GUEST AUTHOR ERIC TRANT

Thursday, May 24, 2012

IN LOVING MEMORY

Dastan Jerome Wheeler Trant
November 11, 2010 - May 21, 2012

I've known Eric W. Trant for a couple years now; watched his blog grow and mature along with his writing.  What attracts me to Eric, from a reader's perspective, is his gritty humor and authentic characters. He uses the same upfront, honest voice on his blog posts as he does in his writings.  I like his style.  It is sad that my review of his novel Out of the Great Black Nothing and request for his guest author post was sent just prior to his son's unexpected passing.  Eric suggested we move forward with the post, so I will not dwell on that unhappiness here.

If I was the type person to buy a book based on the cover (which I am occasionally) this one would definitely go home with me.  Add a simple, eye catching blurb, and you can see how excited I was to finally get my copy in the mail.  I've been intrigued by Percy Freebottom since he first showed up as a name and character on Eric's blog, and later in the short story One Small Step in Open Heart Publishing's anthology An Honest Lie Volume 2.

Who the Hell is Percy Freebottom?

That is the question the readers of An Honest Lie have been pondering since first reading about him in Volume 2, and so has the U.S. government.
After all, it’s not everyday that NASA finds grafitti on the moon.

Continuing Percy’s epic journey from his lawnchair launch-pad, Out of the Great Black Nothing is Eric Trant’s debut novel and we are as excited to present this fascinating story as we are to introduce you to Eric Trant our first winner of An Honest Lie’s yearly anthology contest.

So grab a cold one from the fridge, get a comfy lawnchair, and get ready to take off.  This is a journey you don’t want to miss.

My Review:

The story plot is simple, and bluntly asked in the form of a question early in the novel’s intro:  Who is Percy Freebottom and how did he get to the moon?  I liked the way the plot was presented in several, curiosity piquing layers.  Between the introduction of Percy’s origins, and the first meeting with Claire, I was intrigued right off to not only discover the answer to this question, but also to take the journey to see how the two character plots interact.

For me, the most engaging aspect of the story is the vivid characters.  Set in the back-woods town of Owl’s Oak, TX, Trant paints a rich environment using colorful, distinct characters that interact naturally with the setting.  The story is told from multiple, third person perspectives; each character viewing and sensing the town, the people, and the central story concept in their unique style.  The transitions from perspective, locations, and circumstances all flowed progressively, even when the story called for a brief retracing of steps.

Having read and enjoyed the short story One Small Step (An Honest Lie, Vol II) that sparked the novel concept for Out of the Great Black Nothing, I was pleasantly surprised that this story did not feature William Percival (Percy) Freebottom as the main character.  Percy’s adventure on the moon, however is the central plot concept, and Percy is a prominent, central character.

The main character is Claire Pearson, DOD Pentagon analysis agent who holds dual PhDs in aeronautics and physics, assigned to investigate the mysterious appearance of a hand written message on the dark side of the moon that reads simply “Percy Freebottom was here.”  As punishment for her rebellious assertiveness, Claire is assigned the unappealing task of investigating all the likely individual suspects, and that disastrous journey eventually leads her to the correct Percy Freebottom and his equally mysterious sister Anna Marie.

Things get really freaky as Claire (and the reader) is introduced to a cast of human characters that would fit well in a Stephen King novel, and their cosmic other-selves that readers of a Tannith Lee novella would appreciate.  The cosmic entities were so well developed I had to go online and conduct my own research to discover more of these mystical beings.  I’m not sure where the author drew his knowledge base from, but these other-worldly characters were unique, well developed, and sensuously engaging.

Out of the Great Black Nothing is a mix of gritty romance (no explicit sex), intellectual intrigue, and an exploration of mysteries beyond religious and scientific explanation. I highly recommend this novel to all readers who enjoy being comfortably entertained for several hours or day, and give Out of the Great Black Nothing a full 5 star rating.

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As you can see by my review, I was eager to learn more about Eric Trant and what life influences went into the making of this novel. Below is his response to the questions . .

 First off, thank you, Donna, for the interview and review of Out of the Great Black Nothing (GBN)! We've known each other for a few years, and I'm happy to be guest-posting on your blog. It means a lot that you are taking the time to do this.

It's cliche, but like many writers, I have always written, and always wanted to be a writer. I come from a long line of storytellers in my family, so the art of storytelling is natural. Plus, my mother is an English teacher and librarian, ret'd, whose passion for reading borders on obsession, and I don't mean on this side of obsession, I mean on the ~other~ side of obsession, the far side that's well away from the rest of us.

I wrote stories in high school and college, and picked up the pace after my first marriage. I never submitted any, though, until 2009, when I sent a short story to Open Heart Publishing. It was on a whim, but they answered back that they liked one of my stories, but the other was too "visceral." That second one was about dead puppies.

I can honestly say that my first submission was accepted! And published!

I don't think it's possible for any author to avoid writing about yourself or people you know, at least a little bit. You may not use the entire person, but you will certainly use pieces of them, such as habits, mannerisms, personality and physical traits, and so forth.

The small town, Owl's Oak, is loosely based on the East Texas town where I spent the first twelve years of my childhood.  Lee is loosely based on one of my best friends, who is a lighthearted, small-town police officer, and Martha, Percy's wife, is loosely based on my wife. When I wrote the Percy scenes, I thought of her, and that comes out in the intimacy between her and Percy. She dotes on me and believes in me as much as Martha ever did with Percy.

I earned a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, and I work with a semiconductor company in Dallas, Texas. You'll see engineering concepts sprinkled throughout GBN, and the main character is a well-educated PhD. Since I am a technical person by nature, my biggest struggle is to avoid over-analyzing my work. I try to be precise, though, and you'll see that in the details of the book.  I based the NASA board meeting on real-life interactions with my fellow engineers. Our meetings are very much like I described, as are the politics

As for the concept, I had a title, and it was this: Who the Hell is Percy Freebottom?

I worked and worked on that title, trying to figure out just what was so special about Percy, until GBN was born. It was a laborious and mind-bending task!  I did lots of research on the space stuff. I hope this question means you noticed.

First of all, the Chandraayan-1 satellite is a real satellite, and it really was launched by India as their first lunar mission, and it really did map the lunar poles. The Russians really did make a crappy spacesuit that was bulky, and that everyone hated, and NASA really did use a 70mm modified Hasselblad camera on their lunar missions. I tried to be detailed and accurate in as much as I could.

Keep in mind that I am an engineer, and by nature obsessive-compulsive, and attuned to details. I didn't bullshit too many science facts, not the obvious ones.

As for the mystical concepts, that's all bunk I cooked up by finding the bottom of a couple of Black-n-Tan beers.

I don't plan on a sequel for GBN, but I'm not sure Orson Scott Card planned on a sequel for Ender, either. It just depends on the reader response, and whether distribution is widened, and whether there is a request for a sequel.

If I did a sequel, I'm not sure it would be a "sequel" in the traditional sense. I might recycle a character or two, but I bring up Card for a reason. He re-created Ender in the second and third books, and put him in an entirely new universe each time. Card indulged in very little recycling, which is why his series (the first three, at least) are so brilliant.

If I wrote a sequel, I would approach it with Card's method: a complete re-write, with a totally new concept.

It would not be what anyone expected.

I am in three of Open Heart's anthologies, and GBN is also published under their label.  GBN would have been born, eventually, with or without Open Heart. I believed in the concept enough to work on it. Now, would it have been ~published~ without Open Heart? No telling.  I have submitted to a few other publishers, but wanted to refine my writing and my publication methodology before pursuing larger agents and publishing houses.

In other words, I want my first widely circulated book to be from a fully matured writer, which may come about in the next few years.  I have a small dog, a Pomeranian named Daisy, to whom I am very, very attached, and vice versa. She helps me write by sitting in my lap and licking the bottom of my chin.

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Thank you Eric, for guesting with me today.  Hopefully your long journey of getting Out of the Great Black Nothing titled, developed, and finally published will inspire other writers to keep working on their difficult projects too.

Bio:  Eric Trant is the author of several short stories, including “Apple Tree" and “One Small Step," the latter of which introduces the spacesuit-wearing Percy Freebottom, and is the inspiration for his debut novel Out of the Great Black Nothing.

His short stories are featured in Open Heart Publishing's anthology series, An Honest Lie, Volumes 1, 2, and 3.

Eric’s newest short story, “Melvin Gee's Short Trip to Hell”, is featured in An Honest Lie, Volume 3: Justifiable Hypocrisy, released fall 2011 from OHP.

Readers may purchase Eric's work here: Purchase Eric's Books

Out of the Great Black Nothing is Eric's first published novel.