Brian Bennudriti has degrees in
Physics and Business. He’s taken a nuclear reactor critical, piloted a
destroyer, slept in the Omani desert, negotiated multi-million dollar
acquisitions, run two companies, provided strategic and management consulting
across the United
States and
traveled around the world in every hemisphere. He’s a plankowner on the
aircraft carrier, USS Harry S Truman and has made a lifetime study of religious
beliefs and mythology. Brian lives in Kansas City with his wife, two children, two dogs and a lizard. His
first book, Tearing
Down The Statues, was published in 2015.
For
More Information
- Visit Brian Bennudriti’s website.
- Connect with Brian on Facebook and Twitter.
- Find out more about Brian at Goodreads.
Title:
Tearing Down the Statues
Author: Brian Bennudriti
Publisher: Grailrunner Publishing
Pages: 344
Genre: Science Fiction
Author: Brian Bennudriti
Publisher: Grailrunner Publishing
Pages: 344
Genre: Science Fiction
Misling is a Recorder, having
perfect memory and expected to help build a seamless record of history. That’s
what the Salt Mystic taught us two thousand years ago when she came stumbling
from the flats with her visions. Unfortunately he’s probably the worst Recorder
ever. So when he meets a joker with an incredible secret, the two of them are
soon on the run from swarming lunatics and towering assault troops in the heart
of a city under siege.
As it has for three generations,
the horrible Talgo family is the spark of this swelling world war; and their
wily generals and scheming counselors clash their fleets in battles of
shrieking steel-entrained tornados, cannonballs of lightning, and tanks the
size of cities. But it’s the joker’s secret that is the most powerful weapon of
all…a trigger set by the Salt Mystic herself in myth, to save the world from
itself.
For More Information
- Tearing Down the Statues is available at Amazon.
- Pick up your copy at Barnes & Noble.
- Discuss this book at PUYB Virtual Book Club at Goodreads.
Thank you for this interview! I’d like to know more about you as a person
first. What do you do when you’re not
writing?
‘A problem
cannot be solved by the same kind of thinking that gave rise to it’.
I have no idea if Albert Einstein ever really said that; but
it’s why my day job works. I consult for a number of manufacturing sites,
meaning I work with them to tap into the people they never listen to and the
little hidden wonders in their processes. We get to build breakthrough ways of
operating together and, this part especially rocks my deficit of attention, we
change subjects constantly. It’s probably the most fun job I’ve had. Apart from
that, I’ve got a daughter into cheerleading and a son into hockey, both of
which just morphed into teenagers. That brings a whole new level of crazy busy;
and they keep bringing pets home. Have you got any advice about that?
When did you start writing?
I don’t
remember a time when I didn’t have a bunch of paper or notebooks full of things
I thought would make good stories or the stories themselves. Most of that will
never see sunshine, you’re welcome; but it’s a thing with me that goes way back
and is very much how I see the world. We all think in stories – it’s how we
relate and process the world and is the fastest way to get inside someone’s
head. My first novel was published at the end of 2015.
As a published author, what would you say was the most
pivotal point of your writing life?
I hope this
doesn’t come off as naïve or overly innocent; but I have a special happy place
inside my head for bookstores. I love the smell and the look of them, to wander
aimlessly and open up the different worlds. I’ve haunted libraries on a rainy
day. So I was in a hotel up late and idly clicked the Barnes & Noble
website to see if my book had showed up yet; and I laughed out loud to no one
when I saw it there. It was intoxicating, though the real work was just
beginning. That’s an electric thing, seeing yourself on a site like that where
anyone in the world can find you.
If you could go anywhere in the world to start writing your
next book, where would that be and why?
I’d spend
time in that country house from the first Narnia movie in some study
overlooking a lake or a field, hopefully in autumn. In my imagination, I’d be
at the writing desk acting scenes out and testing the dialogue with the dogs
watching me like I’m addled while my wife and kids ride horses or something. If
you’re a sporty jock-type with a Fitbit strapped to your wrist and sweating in
your Under Armor, that probably sounds miserable. If you’re one of my people
though, I’m guessing you get me.
If you had 4 hours of extra time today, what would you do?
Harlan
Ellison, Stephen King, and most of the greats who have bothered to comment on
time and wordslinging would say the smart answer is write every day and write
in these four hours. That’s my responsible answer. Likely as not though, I’d
probably watch a season of “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” on Netflix.
Where would you like to set a story that you haven’t done
yet?
Interesting
question. I’m guessing one of my Christmas traditions is unique to me; but
we’ll see. Every year around November I read a Dickens book called, “Holly Tree
Inn”, which was really just a holiday issue of a magazine he was putting out
back in the day with some stuff by him and some from his buddies. Whatever. The
reason it went timeless and like home for me is the atmosphere of a small inn
with ridiculous snowfall outside stranding interesting people, with the
crackling fire and helpful attendant there in the lobby. I need that setting;
but I probably need assassins or city-sized tanks outside or maybe a possessed
lunatic dwelling as one of the guests ready to foam at the mouth any moment
though you’ll never know who till it happens. Somewhere like that.
Back to your present book, Tearing Down The Statues, how did you publish it?
I am
someone who will ask opinions of my friends and family about how long I should
try submitting something through the frustrating gauntlets of agents and
traditional publishers. And I am someone who will let those answers, whatever
they were, swoosh by without affecting my course of action. I set up
Grailrunner Publishing last year for my work and maybe a small select group of
fellow authors leveraging Adobe Photoshop, Acrobat, Indesign and some of the
fantastic Print On Demand, Audiobook and marketing services out there, to get
to market. I won’t preach here or get too irritated; but it’s very much a
national disgrace right now not only how much traditional publishing channels
are stacked against breakthrough innovation but also how many snake oil
salesmen are out there taking advantage of people trying to publish themselves.
We’ve probably already had a book that would’ve changed our world die with its
author, languishing on the Ingram database unread.
In writing your book, did you travel anywhere for research?
In my job,
I often travel anyway; and I’m always studying how people interact with each
other. It’s a thing with me; and I can’t turn it off. I’ll see a leather
skinned, tattooed dad instructing his thin and wide-eyed son with the Navy
duffle bag piled at his feet on how to behave and what to say and shamelessly
steal that when I need something in a busy airship dockyard I need to build
inside my head. Like Harlan Ellison said once, the only real thing to write
about is people.
Why was writing Tearing
Down The Statues so important to you?
I read once
that every author’s book will always have the great theme of the writer’s life,
whatever that is. Maybe so. I believe that tragedies like September 11th
or Pearl Harbor bring out the best in a nation’s character, but that unless
something dramatic changes, we’re only a generation or two away from things
like dedication and selflessness dying out entirely. Watch the crappy parenting
around you and honestly consider whether I’m overreacting. In this book, I
wanted to poke around with the notion of how terrible it might be if something
on those levels were to happen to a generation that has almost lost those
things. I peopled the book with lost souls longing for spiritual connections
and rocked their worlds, shadowing all the events with an over-arching and
detailed philosophy I found fascinating the more I built it. I couldn’t write
anything that isn’t fun though and without big freaking tanks, so there’s that
too.
Where do you get your best ideas and why do you think that
is?
I mishear
things sometimes, or I misunderstand what’s happening in a book or movie, then
nod that what I thought was happening is better than what actually was. I can’t
replicate that though, so it’s a crap answer to your question. Really, when I’m
stuck on what should happen or how to break through into something
new…something really new that hasn’t been seen before…going for a long run on a
summer day around a lake near my house is like a chokehold to wherever ideas
shake out from. Sometimes I just chuckle to myself in the woods or on the trail
when it comes together with a satisfying click out there. I suppose your
imagination is screaming at you with the connections it’s seeing, you just need
to get somewhere you can listen.
Any final words?
Drop by www.grailrunner.com
to join in the art celebration or catch up on some pop culture yammering. Send
me your thoughts on Twitter (@grailrunner) or by email (press@grailrunner.com) and…
Why not just go get the book? www.amazon.com
Join in Salt Mystic combat. Change the world.
“Tearing Down The Statues”
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