Interview with Conor H. Carton, Author of Bottle Born Blues

What can you tell us about your new release, Bottle Born Blues?

Bottle Born Blues is science fiction with a fantasy element woven into it. A mysterious energy is harvested from lifeforms at vast bottle farms. The energy is trapped in charms and drives the technology of the inhabited systems, the harvested lifeforms are bred into many shapes and sizes to serves the needs of the natural born population. Some of the lifeforms are given human shape and are full citizens of the inhabited systems. The legacy of an ancient devastating war is going to drive the tensions in the inhabited systems between the natural and the bottle born to breaking point. At the center of this unfolding, unseen crisis is Shakbout Mansard, a bottle born lifeform who stumbles upon a plot against the government of Thingler and who hides a secret that could result in the destruction of the inhabited systems.

What or who inspired you to become an author?

I have always loved reading since I was able to do so. When my daughter was born, I would tell her stories I had created, these stories became bigger and more complex, lasting for many walks together. Eventually I decided I would like to write a story, one I wanted to read, one that mashed up genres I loved.

What’s on your top 5 list for the best books you’ve ever read?

This is hard, it is an evolving list, in no particular order, The Three Musketeers (Alexandre Dumas), Silver Blaze (Arthur Conan Doyle-not a book, I could not leave it out), The Good Soldier (Ford Maddox Ford), Watchmen (Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons), Persuasion (Jane Austen).

Say you’re the host of a literary talk show. Who would be your first guest? What would you want to ask?

From the ranks of the hallowed dead: Charles Dickens. I would ask, what were you feeling when you wrote the murder of Nancy by Bill Sykes in Oliver Twist?

From the living: Belinda Bauer. I would ask, what was the inspiration for writing Blacklands?

What’s your favorite thing about writing?

Finding a knot in a story, a situation that needs to be unraveled in an engaging way for the reader and that pushes the story forward and resolving it.

What is a typical day like for you?

I am a vocational education teacher (Supply Chain Management) in the UAE. I live here with my wife who is a Special Education Co-Ordinator at a school. I rise early (5:30am) and get to work about 7am. The day vanishes in dealing with students and all of the issues that arise from dealing with students. Home, go to the gym (not often enough), cook dinner, sit with my wife, chat watch TV and sleep. I write at the weekends.

What scene in Bottle Born Blues was your favorite to write?

The first encounter Shakbout has with the Information Specialists, it was a story knot that unraveled in an unexpected way, it came out in writing and I followed the flow.

Do you have a motto, quote or philosophy you live by?

Never waste the astonishing number of times I have been wrong by clinging to the lost hope that I am right this time.

Conor H. Carton is the author of the new book Bottle Born Blues.

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