Brian Scoville

I was born and raised in the D.C. suburbs, and now live in a secret location deep in the mountains of Appalachia with my lovely and brilliant wife and daughter. I have been writing, drawing, sculpting, singing, and dabbling in filmmaking and mad science since childhood, attempting to vent my restless imagination, and provide for myself what the mundane world does not. I intensely enjoy being alive and having a conscious mind.

Get to know Brian...

Birthdate? 1971

When did you start writing? 1979 age 8

When and what and where did you first get published?

This is my first sale.

What themes do you like to write about?

The nature of consciousness. Altered States and Alien Landscapes. Humans transcending their limitations. Dark Heroes. Individualism vs. Authoritarianism. I like blending pulp-era fun weirdness with modern dystopian themes.

What books and/or stories have most resonated with you as an author? Why? How do these stories and their characters find expression in your work? How about writers?

Robert A. Heinlein and Edgar Rice Burroughs have been inspiring me since age 7. Philip K. Dick, A.E. Van Vogt, David Brin, Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Ayn Rand, and Friedrich Nietzsche are all in the mix of my weirdness. I like memorable, weird and heroic characters and boldly imaginative ideas that are thoroughly explored. I am also . . . negatively inspired by a lot of modern science fiction in which characters are ordinary, boring and powerless, and the science fiction tropes are minimized in favor of a kind of lame "realism" . . . and writers who seem to want to appeal to the New York literary elite rather than to science fiction fans.

And, obviously, this story in particular has Douglas Adams and Monty Python influences.