2015 - 07/2015 Meeting

Page Created: 06/09/15. Last Updated: 08/08/15.

MICHAEL J MARTINEZ

Books:

..........The Daedalus Incident

..........The Enceladus Crisis

..........The Venusian Gambit

..........The Gravity of the Affair

Website:

..........http://michaeljmartinez.net/

Notes:

Meeting Summary:

Meeting Date: July 11, 2015.

Meeting Site: Barnes & Noble, Hackensack, New Jersey.

Official Attendance: 20.

Meeting Program: Talk by Science Fiction / Fantasy Author.

Newsletter Account

The July 11, 2015 General Meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County was held in the café of Barnes & Noble in Hackensack. The meeting featured a talk and question and answer session with author Michael J Martinez.

Mr Martinez is the author of the novels THE DAEDALUS INCIDENT, THE ENCELADUS CRISIS and THE VENUSIAN GAMBIT, as well as the novella, "The Gravity of the Affair." The works bring together people from two different universes. One universe may be our own future. Mankind has a toehold on Mars with a mining and science colony which starts to pick up strange readings. The other is a fantasy universe.

The fantasy universe requires a bit of explaining. The timeline is the late 18th Century. The British Navy rules the solar seas, with wooden sailships patrolling the inner solar system. The ships and sails are treated with alchemical substances which allow them to survive the void. Venus has an indigenous population and is a Spanish colony. Mars was once home to a mighty civilization which was destroyed by the godlike aliens from Saturn, who prevent mankind from expanding beyond the moons of Jupiter. The mining colonies on the asteroid belt have recently won a War of Independence from England.

Our speaker was five years old when his parents took him to see STAR WARS which made him a science fiction fan. Although he dabbled in fan fiction (selling a STAR WARS story is on his bucket list), Mr Martinez graduated to journalism and worked for the Associated Press and other print and electronic media. He has since moved on to writing for the financial industry ("Corporate America pays very well").

Our speaker decided to get serious about writing science fiction when he was in between jobs about ten years ago. He queried agents after having written THE DAEDALUS INCIDENT and signed on with Sara Megibow, who worked with him on revising the book for over a year. When the work was complete, Ms Megibow shopped it around, and placed it with small publisher Nightshade books.

Nightshade proved an interesting experience. To make a long story short, they were very good on the editorial side and very bad on the business side. Skyhorse Publishing, a non-fiction house, decided to expand into various fiction genres. The company purchased the name of Nightshade to use as a science fiction imprint and some of its assets and liabilities. DAEDALUS was the first book issued under the new structure, and Mr Martinez is very happy how things worked out.

Writing is a part-time hobby for our guest. He feels traditional publishing offers a better platform for him as it allows him to focus on the fun part of the process--writing the story--and letting the publisher worry about cover artwork, bookstore distribution, copy editing and everything else that goes into a book.

Because Mr Martinez has a full-time job and a wife and children, he writes in spurts when his schedule permits. Our speaker does a lot of traveling, and does a lot of his writing when he is flying the friendly skies. He uses Excel spreadsheets to organize his plot and world-building material.

Both speaker and audience very much enjoyed themselves. I hope to have some additional notes on the meeting posted before too long.