An Israeli counterterrorism agent thwarts an attack of epic proportions...only to discover that he was the target. Now he's trapped in an ancient holy war, and the only way back to the 21st-century is to complete a dangerous spy mission that could change the course of history.
It's always difficult writing against the background of the Middle East. The area, culture, people and the hatreds that drive them are so steeped in the past that it is difficult to tell a modern story that can do it justice. Thomas Greanias has come up with an original twist though. His main character, Sam Deker, is an expert in counter terrorism and, while proving that security around the 'Dome of the Rock' is not all it should be, he is captured. The 'Dome' marks the place Muslims believe the Prophet Mohammad descended from Heaven and where the Jews believe God gathered the dust to create the first man. The contention around the ownership of the site goes back centuries and Deker is thrust into a conspiracy that threatens the world.
This, in itself, would mark the beginning of a great thriller but Greanias sends our hero back in time to the Siege of Jericho. Not content with getting to grips with the modern day issues and contentions surrounding the area Greanias skillfully introduces us to one of the most controversial periods in history. The Siege of Jericho is a hotly contended period in history which questions the reliability of the Bible itself and is still used as a major source for the history of ancient Israel. Rather than seeing this Siege through the eyes of a hero of the time Greanias shows us the action through the eyes of a modern-day man whose beliefs and attitude have been forged by a history that is yet to occur.
This is great stuff and will keep you riveted to the pages. Those of us who have an interest in myth and Atlantis will be well aware as to who Thomas Greanias is. He has a very interesting story as to how he started writing by creating demand through his website and reaching number 1 in the eBook charts, but I will let him tell that one in the interview below. The Atlantis trilogy is a remarkable trilogy that will have you questioning just which parts are fiction and which are fact. As another bonus the first two books of the trilogy have been released together in one volume and offers great value for the coming Summer.
Thomas is a former journalist who has reported on issues of National Security, is currently CEO of a Beverly Hills-based media development, production and finance company. He has partnered with CBS, Apple, Sony and other media giants to produce some of the world's bestselling audio books, interactive games and now motion pictures. And he finds time to write books as well. With all this going on it was a pleasant surprise that, not only did he have time for an interview, but he also turned out to be a really nice guy.
You seem to have a knack for taking a familiar subject and adding a new twist to it. You took Atlantis to a whole new level, and now you take on historical fiction - but with a twist. How did the idea come about?
As a journalist by training, I suppose I naturally like to dig for the real story behind anything--whether it's Atlantis, the founding of America or, in the case of The Promised War, the ancient siege of Jericho and its consequences for the past three millennia. Two things conspired to bring about The Promised War:
First, my longtime fascination with Israel as a porous region in terms of time and space where the past, present and future seem to reside together in one continuous stream through history like a cosmic River Jordan.
Second, a clandestine meeting I had with one of America's top intelligence pros who freely offered his opinion that the world would be better off without Israel. I disagreed, but I was shocked by the cool or rather cruel logic of his argument, and for the first time could appreciate where Israel's enemies are coming from, as well as why, in my opinion, they will never change regardless of what olive branches are offered in any peace process. I wondered what a world without Israel might look like, or at least the possibility, so I went back to that reality in 1410 BC. Here the Israelites are, in effect, the Palestinians, and it's their general, Joshua Bin-Nun, who has declared a holy war and death to "everything breathing thing."
E-Books seem to be the subject of every blog on the Internet at the moment and everyone seems to feel strongly one way or another. You seem to have a more interesting story than most. Can you tell us how you started with Atlantis and your views of e-books now that you are published in the mass market arena?
I owe my start to e-books. When my first book, Raising Atlantis, was getting turned down by all the publishing houses, including three times by my publisher, I turned to the internet, where I created a web site and posted a satellite photo on Antarctica and several stories about a bogus archaeological dig, as well as prequel chapters that led up to where my novel took off. That web site, @lantis.tv, which launched in October 2000, soon had 40,000 subscribers. So I kept at it for the next two years, posting fictional news updates, background information and updates on the imaginary dig. There were 2 million visitors over that time. Then in April 2002, I self-published it through Amazon as an e-book. My subscriber list vaulted that book to the No. 1 e-book title instantly, where it remained for a year until it was unseated by Dan Brown's DaVinci Code. At that point, in April 2003, Raising Atlantis was No. 2 and the rest of the Top 5 were all Dan's books. I gave my agent a call and he sent my book out to six publishers and we chose the offer from Atria and Pocket at Simon & Schuster. It was the right choice. They published it in 2005 and it hit the New York Times.
That was then, of course, this is now. A lot has happened in five years. E-books are growing fast and getting a lot of media attention even if they still represent anywhere between only 3-7 percent of book sales. My own feeling is that the iBookstore will be the world's largest book retailer within five years, with Kindle, Nook and Google close behind. It will be a very different game then, and savvy authors and publishers who aren't shackled by the legacy cost structures and ambiguous copyright issues like the majors will make out like bandits.
For example, the agency model on iBookstore and Kindle would give me as an author/publisher $7 per $10 e-book. Contrast that with Warner Bros., which is selling $2M episodes of its TV shows for less than a dollar on iTunes, and splitting $5.99 pay-per-views for $200M movies in half with DirecTV. So 300 earns Warner Bros. $3 per download versus my $7. Granted, they've got a $150M ad campaign, theatrical exhibition or TV ad revenue and Blu-Ray DVD sales behind them before they hit that window. But those windows are collapsing almost as fast their business model. And I as an author would have a higher margin on a product--the e-book--that has already established a market price in the $5-$15 ballpark. Suddenly the author-hero is on level playing with the studios, networks and game makers when it comes to the Big Screen. And I don't mean your local multiplex. I mean the Web, especially your iPad or smartphone.
The Web is the great equalizer for our time and attention. Authors should take heart.
That said, the market for e-books isn't there yet. There are several competing platforms for eBooks fighting it out. There are questions if new authors would benefit as much as established authors. The new authors who claim to have done well on Kindle, say, are practically giving their titles away at $1. I don't think Raising Atlantis ever sold for less than $9.99 as a No. 1 bestselling e-book before Simon & Schuster picked it up, and at times was priced at $14.95. As for established authors, smart publishers make it hard for them to leave and are beginning to embrace the music industry's 360-degree kind of one-stop management like Live Nation. Mine says it has, and I'm not going anywhere. But I see problems for them coming up very fast, starting with their seeming inability to market titles beyond print runs and co-ops.
As more and more of the onus of marketing books gets placed on authors--even the big one--and e-books take off in a big way, the big publishers are going to have to prove why they are necessary. The agency model they deservedly won with iBookstore and then Amazon is huge deal. But a stay of execution isn't necessarily a second life. Meanwhile, we're going to continue to see a lot of experimenting and ironies. My newest mass market, The Atlantis Revelation, sells right now for $7.99 as a paperback versus $12.99 for the eBook. It's actually $5 cheaper to pick it up in print. Amazing. Something I have to Tweet about immediately....
How do you write? Do you have a ritual, do you plan out every detail, or do you see where the story leads?
It's both the initial flash of insight for a story, as well as those insights I get while writing that reframe the whole story. I wish it were smoother. I also read a lot, and a lot of news. When I started in broadcast at CBS News in Chicago, the first thing everybody did each day was read newspapers--about five a day. I don't think I've ever given that up, and I am alarmed by the incineration of print as a news industry, as it's the source of almost every broadcast and web news story. My wife, happily free from her days as front page editor at the LA Times, still doesn't know why so much print comes to our home and why I hoard so many scraps that I never look at twice. I think it's simply the habit of "standing in the river" every morning like a fly fisherman.
With The Promised War you have combined the high-octane modern thriller with the detail of historical fiction. How different was it for you to set the book around real events rather than myth?
Not that difficult in the sense the research was there. But then if it's told from a 21st-century character, the perspective is completely different. At that point, the fun comes in subverting the expectation of the hero--and the reader--in how history plays out.
The list of fellow authors praising your work is one of the most impressive I have seen. Do you have to pinch yourself now and again just to make sure you're awake?
I'm amazed when anybody likes what I've written, let alone big-name authors. Really.
If you were given one paragraph to convince people to buy your novel, what would it say?
Let's see how my publisher did with the preview for The Promised War inside The Atlantis Revelation:
An Israeli counterterrorism agent thwarts an attack of epic proportions...only to discover that he was the target. Now he's trapped in an ancient holy war, and the only way back to the 21st-century is to complete a dangerous spy mission that could change the course of history.
Pretty good. People seek entertainment that is both nerve-tingling and mind-expanding. Early reaction confirms this book is a mind-bender and heartbreaker, something that will haunt readers long after dawn breaks and they've read the last page. How's that?
When you're not writing, do you read much and who do you enjoy most?
I confess that like LeCarre these days I stock with mostly non-fiction, especially turning gout a book a year now. I do turn to classics a lot, though, mostly because I'm not thinking about well or not the book was promoted, why it did better than mine--or should have--and the like. Tolstoy is a favorite, mostly because as a writer you just give up thinking in terms of competition and simply fall through the pages. Follett is aiming high with his new Century series, so there's a contemporary I've enjoyed and look forward to reading again. But I'm partial to the American style of prose you find in James N. Cain, Hemingway and Fitzgerald.
What can we expect to see from you next?
It's already written, but do I dare play Steve Jobs and say, I do not comment on any future products? Watch, I'll blurt the ending out at some signing or interview next week.
I note that The Atlantean page is down. Is this the work of a nefarious organization and the subject of a new book perhaps?
See? Good story ideas can come from anywhere! The Atlantean is going live May 25 in conjunction with the pub date for The Atlantis Revelation. There's a whole secret behind the site beyond the trilogy, but that is for another day.
The Promised War is due for release on June 15th and is destined for the best seller lists. You can read the first chapter at his website http://www.thomasgreanias.com/index2.html. You will also see details on the Atlantis books and the aforementioned Atlantian website. Keep an eye of for news of his next book as well. If it's anything like the others then we are in for a treat.
Derek Gunn lives in Dublin, Ireland with his wife and three children and is the author of four novels. His post-apocalyptic thriller series, Vampire Apocalypse, has been widely praised on both sides of the Atlantic in the genre media and it is published by Black Death Books. The three books in the series are; "A World Torn Asunder" (2006), "Descent into Chaos" (2008) and "Fallout" (2009). Derek also released "The Estuary", published by Permuted Press in 2009 which is available in Borders and Waldenbooks stores throughout the USA as well as from online booksellers.
Derek's first book is under option for film and an adaptation is currently in active development as a major movie. Also, the Graphic novel rights to Derek's VAMPIRE APOCALYPSE series have been picked up by a US indie publisher - the first graphic novel is due out in 2011. Visit his website at www.derekgunn.com
