Guest Blog: Carl Alves

Anyone who read my review of Carl Alves’ ‘Two for Eternity’ will know how much I enjoyed the story of two characters’ conflicts as they journey through history. Carl’s third novel (I seem to have missed his second!) is different in subject matter - ‘Reconquest: Mother Earth’ deals with the aftermath of an alien invasion.

I’m about half way through, and a review will follow. In the meantime, here’s a short piece from Carl outlining what drove him to write the story.

I don’t consider myself a science fiction writer. Although I will dabble in science fiction from time to time, I like to think of myself as a horror and fantasy writer. Having said that, I have always enjoyed the alien invasion concept. There have been many variations written on this topic, and I didn’t want the invasion aspect to be the main focus of the novel. In fact, the alien invasion in my novel lasts for about the first three chapters. The part I was really interested in writing about what happens after the invasion.

The post-invasion is the main focus of the novel. It combines several different factors that intrigue me. One is that the alien invasion that occurs is basically an apocalypse of humanity where most of the population gets wiped out. One of the things I wanted to explore was how people survive when civilization as they know it is destroyed. A wild card here is that the source of the apocalypse, the aliens, are still around. So not only do the survivors have to deal with rebuilding society, but there is also the element of the subjugation and enslavement of the population.

Above all else, I wanted to make this an action thriller. Even if you don’t read science fiction at all, I wanted this novel to be interesting and entertaining for that type of reader. From beginning to end there are loads of action sequence, and the novel can be read as an adventure story. My main character, Mitch Grace, an ex-SEAL, has to defy the odds in his quest to reconquer the planet from the alien invaders after waking up from a five-year-coma. I make things very difficult for Mitch and his followers and tried to keep things as realistic as possible.

‘Reconquest: Mother Earth’ is available from Amazon.

Carl is at http://www.carlalves.com/