RoguesAngels: Rogue's Angels Present: Murder by Munchausen Trilogy by M.T. Bass

Please welcome M.T. Bass author of Murder by Munchausen Trilogy

M.T. Bass will be awarding a $50 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

Murder by Munchausen Trilogy

by M.T. Bass

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GENRE: Mystery

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INTERVIEW:

What or who inspired you to start writing?

Honestly…it was young love—she was blonde with a coy smile and a literary bent who stole my heart away in high school. Creative writing classes continued on into college where my scribbling lasted longer than our affair. There, I met a professor, Robert Flanagan, who took romantic inspiration and pounded me into becoming a real writer.

What elements are necessary components for this genre?

You’ve got to keep them guessing. At the same time, whatever “red herrings” get loaded up into your story, you have to end up in a place that makes sense for the characters and the action. Like Mark Twain said, “It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.”

How did you come up with your idea for your novel?

Four or five years or so ago, The Walking Deadwas huge and it seemed like everybody I ran into was writing new zombie stories. Rather than just jump into an already crowded pond, I tried to figure out who the next big, bad villain would be. I woke up one morning with the very first scene in Murder by Munchausen in my head, with Jake and EC chasing down a murderous android in the warehouse. The whole idea was that Artificial Intelligence was going to be the next “challenge” to humanity. And after I got into it, guys like Elon Musk, Stephen Hawkings and Bill Gates started warning about the dangers of AI. It was great.

Do you outline your books or just start writing?

There was one time I tried outlining my story for In the Black. The outline went just great…but when I started writing out the story, none of the characters followed it at all. I finally gave up. Which leads me to my favorite quote from Robert Frost: “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”

What expertise did you bring to your writing?

Based upon the number of years I’ve been watching Law and Order, I basically have the equivalent of a PHD in police procedurals. I’ve never done it, but then again I’m a writer, not a cop.

As far as your writing goes, what are your future plans?

I’m just now finishing up the final draft of a sequel to my very first book, My Brother’s Keeper.It’s called Junglelandand follows Hawk as he goes to Congo to fly T-6 Texans against civil war rebels in the 1960s. The manuscript will be going to my editor in the next fews weeks with a fall release. I’ve also started in on the first draft of Murder by Munchausen #4: Motherless Children. And I have a follow up in the works to Article 15. So, I’ll be busy here for a little while.

Do you belong to a critique group? If so how does this help or hinder your writing?

I’ve been in and out of a number of critiquing groups. I’m lucky to find myself in two for the past few years that have been extremely helpful: The Cleveland Writers Group and the Westside Writers Group. Unless a character gets particularly rebellious, I pretty much know everything that is going to happen in the story by the time I’m ready for those folks to read it. What I find impossible to imagine is what the reader, traveling down this dark path of mine, sees out ahead, peering out into the headlights trying to figure out what might be coming next. It’s great to hear back what is working and what isn’t in their critiques.

What is the best and worst advice you ever received? (regarding writing or publishing)

I’ve found that most advice that unequivocally starts out with “always” or “never” is usually, shall we say, misguided—bless their little hearts. We’re artists, for crying out loud. We’re supposed to be breaking the rules, somewhere…somehow. It has a homogenizing effect that leads to, well, boring reading. It might not always work, but it has to be tried.

How do you maintain your creativity?

There is only one way: getting up every day, sitting my ass down, and writing. To paraphrase comedian Lewis Black, “If you’re thinking about it, or talking about it, or posting about it…you’re not doing it.”

BLURB:

A Cyber Crime Thriller Series: Notorious serial killers digitally resurrected to live & hunt again in hacked replicants, pursued by detectives of the Artificial Crimes Unit.

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EXCERPT:

Murder by Munchausen Chapter 1 – The Warehouse

This particular Android Subject apparently went off the rails and killed a luckless pedestrian on his way to a bodega for some iced tea or bottled water to quench his thirst. A one-in-a-million occurrence, but every so often it still happens. Anyone who believes technology is infallible is a fool. The incident didn’t appear all that nefarious when first reported, but shortly thereafter the Atlas data stream went dark and patrol called our unit in. It quickly became obvious we were dealing with a malware hit, not a malfunction. The luckless pedestrian was actually not so luckless, being on what appeared to be the winning side of a particularly nasty termination suit with his ex, who we suspected had outsourced the final settlement to extra-judicial parties.

It might not make sense, but the beloved Media tags it “Murder by Munchausen.” For a price, there are hackers out there who will reprogram a synthoid to do your dirty work. The bad news: no fingerprints or DNA left at the crime scene. The good news—at least for us—is that they’re like missiles: once they hit their target, they’re usually as harmless as empty brass. The trick is to get them before they melt down their core OS data, so you can get the unit into forensics for analysis and, hopefully, an arrest.

EC’s scanner returned a hard ping. His quick double blink put his cross-hairs up on my lens and I followed his eye line to the northwest corner of the building…

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

M.T. Bass is a scribbler of fiction who holds fast to the notion that while victors may get to write history, novelists get to write/right reality. He lives, writes, flies and makes music in Mudcat Falls, USA.

Born in Athens, Ohio, M.T. Bass grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University, majoring in English and Philosophy, then worked in the private sector (where they expect “results”) mainly in the Aerospace & Defense manufacturing market. During those years, Bass continued to write fiction. He is the author of eight novels: My Brother’s Keeper, Crossroads, In the Black, Somethin’ for Nothin’, Murder by Munchausen, The Darknet (Murder by Munchausen Mystery #2), The Invisible Mind (Murder by Munchausen Mystery #3) and Article 15. His writing spans various genres, including Mystery, Adventure, Romance, Black Comedy and TechnoThrillers. A Commercial Pilot and Certified Flight Instructor, airplanes and pilots are featured in many of his stories. Bass currently lives on the shores of Lake Erie near Lorain, Ohio.

M.T. Bass Author Links

Website: https://www.mtbass.net/

Blog: https://www.owl-works.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/owlworks/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Owlworks

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/author/mtbass

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5270962.M_T_Bass

M.T. Bass Website Links

Murder by Munchausen Trilogy Page: https://mtbassauthor.wordpress.com/murder-by-munchausen-trilogy/

Murder by Munchausen Page: https://mtbassauthor.wordpress.com/scribblings/murder-by-munchausen/

The Darknet Page: https://mtbassauthor.wordpress.com/scribblings/the-darknet-murder-by-munchausen-mysteries-2/

The Invisible Mind Page: https://mtbassauthor.wordpress.com/scribblings/the-invisible-mind-murder-by-munchausen-future-crime-mystery-3/