Interview with Ken Mooney, author of Godhead
What’s Godhead about? The book starts during the last days of Olympus with the city is under siege; demons have overrun the city, all because the Greek gods have been betrayed by one of their own (it’s not too much of a spoiler to tell you that it’s Aphrodite, one of the most complex and awesome characters I’ve ever had the pleasure to come across. ) The gods have a plan that saves their hides, but it means that Olympus gets wiped off the planet as if it never existed. The gods end up living side-by-side with humans; they have kids and their kids have kids (and so forth…we’re covering a lot of time here.) And by the time we get to the present day, we have thousands of people who are descended from the gods themselves. Some of them have even inherited their powers and general godliness. But not all of them know why… Godhead follows a few such people, specifically as they find themselves crossing paths with Aphrodite; she’s found a way to get back to Olympus and doesn’t care who’s standing in her way. Against this epic backdrop of gods and monsters, Godhead tells some very intimate stories about these characters, even Aphrodite herself. In amongst all the madness, it’s a book about loss, mourning and what it means to truly be human. Sounds truly epic. What genre is it? There’s also a LOT of Classical elements in here; I like to think of it as The Iliad re-written for a post-Buffy audience…if that makes sense, then you’ll probably be able to tell how difficult it is to pin it down in one genre. “The Iliad for a post-Buffy generation”. We like that. What demographic of that generation do you expect Godhead to appeal to? This is a book for people who love their novels to have this epic sense of “stuff” happening. And that’s all you get….if I told you too much, then people wouldn’t read it, would they? Fair enough. Complete this sentence for us: if you like _________________, you’ll love Godhead. Well-written characters, smart dialogue, epic stories with real-life concerns. Oh, and Greek gods super-punching people’s heads off (no joke…someone has actually told me that’s their favourite part too.) Super-punching heads off! Tell us more. I’ve tried to do this in a few places throughout the book, using descriptions that don’t necessarily “make sense”…and there’s a very good reason for it; it’s a story about gods, and things that don’t make sense. But this one…this blows it out of the water. The last word…well, it should make readers feel like Godhead has just opened up this epic world where anything could happen (and very well might!) And yet it’s also an intimate step in one character’s story arc. And here I am just hanging up on the word itself. Overall, there’s a sucker punch to the gut, and yet a position where the book has just opened up this massive place for the sequel to go. And yes, that means there’ll be a sequel. That last word…it’s got to be amongst one of the biggest teases I’ve ever experienced. What can you tell us about that sequel? Have you written any other books that we should read next? I’ve also recently started to revise a completely different idea called The Magician’s Kiss (it was actually the book I was working on before Godhead reared its ugly head at me…again.) It’s a very different type of book, so I’ve no idea what’ll happen with it…let’s just leave that there and see what happens, eh? Tell us a bit about yourself. I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Ever since I was in junior school and had to explain to the teacher that yes, I DID know what an author was and I DID want to be an author. Since then, real-life’s gotten in the way on more than one occasion; in some ways, it still is. I’ve a degree in English Studies from TCD (hence the obsession with genre-bending and storytelling) and work in TV advertising during the day. And in my spare time, it usually comes back to video games, comics, reading…more stories, really. Do you have a website where we can keep up with your work? To make that same story long, I used to. Then I upgraded the OS behind the site and lost every post and entry I ever made. Fool me once, shame on you they say…? That’s a relevant quote here because this happened THREE TIMES and then… Then I committed my archive to the ashes and just started again. I’ve been running www.kenmooney.com through Tumblr and generally just posting short-form media and silly pictures and videos. But no cat pictures yet… Okay, what about Twitter? What’s next? Oh, who am I kidding; that’ll never happen. But I’m not writing another word of the sequel until I’ve caught up on some reading. It’s only fair, right? |
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