From Scifi Horror To Magical Realism
I used to say that I will probably always write science fiction with elements of horror. When I first started writing I was in deeper in my interest in games like Silent Hill. This was crossed over with my interest in games like Grandia, that stretched Tactical Turn Based systems to the ultimate limit. So initially I wanted to develop stories that were Survival Horror, with Turn Based Tactical Battle Systems. This left a mark that slowly eroded over time, but had a permanent effect in the way that I would write science fiction.
Grandia was a Steampunk fantasy RPG that came out of Japan in the late 90s. It was sort of like a hybrid of Indianna Jones and The Mysterious City Of Gold. It starred a young adventurer that slowly uncovered the mystery of an ancient lost civilization. Silent Hill was more about exploring the unknown part of the self. What this made me end up doing was writing stories that struggled between exploring some external mystery mechanic, and also exploring hidden aspects of the self.
And yet over time, as Cyberpunk fiction became more influential for me, this meant that I ended up actually slowly losing the ancient civilizational components. When I wrote Samantha’s Gambit, originally the idea was something akin to the inversion of the Ancient Aliens kind of storyline, where the apocalypse takes place around a future time line where modern humans become ancient aliens.
But for whatever reason as my writing style slowly evolved, I would eventually develop a plot formula where I would continuously write short stories and novellas that were set further and further in the past, starting with writing a plot about 100 years in the future. A common component was that the ones that were larger than life generally tended to be the Dictators that ruled each region, and the main character would be the main character who had no powers, and how they would defeat the over powered villain using their intelligence rather than their might.
And yet now, as I get back to writing, I find myself writing more autobiographical content with elements of magical realism rather than true fantasy, which leaves me wondering if the only work I’ll ever be able to sell as graphic novels will ultimately end up actually being my older works of fiction. I’m thinking of adapting Samantha’s Gambit as a graphic novel, and then Mechanic Slave, after I finish adapting Uploaded Fairy. And then maybe adapt Vincent Sharing Blood later.