Guest Post & Giveaway: Meet K.R. Richardson, Author of BLOOD ORBIT

Blood Orbit is the latest release from author K.R. Richardson, just out from Pyr Books, and although I’m a little behind in my reading and have yet to get to it, I’m pretty excited to dive in. I’m thrilled to have K.R. as a guest today, and I also have a finished copy of Blood Orbit to give away to one U.S. reader, so don’t forget to enter below!

I asked K.R. the following question, and here’s what she had to say:

On your ‘About’ page on your website I was struck by how diverse your hobbies are, everything from actor to voice student, editor, writer in many different mediums, Renaissance Faire enthusiast, and more! How did you decide to settle on writing novels, although perhaps “settling” isn’t the right word?

Definitely not “settling”; more like having it all! I’m a bit of an information squirrel—running from one tasty nugget to the next and stuffing them into my idea storage for one future project or another, or just sticking them into the pile of ideas “just in case.” My web browser bookmark files are huge and messy—rather like my bookshelves—and I’ve always got a pile of research books and trays of papers and bits on my desk.

Like a lot of journalists and other writers, I tend to become an “instant expert” on some oddball topic for as long as it takes to write the piece I need, and then forget ninety-percent of everything I just learned to make room for the next project’s specialized knowledge. I joke that I’m not so much a deep well of knowledge as a broad—and spreading—puddle, and I retain just enough to say “I used to know that…” about all sorts of arcane and bizarre things.

I like history and science, I’m a “wordy girl,” and I’ve always been an avid reader. My father was an English teacher, so I caught the writing bug early. My mother claims to have my first short story—a Hallowe’en horror story I wrote when I was six—in a box somewhere. I honestly don’t remember the story or writing it, and the particular box has yet to surface from the storage unit—I think we can all guess where I got my collect-and-stash gene!—but I do seem to have been slapping bits of fantasy and weird facts together for a long time.

I think it was inevitable with that sort of background that I would end up writing professionally. First Journalism and non-fiction—because it used to be easy to make money at that—and then fiction, because I find it a lot more fun. As a kid, I had already gotten in the habit of reading about or trying out interesting things in real life, and then putting bits of that experience and knowledge into writing in school and, later, in professional life, so moving over to fiction wasn’t much of a move at all.

Ironically, a mystery-writing friend of mine once said it must be easier to write fantasy since “you just make things up,” but my experience is that writing about not-real things is harder: you have to do a lot of research and mental construction to make an unreal thing seem real and plausible. Fiction is held to a higher standard of “believability” than real life, because we expect fiction to make sense and have some kind of complete story and a satisfactory ending. Real life is messy, unsatisfactory, and full of events and coincidences that are truly, mind-bogglingly bizarre.

And the unsatisfactory, messy, insane aspects of real life are one of the reasons I continue to write, and continue to change what I write and how. The more I see and read and experience, the more I want to bring to other people, to say more with what I write, and to challenge readers with new ideas or different views about stories and ideas we’re already familiar with. Tinkering with concepts, expression, and ideas.

I guess that’s my new hobby.

Now, if I can just get my office clean…

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About the Author:

K. R. RICHARDSON is a bestselling Washington-based writer and editor of science fiction, crime, mystery, and fantasy. A former journalist with publications on topics from technology, software, and security, to history, health, and precious metals, Richardson is also a lifelong fan of crime and mystery fiction, and films noir. When not writing or researching, the author may be found loafing about with dogs, riding motorcycles, shooting, or dabbling with paper automata. For more information visit www.gattisfiles.com.

Find the book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository | IndieBound

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About the book:

This science fiction police procedural pairs an idealistic rookie with an officer who uses cybernetic implants to process forensics; in solving a mass murder, they will uncover a vast conspiracy.

Eric Matheson, an idealistic rookie cop trying to break from his powerful family, is plunged into the investigation of a brutal crime in his first weeks on the job in Angra Dastrelas, the corrupt capital city of the corporate-owned planet Gattis. A newcomer to the planet, Matheson is unaware of the danger he’s courting when he’s promoted in the field to assist the controversial Chief Investigating Forensic Officer, Inspector J. P. Dillal, the planet’s first cybernetically enhanced investigator. Coming from a despised ethnic underclass, the brilliant and secretive Dillal seems determined to unravel the crime regardless of the consequences. The deeper they dig, the more dangerous the investigation becomes. But in a system where the cops enforce corporate will, instead of the law, the solution could expose Gattis’s most shocking secrets and cost thousands of lives–including Matheson’s and Dillal’s.

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Are you ready for a giveaway? Thanks to Pyr Books, I have a finished copy for a U.S. resident. All you have to do is fill out the Rafflecopter form below. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway