Can you tell us a little bit about your book? When did it come out? Where can we get it?
In
That Other Dimension is an off-the-wall fantasy based around a main
character, Carlos Ernesto Amadeus von Schnaart, who suffers an unfortunate and
drunken journey into the world of parallel dimensions. You can just imagine the
hangover when he wakes up to discover that his only companions in the whole
dimension are 80 foot tall ducks. Fortunately for him, he's a pretty chilled
out kinda guy, so he just about copes until the squiggly nature of parallel
dimensions conspires to see him imprisoned by Dr. Funk, an evil scientist with a
revenge plan against the world he was brought up in.
Throw in a cake dragon, some pitchfork waving jelly babies, a spotty teenage footballer and the infamous Unicorn Mountain, and you have a story full of twists, turns and laughter.
Throw in a cake dragon, some pitchfork waving jelly babies, a spotty teenage footballer and the infamous Unicorn Mountain, and you have a story full of twists, turns and laughter.
Released
in January 2014, it is available to buy on Amazon in both paperback and e-book
formats. (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J19L3AM/)
I
think my favorite line from the reviews I have received thus far, sums the
book up quite nicely:
“It's like Bill
and Ted, Dr. Who and Alice in Wonderland got together and started taking hits
of acid. It's wonderfully hilarious, unabashedly random, and you won't be able
to put it down.”
Is there anything that
prompted your latest book? Something that inspired you?
Nothing
in particular! It was an idea that came to me in the middle of the night. I
always seem to get good ideas when I’m not really thinking about anything!
There are lots of little things in there that are bits of inspiration from
conversations with friends, or places I’ve been, but as you will find if you
read it, you’d be a little worried about my sanity if my life was closely
reflected by any of it!
One of
the main aims when I wrote In That Other Dimension was to make people laugh,
and it seems to have done that. My interests, which include rock music, traveling and cake, inspire many of the characters and settings in the book,
and in both my novel and short stories you’ll see glimpses of childhood
imagination and fantasy.
Great! So, when did you know you wanted to write? Or has it always been a pastime of yours?
It’s
always been a pastime of mine, but it has only been in the last few years that
I’ve tried my hand at writing novels. As a kid I used to love writing stories
(the first story I remember writing was about Cowboys and Indians, written in a
Transformers exercise book when I was about 6!). At university, it turned into silly
songs and poetry, and nowadays it's novels and short stories once more! It’s
only recently that I’ve started to do it more seriously, although I do make
sure that it is pressure-free and an activity that I enjoy doing.
Do you have any favorite authors?
Yes,
many! Those which I would say have heavily influenced my writing are Terry
Pratchett, Douglas Adams and Roald Dahl. I just love the surreal nature of
these authors and the brilliance with which they make such unique worlds and
characters so easily believable. Other authors I enjoy reading are more in the
high fantasy world – Karen Miller, Fiona McIntosh, Trudi Canavan and Patrick
Rothfuss spring to mind straight away. There are many others though!
Do you write in a specific place? Time of day?
Yes, I
have a regular lunchtime session in the Library of Birmingham, and aside from
this I fit it in when and where I can! I do like writing in different locations
so I will sit in a coffee-shop from time to time, and obviously I have my spare
room set up for writing with a CD player to drown out the silence!
I can relate. Don't even get me started on how different types of music can influence your writing. LOL.
So, are there any words you'd like to impart to fellow writers? Any advice?
Just
write, and enjoy writing. That’s it really. If you are doing neither, your
writing productivity will be very low.
As you
may remember from the guest post I wrote for Marie a month or so ago, I very
much believe in taking the pressure off writing. If it’s no fun anymore, it’s
helping neither the writer nor the potential reader.
You're right. Writing should never feel like a chore. When you're in the "zone", you just know it's meant to be.
Readers, here is the blurb for In That Other Dimension.
Parallel
dimensions are actually quite squiggly in nature.
This is one of many lessons which Carlos Ernesto Amadeus von Schnaart will learn during his accidental journey into the unknown. Finding the way home and explaining his tequila fueled disappearance to his fiancee will become minor worries when he finds himself kidnapped by the evil scientist Dr Funk.
Follow Carlos' adventures through the parallel universe and find out what happens to him when he gets lost "In That Other Dimension..."
Warning: Contains traces of ducks, cake dragons, jelly babies and the infamous Unicorn Mountain. May induce laughter.
"Matty Millard has a way of making you feel you're sitting there with him as you read: he's telling you a story but he's also beside you, pointing out bits, telling you extra things, it's like having the writer with you and making you smile." – William Gallagher
This is one of many lessons which Carlos Ernesto Amadeus von Schnaart will learn during his accidental journey into the unknown. Finding the way home and explaining his tequila fueled disappearance to his fiancee will become minor worries when he finds himself kidnapped by the evil scientist Dr Funk.
Follow Carlos' adventures through the parallel universe and find out what happens to him when he gets lost "In That Other Dimension..."
Warning: Contains traces of ducks, cake dragons, jelly babies and the infamous Unicorn Mountain. May induce laughter.
"Matty Millard has a way of making you feel you're sitting there with him as you read: he's telling you a story but he's also beside you, pointing out bits, telling you extra things, it's like having the writer with you and making you smile." – William Gallagher
Here is an excerpt.
It is a
little known fact that every red telephone box in England contains a portal to
a parallel dimension. This is activated by an amazing technology which our
fantastic telecoms engineers have stumbled upon without ever actually
realizing.
It is equally little known that this portal is
activated simply by the phone number dialed in that box.
Had
Carlos Ernesto Amadeus Von Schnaart had even an inkling of this then he may
never have used the phone box in the first place. This presence of mind however
was unlikely, as he was completely and utterly battered. In fact, his
alcohol-induced state was the only reason he got into the phone box in the
first place. If he had left the Ocean Bar in Soho, London, two tequilas earlier
he would never have decided to call his on/off girlfriend Maria at 3:37 AM to
slur declarations of undying love to her voicemail…again.
In a perverse way, his semi-conscious drunken stupor
really helped him deal with the situation. Carlos assumed that the green smoke
which slowly engulfed the telephone box on Soho Rd was just someone nearby
smoking a huge spliff. He also assumed that the slow dimming of light towards
total blackness was merely the act of his eyes closing over a prolonged period
of time. And the feeling of traveling through 497 different parallel
dimensions in three seconds to get to the destination which he had unwittingly dialed
was clearly just Carlos falling over.
It should be noted that in the field of dimensions,
parallel means parallel only in that the dimensions exist at the same time as
each other. In no other way are they parallel. For example, if you draw two
parallel lines they never cross and carry on in the same direction. Parallel
dimensions are by nature quite squiggly and their direction is definitely
rndamo. (For the duration of this book the word 'random' will be spelt randomly
using the letters of the words random, for no other reason than I like it.)
Incidentally, had Carlos exited the phone box in these
three seconds, he would have been stuck in a special place between parallel
dimensions that doesn’t really exist. Regardless of the fact that no one has
ever returned from there, and it is not actually known whether anyone has even
been there (as no-one has returned to tell us), rumor has it that the entire
place is colorless and consists of no physical elements at all. This lack of
physical elements means no gravitational force, so anyone stuck there would be
floating around in nothingness with no control over where they are going. Not
that there is anything to go and see anyway.
So, even though Carlos was thoroughly perplexed, a
little bit irritated and unbelievably hung over when he finally woke up, he’d
had quite a lucky escape really. Unfortunately that didn’t make him feel any
better, as nobody in his new surroundings could tell him that.
Carlos stumbled out of the phone box he had fallen
asleep in the night before and rubbed his stinging eyes. He looked around in
amazement, decided that he was still dreaming, went back into the phone box,
and closed his eyes.
Two hours
later he came round again. His headache was starting to subside so maybe today
wouldn’t be as bad as he feared, although he definitely wouldn’t be drinking
tequila again for a while.
He stretched - not very well because he was in a phone
box - and decided to venture back out into the real world, hoping that no one
he knew would see him.
As he stepped out of the phone box, he had a strange
feeling of déjà vu, and remembered the “dream” he’d had two hours earlier.
That’s
right, they were still there.
Author Bio
Matty
Millard was born in Wolverhampton, England and still lives and works locally.
His off-the-wall debut fantasy novel "In That Other Dimension" was
published in January 2014.
A rocker, football fan, mathemagician and lover of
cake, Matty is a just a regular bloke who wears odd socks.
His writing merges grown-up humour with childish
themes, quirky characters, unique plot-twists and general fun times.
Matty’s
short story "Weapons of Mass Destruction" won the GKBC International
Short Story Competition in March 2014 and is due to be published in the
anthology shortly. The story can be read here http://gkbcinc.com/gkbc-international-short-story-competition-pt-2-the-winners-story/
Links:
Website:
Facebook:
Twitter:
Goodreads:
Links
to my book In That Other Dimension:
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