THE PENITENT: Part I (Immortality Wars Book 1) Guest Author: A. Keith Carreiro
ABOUT THE BOOK
A baby is born and placed in his dead mother’s arms. When the funeral shroud is cast over her, his father decides to name his son Pall. It will soon become a name that strikes a shiver into the hearts of those who hear it in combat.
A lone survivor on a battlefield many years later, Pall dazedly recovers from the wounds of war. Despite the dead cast about him, everything he looks upon is unfamiliar to him. Wandering away from this scene of carnage, he encounters John Savage, a giant of a man who puts Pall within the sight of Savage’s seven–foot, nocked longbow.
What ensues from this deadly encounter is an elusive journey for truth. Yet, it is haunted not just by a ravening demon that is out to destroy Pall and John, but by the vision of a startling beautiful young woman protecting Pall from afar.
BOOK DETAILS:
Genre: Fantasy / Epic / Science Fiction / Action & Adventure/ Visionary & Metaphysical
Print Length: 243 pages
Publisher: Copper Beech Press
Publication Date: November 1, 2016
ISBN: 13: 978-1-365-28707-7
Kindle: 13: 978-0-9973827-0-9
ASIN: B01MAZDG4S
PURCHASE LINKS:
A. Keith Carreiro
A. Keith Carreiro earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from Harvard Graduate School of Education, with the sequential help and guidance of three advisors, Dr. Vernon A. Howard, Dr. Donald Oliver and Professor Emeritus, Dr. Israel Scheffler. Keith’s academic focus, including his ongoing research agenda, centers upon philosophically examining how creativity and critical thinking are acquired, learned, utilized and practiced in the performing arts. He has taken his findings and applied them to the professional development of educational practitioners.
Earlier in his teaching career he was a professor of educational foundations, teaching graduate students of education at universities in Vermont, Florida, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. He currently teaches as an adjunct professor of English at Bridgewater State University, as well as teaching English, philosophy, humanities and public speaking courses at Bristol Community College.
He lives in Swansea, Massachusetts with his wife Carolyn. They have six children and 13 grandchildren. They belong to an eighty–five–pound golden retriever, an eight–pound Maltese, and an impish Calico cat.
Due to his love of family, he has seen his fervor for history, as well as his passion for wondering about the future, deepen dramatically.
Starting on May 23rd until October 9th of 2014, he sat down at his computer on a daily basis and began writing the first book of a science fiction/fantasy thriller in a beginning series about the quest for human immortality.
Connect with A. Keith Carriero at these sites:
Q & A with A. Keith Carreiro
Writing and Reading:
Do you draw from personal experiences and/or current events?
I draw material from both areas. Depending upon the context of the writing, the audience I am writing for and the type of writing I am doing, all help determine whether or not I select from personal experiences and/or current events.
For example, the chapter, “Crisis of Conscience: War and Peace at UMO”, I wrote in Stephen King’s (2016) Hearts in Suspension was completely based upon when I was an undergraduate student at the University of Maine Orono, which was from 1966 to February 1969, and from 1970 to 1971.
For the Penitent –Part I, I fashioned a story that takes place in the future; actually it occurs in the 26th century. The story is set there as a result of my seeing the effects and impact science and technology are now having upon the world. I am particularly fascinated with the rate of speed our scientific prowess is having upon humanity and the earth as well.
Ray Kurzweil’s (2005) book called The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology made a great impression on me; as did Michio Kaku’s (2014) The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind. These two books, along with the great writing found in Tolkien and C. S. Lewis’s work, inspired me to write a story that could bring these seemingly disparate works together in a unified theme about the fate of human civilization. I have listed below two of my earlier blogs that describe some of the sources of inspiration that I used to begin writing The Immortality Wars:
Do you start with the conclusion and plot in reverse or start from the beginning and see where the story line brings you?
The genesis of a story seems to vary for me. In writing the first book of my science fiction/fantasy/thriller series, I started freewriting it. When I had written about 50 manuscript pages, the last scene of the novel came to me in a startling clear and lucid manner. The whole ending was crystal clear to me. I set aside the chronological order of writing it and wrote the concluding scene of the story. When I had finished the ending, I went back to where I had left off and resumed the action from that point until I reached the conclusion I had just written.
I wrote the first section of this series on a daily basis. From Friday, May 23rd until Wednesday, October 8th of 2014, and except for six days during that time, I managed to write a book that totaled a bit over 168,000 words.
Your routine when writing? Any idiosyncrasies?
I try to write in the morning, or about an hour after I awake, as I find that I am better equipped mentally and refreshed from the previous day’s writing. Sometimes story ideas come to me when I am sleeping, or at least percolate around the edges of my awareness, and starting anew in the morning helps me keep an edge to what I am composing.
I try to write a minimum of 500 words a day when I am involved in a project. I write until I feel the well has gone dry, or until the storyboard(s) I created for that passage of writing I have been working on are completed.
I am not aware of any eccentricities I have when I am writing. Since I have discovered that when I take the feather out that I had previously tucked onto the top of my right ear, that I can still compose a story, I stopped doing so a while back.
I don’t believe I have replaced the feather with any other literary whimsy since that time to ensure that I write in a disciplined manner.
Is writing your full time job? If not, may I ask what you do by day?
Writing is not my full time job, although I would like it to be. By day, and by evening at times, I teach college and university undergraduate classes on a part–time basis. I teach English courses at Bridgewater State University, as well as a variety of English, communication and philosophy courses at Bristol Community College (Fall River and New Bedford campuses). All of these courses are writing intensive. I have the distinct privilege of learning more about the craft of writing from my students and colleagues at both institutions as a direct result of teaching college level courses in the humanities.
Who are some of your favorite authors?
I am a voracious reader, and have been so since I was a young boy. I love books written in the fields of history, biography, science fiction, fantasy and detective/crime thrillers. I love to read the works of JRR Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, T. S. White, Frank Peretti, General Lew Wallace, Lloyd C. Douglas, Stephen R. Donaldson, Terry Goodkind, the Brothers Grimm, Lee Child and Raymond Thornton Chandler.
What are you reading now?
I am currently reading two books by a great local author, Steven H. Manchester, Ashes (2016), and The Unexpected Storm: The Gulf War Legacy (2000). I am almost finished reading Mitch Albom’s (2015), the magic strings of Frankie Presto, Ian W. Toll’s (2012) Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942, and Newt Gingerich and William R. Forstchen’s (2005), Never Call Retreat: Lee and Grant: The Final Victory.
I just finished reading Stephen King’s (2011), 11/22/63, which is now one of my favorite books by him.
Are you working on your next novel? Can you tell us a little about it?
I am working on three novels. The first two are fiction. One of the two is the next book in The Immortality Wars series. It is called the Pilgrim, and it continues the story of the young warrior Pall Warren, his friend John Savage, and the young woman who watches Pall from afar, Evangel. As the Penitent ends on an unresolved action, I do not want to spoil what readers will be getting into when they reach the Pilgrim.
Due to its length, as well as the fact that I am on a limited publishing budget, I have split the Penitent into three respective parts. Part I was just released this past November, and it is available in eBook and paperback formats. Part II will be launched in April 2017, while Part III will be published in August 2017. Hopefully, the first part of the Pilgrim will be available to the public in December 0f 2017.
The second fictional story is still an idea, although the story and its main character, Darien de Sousa, are constantly on my mind. The action, setting, and main characterization are already set, as is the title of the story itself. It occurs in the Fall River, Providence and New Bedford areas during 1958. Darian is a World War Two veteran who is suffering, more than he readily admits to himself, from what was then called shell shock. Fellow Army officers from the European theater, where he served with distinction in the 45th “Thunderbird” Division, help him obtain a part–time job teaching history at Brown University to undergraduate students. His curiosity about what has happened to a former rival officer’s wife, who has gone missing, lands Darian into a secret and illicit world of sexual perversion and bondage. When his memories of the war are not ruining his rational ability to function, he pursues the clues he begins to amass while attempting to discover his rival’s missing wife.
The third manuscript I am working on is in making the chapter I wrote in Hearts in Suspension a full length book. After first submitting my initial draft for editing to Jim Bishop earlier this year (May/June 2016), Jim encouraged me to consider doing so. He is Stephen King’s first college English professor, and it was his idea to have King and some of Steve’s former UMO classmates and friends write about their university experience during the time period from 1966 to 1970. King’s (1999) Hearts in Atlantis is the inspiration for Hearts in Suspension. Bishop thought it would be worthwhile to take a work of fiction, which has King’s biographical roots as a UMO freshman morphed onto the fictional character of Peter Riley, and expand it into a full length nonfiction story.
To turn my chapter into a full length book will require a lot of research as I am interweaving local, statewide, regional, national and international events (cultural, scientific, economic and political strands) together with my own narrative as a college student during the 1960s. It is also not easy for me to write about those times. It was a turbulent, chaotic, and incredible era, particularly over what was happening in our popular. Music, the cinema and the visual arts were at incredible levels of expression, providing a powerful background to what was then occurring. On occasion, artists themselves made and drove the news stories of the day. They were inextricably linked to the spirit of the age.
Your novel will be a movie. Who would you cast?
Great Question. I thought that if the novel were ever turned into a movie, it would need to rely heavily on CGI. I would like to see what a completely animated movie would look like. I do not see it being “cartoonish”, but one literally expressing a civilization of mind blowing, technological sophistication set amidst stark realities of poverty and sometimes Neolithic cultures.
I would like mostly unknowns to act in it; yet, these actors need to be skilled in the artistry they are called upon to display. If the movie is done with CGI and real life animation, I would love to have any of the following actors participate in the voice overs:
Sir Patrick Stewart Jennifer Lawrence
Anthony Hopkins Scarlett Johansson
Jude Law Amy Adams
Gerard Butler Emma Stone
Steve Buscemi Zoe Saldana
Hugh Jackman Cate Blanchette
Sir Ian McKellen Ann Hathaway
Harrison Ford Hale Berry
Josh Hutcherson Sienna Miller
Chris Evans Gwyneth Paltrow
Gary Oldman Margot Robbie
Ryan Guzman Ana de Armas
Alexander Ludwig Thandie Newton
Will Smith Zoey Deutch
Colin Farrell Lucy Liu
Christian Bale Annabelle Wallis
Denzel Washington Natalie Portman
Chris Pine Kate Upton
Edward Norton Emma Roberts
Chris Hensworth Bella Thorne
Michael B. Jordan Elizabeth Olsen
James Earl Jones Jade Pinkett Smith
Paul Giamatti Emilia Clarke
Vigo Mortensen Helen Mirren
Ed Harris Rachel Weisz
David Wenham Glenn Close
Sean Connery Reese Witherspoon
Favorite Leisure Activity:
One of my favorite activities is being outdoors in nature. I love working in my organic and Japanese gardens.
Favorite Meal:
I love eating good, wholesome food that is organic and home cooked. I do not necessarily have a favorite meal, but a favorite style or approach to getting, preparing and cooking food.
Thank you, Cheryl, for posting this blog about me. Please know that I am happy to respond to any comments your readers may have about me and “the Penitent – Part I”.
Excellent Blog!
Thank you!