ by DarkLily in the background. My musical taste ranges from Clannad and Kate Bush to Billy Idol, Henry Rollins, Type O Negative and a bit louder to Metallica or more exotic stuff like Tengger Cavalry.

MTI:  Can you name three movies that you could watch over and over again and not be bored?

MJ:  Actually, yes, I can. I usually watch the Terminator movies once every two years. And Star Wars. Of course. And Lord of the Rings. There are others I really enjoy too, like the Resident Evil series, or Alien, but these first three I come back to regularly.

MTI:  Readers love samples.  Do you happen to have a story excerpt you'd like to share with us today?

MJ:  I have something better. They could look on Smashwords or iBooks or Google Playstore and find some of my free stories. Something for everyone: dark fantasy, alternate futures and cyberpunk.

MTI:  Sounds good to me!  Thank you for a great interview.  Those who wish to read Mike Jansen’s alternate history tale, along with 20 others, can pick up Altered Europa, coming in April 2017!

Altered Europa Interview: Ryan McCall

Hello, and welcome to our latest series of author interviews.  The long anticipated anthology "Altered Europa" will be coming out on April 2, 2017!  (Pre-order Altered Europa Here!)  In preparation for this grand release we'll be running interviews of various contributors.

MTI:  Today I'm interviewing Ryan McCall, who contributed Shaken, Shot, and Stirred, to the collection as well as Megali Hellas.

It has been 3 years since we did an interview.  Let's start off by telling our readers a little bit about yourself.

RYAN MCCALL:  I’ve been writing for a few years just as a part time thing. I had written one novel and sat on it for a few years until I decided to self-publish it on Amazon. After that initial book I made sure that I kept writing as a continual hobby.

MTI:  Your first story to appear in this collection is Shaken Shot and Stirred.  Tell us a little bit more about this contribution, particularly, how does it deviate from known history?

RM:  Essentially it’s a James Bond inspired spy story in a Soviet dominated Europe. I don’t state it in the story but the point of divergence is the Allies having a disaster on D-Day. This eventually led to the Soviets conquering everything the Germans had all the way to France. Thus the UK now sends spies to France in this different Cold War.

MTI:  Tell us a little bit about your other contribution, Megali Hellas.  What's the premise behind it?

RM:  In the simplest of words, a Greater Greece. I was inspired by a scenario I read about for Avalanche Press’s Third Reich board game where someone had asked about adding in a Byzantine Empire. Instead Avalanche Press created an enlarged Greek state that could be used. I was intrigued by the idea that a monkey bite had changed history so profoundly, so I removed that and allowed Alexander I of Greece to survive and win against the Turks and create a greater Greek state. The long term outcomes for the rest of the region are greatly affected as a result.

MTI:  Before Altered Europa, there was Altered America.  You had a story in that collection called Guns of the Green Mountains...

RM:  That one was quite fun to write. Of all the alternate history scenarios for America I think a divided America is the most interesting. Guns of the Green Mountains is a small scale story in what could be a fascinating world.

MTI:  If you could go back in time and change any historical element, which one would you alter?

RM:  Go back and have a conversation with Marx, get him to make it more about people than worshipping the idea of working class and revolution. I’m in favour of equality for everyone but his ideas were abused radically in the twentieth century.

MTI:  For further pondering, if a wormhole leading to an alternate reality suddenly appeared in front of you, would you dare to take the plunge and discover what awaits on the other side?

RM:  I’m too much of a pragmatist for that. I’d certainly love to study it and see what we can find out form a safe distance via robots or drones being sent through but I have too much of a life here to just drop at a whim.

MTI:  Shifting back to your writing, can you tell us a little about what you're working on right now?

RM:  I’m very slowly plodding through the early chapters of an Arthurian tale. I decided that most Arthurian stories I see keep the magic and supernatural out of it so I’m adding more in. In addition I’ve reversed the roles, so Arthur is a brutal tyrant and the Knights of the Round Table his overlord thugs.

MTI:  Intriguing.  Other than your work appearing in Altered Europa, do you have any other stories being published in the near future?

RM:  I self-published another alternate history, Cutting the Deck, last year. It’s more of a non-fiction style alternate history and shows what would happen if the roles of the communists and nationalists were reversed in the Chinese Civil War.

I have a few stories for some monster hunting anthologies waiting to be published but they are well overdue. Word is Amazon has upset the cart for anthologies for small presses due to the payment by page counts.

MTI:  I'm not sure about this payment by page count thing, but I'll be sure to look into it.  Rest assured, Martinus Publishing gets paid for every kindle or print copy actually sold.

On a lighter note, have you watched any good tv lately?

RM:  The Man in the High Castle is quite simply the best non-literate alternate history I have ever seen. They captured an alternate world so perfectly in this show. I also really like the TV adaption of The Expanse, based on the novels by James SA Corey.

MTI:  How about music?

RM:  Can’t say I follow any particular music. I just listen to whatever is on the radio usually.

MTI:  Can you name three movies that you've enjoyed watching in the past year?

Taken. I know it’s getting on, but for some reason I had never watched until recently. As for new films I liked, Captain America: Civil War and Sausage Party.

MTI:  Readers love samples.  Do you happen to have a story excerpt you'd like to share with us today?

RM:  This is an excerpt from Tyrants of the Round Table (working title for my Arthurian novel)

A quick and sharp whistle echoed through the trees. Mordred released the arrow he had been holding steady in his bow. It whizzed through the air with a remarkable accuracy and pierced the chest of the large buck he had been aiming at.

The deer went down in a crumpled heap. The sound of footsteps indicated his friend’s approach. Drest emerged from a thick clump of dark green bushes. He was in green and brown clothing that blended in with the forest colors. “Good shot” he said to Mordred as he walked over and clapped him on the back. Drest was a Pict and he had a thick accent, though Mordred had grown accustomed to it by now. He had lived all of his nineteen years in northern Lothian, along the border with Pictland and he had been friends with Drest since they had been ten years old.

Mordred had encountered him in the () Forest when he had gotten lost there. He had been scared and crying and had no idea where to go when Dress had found him. Despite his initial amusement at Mordred’s fear of being alone in the forest, he had helped him find his way back home. The had met up several more times in the forest and quickly become friends. Drest had eventually revealed that his father was none other than Talorc the current King of the Picts. He explained that the Pictish royalty didn’t coddle their young gently the way those in the south did. King’s didn’t inherit the right to rule, they had to win in it by displaying strength, courage and leadership. If Drest wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps he would have to do the same. So he developed his skills of tracking and hunting in the forest from a young age.

“Thanks” replied Mordred. The two teenage hunters moved towards their downed prey. They were of a similar height, but while Drest had blazing red hair, left to grow long, Mordred had short black hair. Drest was fat and thick-muscled all over his body; Mordred was thin, with lean muscle only in certain places.

Drest pulled the arrow out of the deer and inspected it. Deciding it was still usable he wiped the blood off on the ground and returned it to his quiver. It was actually quite ingenious-animal hides that had been stretched and hardened, then sewed together with hair, to form a cylindrical shape.

Mordred didn’t have a quiver or a bow. His mother wouldn’t allow him to have one, though she had let him train under a local smith in the use of a short sword, for self-defense. She always fusses too much thought Mordred. Maybe she needs to get out more.

“Come on help me with this” said Drest, snapping Mordred out of his thoughts. The Pict boy had broken a thin branch off a nearby tree and wanted to tie it to the deer’s feet so they could carry it.

Mordred bent down to help him. “You and your mother will be eating well for the next few days” said Drest.

“Don’t you want any?” asked Mordred. The buck was far too large for just him and his mother. Even if they shared it with the nearby village, there still enough that the meat would likely spoil before it could be finished.

“Aye. I’ll cut off some when we get back to your home. All’s I meant was that, you probably not used to eating as fine fare as this.” For the Picts, eating meat from a hunt was the finest way one could dine. Of course they didn’t have much in the way of farming, herbs or spices, so Mordred didn’t blame Drest for thinking this way. He didn’t bother correcting his friend. Once he had gotten him to sample taste of southern style-food and Drest had almost choked trying to spit out the taste.

Once the branch was attached they hoisted to their shoulders and started walking south through the forest. It was heavy, but not overtly so and they soon found a good pace.

As the sun started to set, the lowlight glinting between the tree-lines, they were almost halfway to the southern edge of the forest. The forest around them was quickly growing dark, so Drest lit up a torch. There were wolves in the forest and although both of them had swords to defend themselves, the fire from the torch would deter most animals from them. The wolves here did not roam in very large packs and Mordred was more worried about slipping while carrying the deer and injuring his foot.

He heard several howls from the east. That had definitely been wolves. They sounded to be a good distance off however, so Mordred and Drest didn’t try to move any faster. Then another howl split the air. This one was nothing like that of a wolf. It was deep and monstrous, Mordred had never heard anything like it before. The wolves could be heard giving off quick high-pitched yips and then the howl rang out again. The wolves were suddenly silent. One more monstrous howl rang out.

Mordred felt Drest stop and he had no choice but to stop as well, or drop the carcass. He looked back at his friend “What’s wrong?”

Drest’s face had a look Mordred had never seen on it before, not in all the time he had known him. He was afraid. Drest dropped his end of the carrying branch and put his hand on his sword hilt. “The Cù Sith” and he pulled his sword out of its sheathe.

Picts and their superstitions. Mordred had, of course heard of the Cù Sith. It was a legend that popped all over Britannia with small differences. The Barghest, the Black Shuck and the Gytrash. All of them centered around unnatural black dogs that would chase down, kill and devour anyone in their vicinity. The Pictish legend portrayed Cù Sith as a hound as large as a bull and a species of fey.

“Drest there’s no such thing as black dogs. There about as real as mermaids or trolls” replied Mordred. He wanted to get home. “It was probably just an alpha wolf or a bear.” Even as he said it, Mordred didn’t believe it. No wolf or bear could have made the noise they had heard.

Either way it didn’t convince Drest. He refused to pick up the carcass. “Three howls. Three howls it gives off. As the Cù Sith gets close its prey become overwhelmed with fear and cannot fight it off.” He looked at Mordred. “We must run as fast as we can. It will be headed this way.” He was completely serious.

Mordred didn’t move until Drest started pushing him. “Run Mordred. Now!” he insisted. Another terrible howl rang out, this time it was much closer. Mordred started running with Drest following close behind him.

The howl let out again. Whatever beast was making the noise was very close. The sound of the two of them running through the low-lying bushes and fallen logs made it hard to tell which direction exactly. Mordred ran as fast as he could. He may not have believed in the Cù Sith, but he knew the sound of a violent animal when he heard one.

The light from Drest’s torch gave him just enough vision to see where he was going, though he could easily miss a sudden slope in the ground. A long black log loomed in front of them. They didn’t have time to go around; Mordred could hear the sounds of the beast not far behind them.

MTI:  An excellent sample.  Thank you for sharing it!  People interested in reading Ryan's latest alternate history shorts can pick up Altered Europa!

Postcards of Tokyo's Imperial Hotel, Circa 1910

It has been years since I shared any of my old postcards, and it's about time I let a few more out there for public view.  Today, I'm giving you a glimpse of 4 cards I have of the Imperial Hotel, in Tokyo, Japan:

They're all black and white, unpainted.  The first one has a stain on it.

I'm not sure if there were any more than these 4 in the set, though this envelope might have contained a few more.

I'll start sharing more historical postcards soon.

Altered Europa Interview: Dave D'Alessio

Hello, and welcome to our latest series of author interviews.  The long anticipated anthology "Altered Europa" will be coming out on April 2, 2017.  (Read story tag-lines and pre-order the collection right here!).  In preparation for this grand release we'll be running interviews of various contributors.

MTI:  Today I'm interviewing Dave D'Alessio, who contributed The Twenty Year Reich.  It's been a while since we did an interview... 

DAVE D'ALESSIO:  Yeah. Hi, again!

MTI:  Indeed, I think the last time we did an interview was for the Veterans of the Future Wars anthology.  For those of our readers who haven't read our previous encounter, why not start off by telling us a little bit about yourself?

DD:  My bio says I’m an ex-industrial chemist, ex-TV engineer, and an ex-award-winning animator currently masquerading as a social scientist. Readers might remember me from The Prince Who Went Up a Hill, in VFW: Veterans of Future Wars. I’ve been in Daily Science Fiction and (evil laugh) Mad Scientist Journal, too.

MTI:  Your story, The Twenty Year Reich, appears in Altered Europa, an anthology devoted to alternate history and altered reality.  Tell us a little bit more about this contribution, particularly, how does it deviate from known history?

DD:  Well, it starts with Nazi Germany winning (for the most part) World War II. They’ve conquered the United Kingdom and pushed the Soviets back to the Urals. Then I rolled time forward to 1953. It’s my vision of what would have gone on about then.

MTI:  Were you at all inspired by Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle," which  imagines an alternate history where Nazi Germany was victorious in WWII?

DD:  I hate to say it, but no. I’ve read The Man in High Castle but haven’t seen the TV series yet, although my friends really like it. It’s a great story at a couple levels, not just for its alternative history but also for its deep game psychologically, but I don’t see the Axis countries as having the wherewithal to pull off conquering America.

I was more inspired by these conspiracy theories about Hitler escaping at the end of the war, and going to live in South America. I think they’re a crock. My original idea – readers can have this one for free – was about Hitler in the U-Boat, underwater with the crew for months on end as they try to sneak through to Argentina. Let’s see: he was a vegetarian they’d have to feed, and his stomach problems made him chronically flatulent. He was a junkie who needed a shot of speed to get started in the morning and a downer to get his head down at night (and there was a lot of coke in his other meds), so he probably would have been going through about three kinds of withdrawal. And his Parkinson’s was coming out. It would have been a psycho-horror situation, and not my cup of tea as a writer. So instead I just let him win the war.

MTI:  I believe you made the right writing choice (though that crazy, drug-deprived Hitler under the sea could be something to explore someday).

Moving on, if you could go back to any point in time and change any historical event to create an "altered" world, what would you choose to change?

DD:  I don’t think I want to touch that one. I think changing the past falls under the Law of Unintended Consequences…the unintended consequences tend to be worse than what you meant to do. I’m heavily influenced by Bradbury’s A Sound of Thunder and William Tenn’s Brooklyn Project on the topic of changing the past. They got chaos theory before chaos theory was cool.

That’s not to say that I think this is the best of all possible worlds. I can imagine better worlds…that’s my job as a writer. But what I don’t know is how to make them come about by changing some historical event.

MTI:  For further pondering, if a wormhole leading to an alternate reality suddenly appeared in front of you, would you dare to take the plunge and discover what awaits on the other side?

DD:  Probably not. I’d be the schlub that John Carter, Warlord of Mars, throws to the Tharks so he can make a getaway with Dejah Thoris.

MTI:  Gotta love a good Edgar Rice Burroughs reference!  Shifting back to your writing, can you tell us a little about what you're working on right now?

DD:  I’m looking for a publisher for my pair of space light operas, The Curse of the Rhubidium Rhuby and The Royal High Inquisitor. I call them space light operas because they were very loosely inspired by Gilbert and Sullivan. That’s not really writing, but as many of my mentors have pointed out, these days marketing is half the writing business, so that’s the half taking priority for me right now.

Writing-wise, I’m focusing more on short fiction for the moment. I like to work on shorter things in between novels because they force me to focus my thinking more. I’ll get back to novels in the summer, with a third space light opera getting ready to pop out of the keyboard.

MTI:  Other than your work appearing in Altered Europa, do you have any other stories being published in the near future?

DD:  I’m not sure when it’s coming out, but the next issue of Phobos will have my story One Grand Day in it. It’s alt-history, too. I’ve written a number of stories set in a world where Cornwallis put down the American Rebellion in 1777, and as a consequence the major European empires never fell, and this is one of them. Here’s the plot: Albert Einstein saves the day with a well-placed foot.

I also self-published a novel, The Yak Butter Diaries, on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Program. It’s a humorous fantasy, not like what I usually write, so I figured it could stand alone.

MTI:  On a lighter note, have you watched any good tv lately?

DD:  One of my friends put me onto Cowboy Bebop. That was pretty darned cool, so I’ve been watching a lot of anime recently. The neat thing about anime is that they tend to be made in short runs of around twelve or twenty-four episodes, so there’s a lot of variety between them.

I just finished a popular series called Kill la Kill, which to me read as very subversive. It started out with a lot of the usual silliness of scantily clad school girls and rotten jokes, but across the run they slowly took it darker and deeper, and twisted the plot completely out of shape. Very clever. As an old animator myself it was clear that the director had studied Tex Avery’s films, too. Great timing.

I have Samurai Champloo, by the same team as Bebop, in the DVD player right now, rewatching it.

MTI:  How about music?

DD:  Got the new Stones CD. Stones plus blues? What’s not to like?

MTI:  Indeed, and can you name three movies that you could watch over and over again and not be bored?

DD:  I’ll go four, the three of Sergio Leone’s Man With No Name trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly) plus the film that Leone based Fistful on, Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo. I’ve seen them all at least a dozen times. There’s something about the balance of good and evil in them, where it seems that the “good” guys aren’t good so much as least bad, that makes them seem more real than even really good older westerns like She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.

The basic concept of Yojimbo/Fistful, the “good” guy playing two bad sides against one another, was remade again as Last Man Standing. There’s got to be a good space opera in it, too.

MTI:  Readers love samples.  Do you happen to have a story excerpt you'd like to share with us today?

DD:  From The Yak Butter Diaries:


Our hero, Tamosan Acorn, has found himself at the top of the world, where lives a little old man who believes that he makes the sun go around.

"Know what's happening?" the old man said. "Half the world in light and half in dark." He spread his arms wide, toward the sunrise in one direction and the sunset in the other. "Everyone back there," he jerked his head toward the dark side, "all they know is they get a few more minutes of sleep afore the cock crows, hee hee! But them as is in light, they're saying, 'What's wrong with the sun? Have the gods forsaken us? Has the chariot stopped running? Has the burning ball stopped flapping its wings?"

Tamosan looked carefully at the line he had drawn in the dirt. It seemed to him as though it was still pointing precisely at where they thought the sun was.

"Wailing and lamentations, hee hee," the old man said. "They will be rending their clothes and making sacrifices! They will be running to their priests and wisemen and shamans and begging for answers, hee hee!"

It still looked to Tamosan as though the sun had not moved. "Is this wise?" he asked the old man. But 'wise' was not the word he was looking for. "Is this kind?"

The old man put the pan back on the fire. Tamosan was sure of it now; the pan was no emptier. "'Kind'?" the old man asked. "Where have you learned that life is kind? What fool would tell you that, hee hee?"

Tamosan shook his head. "It is not life that is kind," he said. "I think that it is people who choose to be kind." 

MTI: Fantastic excerpt.  So, that just about does it for our interview today.  Thank you, Dave, for yet another fine talk!  Readers who want to check out more of his work can order a copy of Altered Europa.