An Interview with Author Travis Luedke

With The Nightlife Paris due out next Wednesday (May 1), I caught up with author Travis Luedke to find out what we can expect in the next explosive part of the his hit vampire series and what drew him to writing in the first place. So throw your Twilight DVDs into the bin, we're going vampire hunting (I promise not to cover my eyes).  

Can you start by telling us a little bit about The Nightlife Series? What is it about for those who have not read it?

The Nightlife Series is about all the seedy criminal corruption found in metropolitan areas blended with two vampires trying to slip between the cracks of society. You have every kind of excess: sex, drugs, alcoholism, prostitution, pimps, corrupt police, gangs, cartels and mafia. Imagine living in these elements night after night, trying to escape the corruption and the debauchery unscathed. Vampire Master Michelle and her slave Aaron are two vampires against the world, and they have no one to rely on but each other when things get out of hand, as they so often do in the nightlife.

Can you tell us about your next novel in the series, The Nightlife Paris? What is this going to be about?

In Paris, we reach the confrontation point in Aaron and Michelle’s relationship, where Aaron begins to question everything.  Michelle is a complex woman of secrets, and she finally comes clean about her past in a series of startling revelations. It’s a novella within a novel, the savage story of Michelle’s survival of her wicked master and the German occupation of Paris in WWII.

Aaron is shocked, and Michelle still lives with a certain amount of denial and self-deception over her grisly past.  Neither of them handles the truth very well. To complicate matters, they were shadowed by an investigator from Vegas.  This man, Michael Jamison, has an agenda of his own, and is waiting to make his move against them.

Paris changes everything between Aaron and Michelle, and introduces more complexity to the underworld of supernatural creatures, new characters in the mix.  And for all those fans of the series who have been patiently waiting, Paris reveals in great depth, the gritty, gruesome truth about Michelle. There will definitely be one of those “cover your eyes” moments.

Let's talk about vampires. What draws you to them and why have you based an entire series around these creatures?

My first addiction to fiction was horror novels.  I devoured them as a teenager.  I strayed here and there to sci-fi, fantasy, and other things in-between, but the supernatural creatures from horror novels called to me. Brian Lumley has a wonderful series called Necroscope, and who could talk of vampires without mentioning Anne Rice?

I blame JR Ward and Laurell K. Hamilton for sinking in my vampire fiction addiction to a deadly dangerous level.  I loved the dark, passionate, violent and horrific, yet erotic nature of these series novels.

Having read everything from YA urban fantasy to the very adult material, I started to envision creatures that are the perfect apex predator on humanity.

 Their scents, their bite, their every nuance seduces victims into a willing and voluntary offering.  People literally want and need to be bitten.  The Nightlife Series has heavy themes of addiction, because victims easily become addicted to the vampire’s bite, a.k.a. bloodslaves.

You've had an avalanche of five star reviews for the series and it has been a huge hit, are there any plans to have the books adapted to TV or film in the future?

Well isn’t that every novelist’s fantasy come real?  To have our work made into film?  It would definitely be ‘R’ rated.  But YES, I would love to see the Nightlife Series adapted to TV or film.

I have considered a graphic novel series, and the recent publishing platform improvements with Kindle allow for much easier image layout and formatting for self-publishing graphic novels as ebooks.  And a graphic novel is a very good step towards film, because it helps people visualize the scenes as they unfold.  It can be a powerful tool to convince Hollywood producers.

Let's talk about you. How did you get into writing? Is it something that you've always done or are you quite new to it?

In 2010, when the ideas came to me for the Nightlife New York, the first in the series, I had never attempted to write a book.  But I had read many hundreds, and I knew I had a somewhat uniquely styled creature with my vision.  So I just did it.  About halfway through my first draft, I realized the premise of the story was very much adult fiction.  Everything about these creatures is a sensual seduction.  

So I decided to embrace that aspect, and I began pouring through romance and erotic romance novels to absorb the writing styles and speech patterns and plots.

I never intended to write vampire erotic thriller, but the stories ended up that way.  And Michelle’s back story spiralled out into a novella in itself.  Then the rest of it came to me, the myriad misadventures of these two vampires making their way through the nightlife of various metropolitan areas.

A series was born.

What does the future hold for you? Will there be more Nightlife novels or stories of a similar nature?

I have several more novels planned, starting with The Nightlife London in August.  Next year will see Moscow, Hong Kong, and another stand-alone Nightlife novel set in San Antonio.  And there may be a historical novel set at the height of the Persian Empire that details the origin of the vampire--stewing on that one. Fans of my stand-alone Nightlife novel Blood Slave want a sequel, so I am thinking on that as well.

I also have the beginnings of an occult paranormal series that revolves around the modern practice of witchcraft, Wicca, Voodoo, Hoodoo, and Candomblé.  It’s a struggle between the light and dark sides of magical practice, and the far-reaching consequences of delving too deeply into the darkness.  And yes, there will be some smokin’ hot scenes. Sex magic anyone? There are numerous rites of sex magic practiced today in every major city in America).

I've heard you are planning to move into young adult fiction? Can you tell us about why you are switching gear and if you have any books in the pipeline in that genre?

Well, I would like to publish something my children can read in this decade.  I wrote The Shepherd, my first YA paranormal thriller novel, as a Christmas gift to my teens.  

It has since seen much editing, and will begin final edits in a few days. I hope to have it released between May and June under a pen name of my initials TW Luedke.  

This is a story of a very troubled teen, and the double life he leads as he spends his evenings with a very special and dangerous friend.  Their mutually obsession crosses all the boundaries of friendship.  Skate punks, teen angst, and reincarnation. There’s another YA novel I have plotted out to write this year for release in December, also a paranormal thriller, an exploration of some unintended consequences of identity theft.

Travis can be found online at:

Twitter   https://twitter.com/TWLuedke or @TWLuedke

Facebook    http://www.facebook.com/TWLuedke
Website http://www.twluedke.com/

Breaking An Empire Review

I’ve been wearing my war hat this week. Or should that be war helmet? Anyway, I have been reading Breaking an Empire by James Tallett. Like Bloodaxe and Tarranau, also by James, Empire is set in the fictional fantasy world of The Four Part Land.

Breaking an Empire may be a work of fiction but it reads a bit like a war memoir, although in the third person perspective. 

The book follows Rhyfelwyr and his merry band of soldiers as they are sent off to declare war on Niam Liad because of a rebellion. Like Tarranau, which I have previously reviewed, I once again found myself struggling to remember all the characters names as well as how to spell them - which is tricky for review purposes. 

So for the remainder I shall nickname them Rhy, Taffy, Llof, Gwyth, Locsyn and George. (That’s Gwewyr’s nickname if you were wondering). I think that’s all the main characters…(there’s so many to remember).

Anyway, where were we? Yes, Rhy and his friends are training for a war in the south. The book takes the reader through Rhy and his companions training new recruits, through the march and to the battles on the way to capturing Niam Liad.

The story is fast-paced, dragging the reader from one battle to the next. The fights themselves are told at the same pace, flow well and convey the combat on the battlefield with good intensity. It does feel like you are there in the thick of it. 

However, I felt this depth did not pour into the lull periods between battles. There was very little description of the cities and places the soldiers visited, so it made it difficult to vision exactly what the landscape around them was. Simply, it did not do all the locations justice. But besides that, Empire is a good, if slightly short, fantasy novel set in a world that has lots to offer. 

Breaking an Empire gets 7/10 and is available here.

Bioshock Infinite Review

It’s time to review another video game (no groaning). Anyway, I am probably the last person in the entire world to review this game - since everyone else did it within five minutes of its release but not all of us can get advance copies of these things. 

So today we are taking a look at Bioshock Infinite, one of the most anticipated games of the last two years. If you are not familiar with the series, I will fill you in. It’s a first person shooter series. The previous two games were set in an underwater city where you had to fight your way through a population of genetically-enhanced townies. 

The genetic enhancements were a core part of the game play and have of course winged their way to Bioshock Infinite. These genetic enhancements give your character superpowers, including fire, water and an earthquake move called Bucking Bronco, amongst a host of others. 

But that is where the similarities between Infinite and its predecessors end. The new game is set in the cloud city of Columbia. Who play Booker Dewitt, a grizzled former Pinkerton agent sent to rescue a girl - Elizabeth, in exchange for wiping away all his gambling debt. If you have played the previous games, you will not be wrong expecting a big twist at the end. 

Moving on to game play, the controls in Infinite handle like a dream. There is no auto-lock on enemies when shooting but the manual controls are very smooth and fluid so lining up shots when you are being hammered in a war zone from all angles is not a fiddle. 

Also jumping has been moved to the A button. Again, if you have played the second game in the series, you will remember that jump was signed to Y on the Xbox controller. I know this is a petit gripe but most people instinctively press A when trying to jump in a game thanks to being raised on Super Mario games. So the re-assigning of jump to the correct and expected button is something that wins a thumbs up from me. 

Graphically speaking Infinite is dazzling. The detail and scenery is breathtaking and is something the developers are keen to show off at certain points in the game. Although the same cannot be said about the characters, I felt their heads looked a bit like cardboard boxes but again, this is merely a petit gripe.

I was also not that taken by the enemies. For a large part of the game early on you are just shooting at angry policemen, more angry policemen and then yet more angry policemen in slightly different uniforms. More variety turn-up later on but I missed the Big Daddies and variety of Splicers from the previous games. 

From a story standpoint Infinite is well-paced and good. Like I said earlier, the ending does come as a surprise but overall I was disappointed with it (but I will not spoil it here).

Bioshock Infinite gets 9/10

See You In Omonia Review

Let’s talk about Omonia. You know Omonia? No, it’s not a disease. It’s a square in Athens. Look it up!

Anyway, I’m not going mad. These past two weeks I have been reading travel adventure See You In Omonia. The book is a re-telling of veteran journalist Doug Archibald’s hitch hiking adventure to Greece with his friend Fred. 

This is the first time I have reviewed a book by someone I know. If you know Doug Archibald you’ll know that he has a million stories to tell and this is only one of them and they’re all good. 

Anyway, our story starts with how Doug met Fred. Basically it involved Doug attending court in his reporter capacity and writing an article about Fred who was in the dock. Court is a bit of an unusual place to make a friend, especially when you’re a journalist but the two of them seemed to hit it off. Some months later Doug decided to travel with Fred on a whim when they were in London. 

See You In Omonia then recounts the travels of the pair as they cross Europe by holding their thumbs out and the interesting and often larger-than-life characters that they meet along the way. Such is the unpredictability of hitch hiking that the pair inevitably end up in a few sticky situations and a series of funny but true misadventures along the way. 

If you love to travel or used to do it in the 60s, then this is definitely one for you. 

See You In Omonia gets 7/10 and is available here