The Big Idea: Owen B Greenwald

The universe is filled with many wondrous things, but perhaps the most wondrous is when two authors can meld their visions together to create a single, unified work. Owen B Greenwald explains how, for Weapons of the Mind, he and his co-author Paul Kivelson collaborated for the novel, even when sometimes their initial visions were far apart.

OWEN B GREENWALD:

Space is not only mind-bogglingly large, but mind-bogglingly strange. I came to this realization as a teenager, through an article about cool, exciting, unexpected things scientists had discovered in space—among them planets made of diamond, vast clouds of water vapor, and eternal electrical storms. I was stunned by what I read; my mind raced with possibility. If we had found these wondrous things in such a small slice of a single galaxy, what other marvels might the stars hold?

That question is the bedrock of Weapons of the Mind. My coauthor/best friend Paul Kivelson and I envisioned a sprawling, fantastical galaxy bursting with possibility. We untethered ourselves from any expectations placed upon us by genre or audience and let our imaginations run wild. Our goal was to transport the audience to impossible vistas on faraway worlds, introduce them to aliens unlike anything they’ve imagined, and take them aboard spaceships small and large, packed with technology that feels refreshingly magical. We wanted to inspire in our readers the same feeling as when we first looked at the night sky and imagined themselves in orbit around a distant planet.

Weapons of the Mind is the story of a young woman taking her first real steps into this vast, beautiful, dangerous galaxy—but not by choice. Agent Tala Kreeth is on the run, her squad murdered, with all the evidence pointing to her as their killer. One step ahead of her is the murderer, orchestrating an enigmatic plan that only she can stop. One step behind is her former mentor, the warrior who shaped her into a living weapon through training in the paranormal art of Enhancement. As she simultaneously chases and flees across the galaxy, she grapples with test after test of the moral precepts she learned within her monastery, blurring the line between justice and revenge. No matter where her adventure takes her or how conflicted she becomes, the backdrop is always a galaxy far bigger than anything her life prepared her for…

Weapons of the Mind: Amazon|Barnes & Noble

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