A distress signal on the edge of inhabited space. A mission that is far outside normal parameters. Two very different people with one common goal – survival. We have talked to Amanda Bridgeman about her Aurora series.
For those not familiar with your Aurora series, can you tell us a bit about it?
Set in the future, where the Moon and Mars have been recently colonized, the Aurora series is the tale of two very different people, who are thrown together on a convoluted mission that turns out to be bigger than they imagined. Saul Harris, captain of the UNF Aurora, and Corporal Carrie Welles, a new recruit, must put their differences aside and work together as they face their enemies. With each book a new twist is thrown into the mix, and bit by bit, through every challenge, the Aurora team learns a little bit more about what’s really going on. A lot of this comes to a head in Aurora: Centralis. Secrets are revealed and major events take place that make it the most explosive one yet. It sets the Aurora team on an epic new journey; one that is spawned from the last, but that promises to be much more deadly.
Can you give us some insight into your main characters?
Captain Saul Harris is an African-American soldier who captains the UNF Aurora, a Space Duty ship with an international crew. He’s separated from his wife, has a teenage son, and at the opening of AURORA: DARWIN, he starts experiencing weird dreams of his female ancestors. Dreams, that seem to be warning him of something . . . His journey over the Aurora series is his struggle to keep his soldiersand family safe, and to try and figure out what’s behind these dreams and this convoluted mission into which he’s been thrown.
Corporal Carrie Welles is an Australian sharp-shooter who’s been added to the Aurora crew at the last minute. She is the daughter of a respected ‘Original’ – a Space Duty forefather – Colonel Jeffrey Welles. From the outset, Carrie Welles is out to prove herself and excel in her field, but she soon learns there is no ‘I’ in team – a fact the male recruits are pretty happy to teach her. As the series unfolds, Carrie is very much forced into the centre of the mission and must work with her team to face their nemesis. The perfect career she had planned for herself is soon derailed, as her life shoots off in another direction. Her journey throughout the series, is to hold on tight and try and steer it to where she wants it to go – before she loses all control.
What is it with Science Fiction and Space you find fascinating?
I think Sci-fi allows you to escape reality, whilst also being anchored to it. It gives you a way to analyse and explore the world today through the lense of tomorrow.
And sci-fi set in ‘space’ magnifies this. It provides the writer with endless creative possibilities (like the universe itself) with which to shine a light on ourselves. As we explore the vast expanse of space, somehow we discover who we are. Besides, who doesn’t like spaceships and aliens and all kinds of other-worldly stuff? J
How did you start writing? Was there a particular book or moment in your life that spurned you on?
I used to write a lot when I was a teenager, writing the ‘movies in my head’ as novels. I loved movies so much that I went to university to study film/tv and creative writing, so I think ‘stories’ were just always alive within me. In my 20s I kinda stopped and just spent my time following my boyfriend’s band around, until eventually I moved to London to live. While there, I ‘fell’ back into film/tv by doing a bunch of ‘extra’ work (you know, the people who stand around in the background of a scene), and I think this rekindled my creative juices. I moved back to Australia and was watching the Oscars one night and saw Diablo Cody win for writing Juno, and I just kinda thought, you know what, if she can do it, why can’t I? (It’s great to dream big, right? J). Anyway, I decided to finally pluck out one of the stories floating around in my head, and sat down to write a script. I struggled to get past the first page, however. I decided to write this story – Aurora: Darwin – as a novel first, to get the story out, then I would go back and write the script for it then. Before I knew it, the book was done and I had moved on to writing Aurora: Pegasus, and it continued on from there. It would seem once I took the cork out of the bottle, the flow just didn’t want to stop. And I realised that perhaps writing novels was what I was supposed to be doing all this time. This was exactly what I was doing in my teens, and now here I was years later, suddenly doing the same thing. I had come full circle – and the path had been there, within me, the whole time.
Have you ever struggled between what you would like to happen to a character and what you considered more sensible to occur? Can you tell us when and what did you do at last?
I generally try to be ‘sensible’ and realistic with my characters (within reason) all the time. When it comes to the characters and their relationships, certain things take time to develop and unfold, so I have tried to give them realistic time frames. But some readers are impatient and they want things now, but in order to give them the things they want or to make things happen now, would be unrealistic in the overall plot. Like people getting hammered in a brutal fight and bouncing back up immediately. They’re going to be hurting and need to recover. The same can be said for loss. These things take time. Or people just wanting the book to jump straight to the action. I could do that, but if you haven’t spent time with the characters first, to get to know them, are you really going to care what happens to them when the shit hits the fan? Or will they just be cardboard cut-out soldiers in a b-grade movie? I’d prefer my reader get to know the characters – and the intricacies of their personalities and relationships with their team – first, and then throw them in the shit. Hopefully then my readers will see them as real ‘whole’ people (and not cardboard cut-outs) and actually genuinely care about what happens to them.
What sort of challenges, as a writer, might you have faced before your first book was published? Any insights you would be able to share for those aspiring writers seeking advice?
I wrote in a secret cave for a couple of years before I told anyone what I was doing. I didn’t know anyone else who was doing this – writing novels – so I didn’t think my friends/family would understand. I finally confessed and showed my book, AURORA: DARWIN, to a couple of people who read it, and when their feedback was positive, I was surprised. It gave me the courage to show a few more people, and bit by bit I gained the confidence to think that maybe I could try and get published. I was never a part of any writers groups nor did I have any online presence – and these are things I might’ve gone back and fixed if I had my time again. So, I guess my advice to people would be – don’t hide. If you’re too shy to join a writers group, then at least get online. Twitter has been a great source of information that I wish I’d accessed a lot earlier in my writing days. Make sure you head out to conventions and writing workshops too. I was quite surprised at just how welcoming people were and the wealth of valuable resources you can tap into by networking. If you want to be a writer, then these people are going to be your ‘tribe’, so embrace them from the outset.
What is the hardest thing about writing?
Time and self-doubt, I think. Finding the time can be hard, especially working a full-time job like I do. Some days I come home from work and I’m just too tired to do anything. And writing is a thing that takes so much time to do, that you can feel like a failure or that you’re wasting precious time if you don’t write! But you also need to cut yourself some slack too. Some days, you just need to relax and refresh yourself. Self-doubt can creep in too. There are days when I think that I’m a crap writer, but then I’ll receive an email from a reader, and I don’t feel so bad anymore. It’s hard to put yourself out there into the public eye and effectively be judged (and sometimes slammed). But, I write because I want to share my stories and entertain people, so there’s just no other way to do it.
How do you feel you have evolved as a writer throughout your career?
I’ve been writing for about 7 years now, and I’ve been published for almost three. It’s happened in a relatively short amount of time, so I still feel pretty ‘new’ to this. I think good writers constantly evolve throughout their career until they die, and if they don’t, their writing and consequently their book sales stagnate. So my aim is to work hard and constantly evolve. Everyday I’m trying to learn and improve. I owe it to my readers to try and produce a better book for them each time and hopefully I’m doing that. I was recently nominated for an Aurealis Award for my third book ‘AURORA: MERIDIAN’, so I take that as a sign that I’m heading in the right direction! J
What are your thoughts on good/bad reviews?
Bad reviews can sting, but if they’re done as a professional critique and not just an angry slam, then they can be useful. Writers will take professional critiques on board, because the focus is on the book and the writing. I find that angry slams tend to be more about the person writing the review than anything else. Good reviews are of course awesome and can really give you a boost!
How do you define success as an author?
To me, success is receiving an email from a reader who tells me how much they’re enjoying the series. I obviously enjoy writing the series, but to hear that people enjoying reading the books too, is just the best. It makes all the blood, sweat and tears worthwhile. If I’ve reached someone and affected them with my series, then I’ve been successful. The Aurealis nomination is a pretty cool thing too! To make a shortlist of just six novels is something I’m incredibly proud of.
For your own reading, do you prefer ebooks or traditional paper/hard back books?
I like both, although I tend to lean more toward ebooks. I love my kindle. I love that it’s compact and relatively light, I love that I can store oodles of books on it, I love that it can stand up on its own while I eat my dinner, and I like the dictionary function too. That said, if I enjoy a book, then I like to buy the paperback so that I can display it on my bookshelf. As a writer, the only downside to ebooks is that others can’t see what you’re reading, so you do lose out on a bit of exposure in that way.
What kind of books do you read, any favourite authors?
I like to read across genres, although I do favour Sci-fi. I read a bit of Urban Fantasy too, and I like a good thriller. After spending my 20s immersed in film, I haven’t read enough ‘multiples’ of any authorto have any one particular favourite author. I’m desperately trying to catch up on my TBR pile (when I’m not writing that is). A few I’ve read of late, however, which I really enjoyed include: Lexicon by Max Barry, The Last City by Nina D’Aleo, Peacemaker by Marianne de Pierres, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, The Martian by Andy Weir and Lock In by John Scalzi.
What do you do when you’re not writing, any hobbies?
Writing is all I have time for these days! However in the past, on occasion, I’ve sung vocals on tracks written by my brother’s band, that they record in his little home studio. There’s talk of me doing another song, so hopefully there’ll be another one soon!
What’s next, what are you working on now?
Well, I’m contracted for another couple of Aurora books with Momentum, so that will be my focus, but I also have another novel outside of the series (called The Time of The Stripes) that I’m itching to send out as well. So hopefully I can squeeze that in there somewhere!
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Interview by Dag Rambraut – SFFWorld.com © 2015
