Author Spotlight: Ira Nayman, Author of Welcome to the Multiverse (Sorry for the Inconvenience)

Today's featured author is Ira Nayman, author of Welcome to the Multiverse (Sorry for the Inconvenience). When asked for a bio written in the third person, he responded with: "Ira Nayman is a third person."

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What role do you believe speculative fiction plays in society?

Speculative fiction, at its best, can illuminate the present, giving readers enough distance from current events to be able to appreciate them more than straight fiction can. The proliferation of military space fiction, for instance, gives readers a view of war (usually against aliens) that might be harder for them to accept if the same story was set on Earth (with human beings fighting other human beings). It can also help us think through issues of the “other;” after all, if we can understand and even empathize with the aliens in a science fiction story, why can’t we do the same for human beings, whose differences from us are not as stark?

Finally, science fiction stories can serve as cautionary tales: by projecting current trends into the future, it can warn us not to keep acting the way we do in the present. You see this most often in dystopian science fiction, but it can appear in any kind of sci fi story.

Why do you write in this genre?

As a satirist by day, I am drawn to the cautionary tale aspects of the genre. But there is an even more compelling reason: one of the fundamental elements of humour is surprise. With most jokes, you don’t see the punchline coming. And, invariably, the more surprising (but, ultimately, appropriate once you’ve had an opportunity to think about it) the punchline, the funnier the joke.

Science fiction, because you can create whole races and worlds, is a playground of the unexpected, with potential surprises everywhere you turn. I find it meshes well with my comic sensibility.

How did you come up with the idea for Welcome to the Multiverse (Sorry for the Inconvenience)?

I found that it grew organically out of other things I had been writing. The chain goes something like this:

1) in 2002, I began a Web site of political and social satire called Les Pages aux Folles.

2) I had written a couple of fake news articles for the Web site when it occurred to me that I could feature fake news from alternate realities. Thus, the Alternate Reality News Service was born; it sends reporters into other dimensions, and has them write news articles about what they find there. (I have self-published five collections of those stories as of this writing.)

3) When I decided, three years ago, that I wanted to write a novel, I knew I wanted to go in a different direction than I had been before, but I wasn’t sure exactly what. I recalled that, in two or three of the Alternate Reality News Service stories, I had mentioned something called The Transdimensional Authority, which monitors and polices travel between dimensions. This seemed like a good starting point: it suggested that the story would involve travel between multiple dimensions (which it eventually did), as well as some sort of crime and investigation. Once I had determined the characters and the nature of the crime, everything else kind of flowed out of that.

What was your biggest challenge in writing it?

Keeping track of plot details to make sure that they hung together. This was my first novel, and there is nothing quite as complex to create; not only that, but I do have a tendency to digress. Ah, well. I’m sure if there are problems with the plot, keen-eyed science fiction readers will find them!

What are you working on now?

I have finished a follow-up novel, You Can’t Kill the Multiverse (But You Can Mess With its Head), and am currently half-way through a third novel that stands apart from anything I have previously written. I continue to update Les Pages aux Folles weekly with new writing and cartoons; this will soon include new Alternate Reality News Service articles that will eventually be collected into the sixth book in the series. And, when I have the time, I write short stories.

Nothing too ambitious.

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About Welcome to the Multiverse (Sorry for the Inconvenience)

This hilarious science-fiction comedy novel follows the first case for Noomi Rapier, rookie investigator with The Transdimensional Authority – the organisation that regulates travel between dimensions. When a dead body is found slumped over a modified transdimensional machine, Noomi and her more experienced partner, Crash Chumley, must find the dead man’s accomplices and discover what they were doing with the technology. Their investigation leads them to a variety of realities where Noomi comes face-to-face with four very different incarnations of herself, forcing her to consider how the choices she makes and the circumstances into which she is born determine who she is.

Ira Nayman’s new novel is both an hilarious romp through multiple dimensions in a variety of alternate realities, and a gentle satire on fate, ambition and expectation. Ira’s style is at times surreal, even off-the-wall, with the humour flying at you from unexpected angles; he describes it as fractal humour. Anyone who has read his Alternate Reality News Service stories will know how funny Ira is. The characters we meet from around the multiverse deserve to become firm favourites with all fans of science fiction comedy.

“Welcome to the Multiverse is a cracking read that almost had me in stitches, fresh and original humour from a comedy genius.” - Antony Jones, SF Book Reviews

Available at:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

You can connect with Ira at his website, Facebook or Twitter.

Author Spotlight: Paul Green, Author of Beneath the Pleasure Zones - The Rupture

Paul Green grew up in London and studied at Oxford and the University of British Columbia. He has worked in education - notably as lecturer in media at the Royal National College for the Blind - and as a radio presenter and second-hand book operative. As well as  Beneath the Pleasure Zones, his work includes the novel The Qliphoth (Libros Libertad), and his poetry collection The Gestaltbunker (Shearsman Books). His radio/stage plays have explored dream-control, Nazi necromancy, a haunted saxophone, electronic voice phenomena and the mysterious death of occult rocketeer Jack Parsons. He was lyricist/vocalist/sax player for the Riff Power Band and contributes articles and audio fiction to www.culturecourt.com.

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What role do you believe speculative fiction plays in society?

At a time of accelerating change and uncertainty, speculative fiction allows us to explore "he myths of the near future," in the words of J.G. Ballard. It also permits us to use the logic of the dream to question our received paradigms about consensus reality. Speculative fiction is a probe, sometimes a painful one, as in Ballard's Atrocity Exhibition. As for its social impact, ­hard to quantify. But it's interesting that the adjective Ballardian is now part of every journalist's vocabulary.

Why do you write in this genre?

Sometimes I think I'm trying to write out of it. Genres need to mutate and cross-breed to hold the reader's (and the writer's) interest. BPZ incorporates poetry, rap, collage and elements of urban cyber-punk eliding with the paranormal and occult. It seems to me to be the best way - maybe the only way - to deal with the crazy multiplicity of the modern world and the enigma of consciousness itself, where for all our rationalism, we still feel there could be forces and presences lurking at the edge of our awareness...

Writers I admire include William S. Burroughs, Philip K. Dick, Nigel Kneale, Michael Moorcock, and M. John Harrison, our best living speculative fiction writer. His Light sequence is outstanding. See my review at: http://www.culturecourt.com/Br.Paul/lit/LightMJH.html.

Others, perhaps more in the mainstream canon, are Thomas Pynchon, Jorge Luis Borges, Vladimir Nabokov, James Joyce, Lawrence Durrell, Franz Kafka, Louis Ferdinand Celine, Wyndham Lewis, Angela Carter, Don De Lillo, and Iain Sinclair.

The American Beat poets and the French Surrealist poets have always meant a lot to me, too.

How did you come up with the idea for Beneath the Pleasure Zones?

It evolved out of my earlier one, The Qliphoth, in which young alienated Lucas goes through an occultural rite of passage that takes him into a curious alternative world, a sea-side resort thronged with scheming magicians and sexy priestesses. This world is destroyed by malign forces but there's a blow-back on the 'real' world, releasing random psychic energies and subverting everyday causality. BPZ takes the story a few years on, with Lucas struggling to survive on the margins of society.

The metaphysics behind both books owe a lot to good old Aleister Crowley and the Chaos Magick writings of Peter Carroll. I also did some research into artificial intelligence and nuclear weapons. But the trigger for the title was an obscure quote from W.B.Yeats: "the doctors have told us that the dreams of the night are but phantoms of sexual desire - but of what is sex a phantom?"

What was your biggest challenge in writing it?

Apart from finding the time, the main challenges were working in the back-story from The Qliphoth without getting bogged down in explication - and then developing a way of conveying a complex story line and the experience of a fractured world without totally bamboozling the reader. I hit upon a technique of using short sections with sub-heads (like Ballard's Atrocity Exhibition but following a more linear narrative). As in The Qliphoth, I also used a number of esoteric techniques to break story-blocks and open up new lines of narrative, like the Tarot, Qabalistic correspondences, cut-ups and automatic writing.

What are you working on now?

I've recently finished a play about eccentric witchcraft historian Father Monty Summers and I've started a new novel, more conventional in form. It includes old sci-fi movies, mad scientists and quite a lot of sex. I'm also working on a long poetry sequence, Shadow Times, parts of which are starting to appear. I enjoy readings, and like collaborating with musicians and media artists. Some of these can be found on YouTube, Soundcloud and Reverbnation.

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About Beneath the Pleasure Zones - The Rupture

Anomalies erupting from the Polyverse have undermined the UK's reality-consensus and the economy. Urban citizens escape into the virtual reality of the Pleasure Centres while Borderland communities like Leynebridge embrace neo-paganism and magick. Fundamentalist militias - the Heavy Shepherds and the Mo-Boys - battle for supremacy.

In Leynebridge poet/magus Lucas broods over his ex-lover, Carla, while in London Dr. Crowe, a traumatised ex-MOD scientist , seeks work with Pleasure Centres, which also employs Carla, now an erotic virtual-reality producer.

The Pleasure Centres operation is driven by manic mogul Lombard, who conspires to fuse immersive virtual reality with a post-web technology, the Lobe, combining Crowe's top-secret knowledge with energies evoked in the rites of Leynebridge. But Crowe blunders, while Carla loses her secret Mo-Boy lover and her job, only to be hi-jacked by the Heavy Shepherds. Rogue cyber-entities are evolving in the Lobe - the menacing Quantum Brothers. The world-lines of Lucas, Carla, Vivienne and Crowe converge in Leynebridge¹s convulsive Feast of Smoke...

Beneath the Pleasure Zones - The Rupture develops the central character and core concepts of the author's first novel, The Qliphoth, but can be read independently. It also sets the scene for a sequel, Beneath the Pleasure Zones - The Polyverse, now completed.

Available at:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

You can connect with Paul Green at his website or Facebook.

Book Feature: Perchance to Dream by Peter Lukes

Manuel Corr is the best of the best in the Sub-Net unit of the Boston Police, where he invades the dreams of criminals to unearth potential crimes. He's fearless where his work is concerned, until one night when the dream world collapses around him. Now trapped in a dreamscape he can no longer direct, Manuel must try to fight his way back to reality.

But the road back is more dangerous than he realized. The tables have been turned; criminals are running the Sub-Net, and the world of dreams he'd once patrolled is a nightmare he cannot escape from.

Unless he can unlock the conspiracy behind who's manipulating the Sub-Net, Manuel may be trapped forever. The criminal world is trying to recruit him for their side, and refusal means death. Can Manuel claw his way back to the reality he remembers? Or will the dream world become his new reality?

Available at:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Peter Lukes grew up in Massachusetts, where he also went to college, law school and graduate school. Peter is an attorney who frequently teaches classes in history, political science and government as an adjunct faculty professor at local colleges. His true passion lies in writing the kinds of science fiction and fantasy stories that he loved reading throughout his life. Peter still lives in Massachusetts with his wife and son, who have both been indoctrinated into the worlds of spaceships, vampires, super heroes and dragons.

You can connect with Peter at his website, Facebook or Twitter. Also be sure to read our interview here.

Book Feature: Just Cause by Ian Thomas Healy

Some superheroes can fly, or lift great weights, or shoot lightning bolts. Mustang Sally runs. A third-generation superhero, Sally's life changes forever when she fights and loses to the notorious villain Destroyer, who killed her father just before she was born. She dedicates herself to tracking him down so she can even the score. 

When all you can do is run, you'd better be fast, but can even the fastest girl in the world run quickly enough to save her teammates' lives from Destroyer and his growing parahuman army?

"Mr. Healy clearly loves superhero fiction. He has taken tried and true superhero tropes, made them his own, and crafted an excellent world, story, and characters. I highly recommend." - Amazon Review

Available at:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Ian Thomas Healy is a prolific writer who dabbles in many different speculative genres. His superhero novel Deep Six: A Just Cause Novel was a Top 100 Semi-finalist in the 2008 Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award. He’s an eight-time participant and winner of National Novel Writing Month, where he’s tackled such diverse subjects as sentient alien farts, competitive forklift racing, a religion-powered, rabbit-themed superhero, cyberpunk mercenaries, cowboy elves, and an unlikely combination of vampires with minor league hockey. He is also the creator of the Writing Better Action Through Cinematic Techniques workshop, which helps writers to improve their action scenes.

When not writing, which is rare, he enjoys watching hockey, reading comic books (and serious books, too), and living in the great state of Colorado, which he shares with his wife, children, house-pets, and approximately five million other people.

You can connect with him at his website, Facebook or Twitter.

Book Feature: Flight of the Stone by C.H. Thompson

Flight of the Stone is a fantasy tale full of drama, adventure and humour. A desperate Elliot throws a stone to frighten off his pursuers. His actions ignite an exciting chain of events. Witnessing far more than they bargained for, Elliot’s teenage friends Miles and Abbi become drawn into a parallel world riddled with the unexpected. As they gradually unlock the hidden secrets of leylines, the three youngsters learn how to travel vast distances in seconds, are terrorised by Fuddles, and are held captive by the menacing Larc while guided by their virtual mentor, Dylan. In this other world they discover as much about themselves as well as the world around them. So intense is their journey together they become far more emotionally attached than they ever thought likely.

Though these characters are imaginary the places are very real. Much of the story is set around the many historical landmarks in Christchurch, England, a place where the past lives alongside the present and the mythical becomes real. In many ways, the story reflects how the division between fantasy and reality is narrowing, particularly through technological advances. Just look at the iPhone; 30 years ago such a device would have been pure fantasy, more Star Trek than reality. The burning question throughout Flight of the Stone is "How much of it really is fantasy?"

“...an intriguing mix of medieval swords and mobile phones is accompanied by great wordplay....truly delightful.” - Gather Books Essential

Available at:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Please visit this page for more information.

Chris H Thompson was born in Rochdale, Manchester and now lives in Christchurch, Dorset, UK. He currently teaches at Twynham School in Christchurch, England. His debut novel Flight of the Stone was inspired as much by the area he lives as the people in it. It's success has inspired him to devote much of his free time to writing the sequel!

You can visit his blog or connect with him via Facebook and Twitter.

Book Feature: How to Disappear Completely by Annika Howells

In Greenwood, fitting in is a matter of life and death.

Cynical seventeen-year-old Lycia wakes up in the dark, twisted town of Greenwood, unable to remember how she got there. Aside from her mother, who is trapped in a coma-like sleep, Greenwood's only other inhabitants are the hostile and eerily identical students who attend the school.

Lycia befriends the school outcasts; the eccentric Aster and his shy companion, Meg. Together they discover a trapdoor into a bizarre, dream-like underworld called Bassisha. When the violence in Greenwood escalates to deadly new heights, Bassisha seems like their only hope of freedom. But Bassisha has dangers of its own.

As madness sets in and reality crumbles, Lycia, Aster and Meg must find a way to escape from a nightmare of their own creation.

Available at:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Please visit this link for more information.

Annika Howells began writing at the age of four, when she would scribble across the pages of blank notebooks. Her work improved immeasurably once she actually mastered the alphabet. She began writing her first novel, How to Disappear Completely, when she was 16. She subsequently graduated from school, dropped out of university, fell in love and lost her mind. She lives in Brisbane, Australia.

You can connect with her via her website, Facebook or Twitter.

Book Feature: Lyon's Legacy: Catalyst Chronicles, Book One by Sandra Ulbrich Almazan

Joanna Lyon is a descendant of famous TwenCen musician Sean Lyon, but she resents how everyone expects her to be a female version of him when she’d rather study science. When a wormhole leading to an alternate TwenCen universe is discovered, Jo’s uncle pressures her into a mission: travel to the other universe and harvest Sean’s genes so he can be cloned. Worrying the clone will be mistreated, Jo secretly vows to sabotage the mission. But when she falls in love with one of the scientists in the Sagan's genetics lab, clashes with other time travelers who fear she'll change how history develops on the alternative TwenCen Earth, and receives devastating personal news, Joanna will find herself pushed to her limit even before she comes face-to-face with her hated ancestor. Their encounter will leave her changed forever. Will she still be able to thwart her uncle's plan, and what will she have to sacrifice to do so?

"Lyon's Legacy is a must-read for anyone who wants a brisk but compelling story that manages to center a family story amidst the wonder of science." - Amazon Review

Available at:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Barnes & Noble

Sandra Ulbrich Almazan started reading at the age of three and only stops when she must. Her science fiction novella Move Over Ms. L. (an early version of Lyon's Legacy) earned an Honorable Mention in the 2001 UPC Science Fiction Awards, and her short story "A Reptile at the Reunion " was published in the anthology Firestorm of Dragons. Her undergraduate degree is in molecular biology/English, and she has a Master of Technical and Scientific Communication degree. She works in the laboratory of an enzyme company and lives in the Chicago area with her family.

You can visit her blog and connect with her via Facebook and Twitter.