A Spotlight with Marc Corwin, author of ‘The Optical Lasso’.
The Optical Lasso is a space opera / science fiction fantasy thriller, and the first in a planned series. One of the primary supporting characters, the Science Officer, is an Aussie! This is my first published piece of any kind, but in early reviews, it has been received well (see postings on Amazon).
My debut novel highlights the following conflicts: religion vs science, trust over torture, romance vs combat, truth over politics, is there alien life out there, as well as food commentary on such important topics as thin vs thick crust pizza, what comprises a good New York style cheesecake, and the true origin of matzo ball soup… are you familiar with the legendary matzo bird that once roamed the Negev desert?
Regarding music, it runs the gambit from one hit wonders Friend & Lover to Herman’s Hermits to Ferrante & Teicher and Gustav Holst.
It scientifically challenges your imagination: How can a planet periodically reverse its rotation? What will you find inside the first wormhole ever discovered? If Einstein was wrong and you can travel faster than the speed of light, all of history would be at your fingertips to view at your choosing. What secrets would it reveal?
It will tug at your heart as a dying young boy, through the love of his mother, emerges as Earth’s greatest leader in a time of dire need.
My personal backstory encompasses a successful CFO / small business owner who recently survived a near fatal car accident and realized life is short. Why am I not doing what I really love to do? Write!
So that’s a short and sweet synopsis of what I bring to the table. Pass me a Tim Tam and perhaps we can find some common ground. My wife and I vacationed in Cairns a few decades ago and found the people of Australia to be amongst the friendliest on the planet. We had planned to visit New Zealand this year to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary and we all know what happened there!
We live in San Diego, CA so I will never complain about the weather. We have 2 wonderful dogs Sweet Pea, a rescue, and Elvis (he ain’t nothing but a hound dog) our basset hound who somehow snuck into my book as a character. Imagine that!
Have you read this novel? The author is currently looking for Amazon reviews, so get on it (Australian Amazon or .com Amazon) !
I don’t know where to start with how disappointed I was in this ‘finale’. There were too many perspectives and it became difficult to work out whose side I should be on. Betrayals and side-plots seemed to be the norm, with no sense of continuity.
This book is filled with references to the past. It’s jumps straight into Simon’s last year at Watford School of Magicks (a boarding school of course), and the background of battling the Humdrum is just tossed in there. I couldn’t work out why I was reading it – there seemed to be no real plot at all. Thus it’s a DNF for me – I gave up and went and read something else.
This reads as a novel with two authors – Zoe wrote the chapters from one character perspective and Amy wrote the chapters from the second character perspective. I’m not sure that this really works. Somehow Ivy has it stuck in her head that Audrey is a complete prat, but at the same time Audrey seems to unreasonably hate Ivy? Even more so, the staff seem to either be cute, or completely unreasonable. There’s no consistent characterisation or actions.
Alex is a badass young woman who speaks her mind and isn’t afraid to teach sexual education and action it. That being said, as the point-of-view is only hers, it was difficult to work out how much was her internal attitude and how much was her outer persona. At times, it seemed as if it was all a front – inside she’s just as scared about growing up as other kids.
Bo is lied to and abused by almost everyone in his life. In fact, even the people he trusts lie to him – even if sometimes it is to protect him. The underlying theme of this novel is that sometimes life is unfair – but you don’t need to let the anger grow too much.
Did someone say that we needed more diversity in queer fiction? Even if they didn’t, this novel is a worthy addition to any gay teen’s bookshelf. It’s an accessible, friendly novel about Marty finally getting to live the openly-queer life he has always wanted since age six. The romance is a bit ugh, but I liked that it didn’t come to an obvious conclusion. Thank you, Marty, for not being a complete idiot.
I feel some confusion about these novels. Yes, they are on an epic scale, but somehow I can’t bring myself to care about most of the characters. Delaunay was nice and all, but I didn’t feel sorrow when he died. Thus the power grabs are secondary to my interest in Phedre’s character. I felt this way when I read Kushiel’s Dart nine years ago (
I felt some confusion on why the virus was only in Texas. I didn’t get a sense of anything in the rest of the global landscape. It would have been better, I think, if this had just been set in a new world. I spent a fair amount of time wondering what the other states/cities of the USA were doing about the virus. Is there scope for a sequel where Wren takes on other states that treat reboots like property?
I was surprised that Blake didn’t try to take sexual advantage of Olivia. Olivia was (and is) such a pathetic character with almost no spine (and no self-confidence) that I felt sure Blake would have pushed her into sex, and she’d have justified it. Her best-friend’s concern just seemed to blow right past Olivia, but how can one person be so clueless? Olivia is just plain dumb (perhaps what more can I expect from a vegan who survives on PBJs?).