Earth is plagued by the Black Rain turning water into a gel and destroying the whole ecology. Geo Woodman is on a mission to protect his clan and to save the people of Torono from the upcoming ecological disaster.
Green Corrosion
The Corrosion Series Book 1
by Costi Gurgu
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian Science Fiction
The devastating Black Rain has transformed the once-lush land into an arid wasteland, turning all water into a gel-like substance across the globe. Fresh, drinkable water has become the planet's most precious commodity, sought after by all. Some have chanced upon underground liquid reserves, while those with no choice but to drink gelled water become "Corrosives," disfigured by a verdigrislike substance covering their bodies.
The Golden Tower of Prince Boris shines
above the otherwise derelict city of Torono.
From the Golden Tower, Geo Woodman secretly
leads the fight to save his clan and the people of Torono from the dangers of
corrupt leaders and the hazardous climate.
Guest Post
The Writing Process
I’m a planner myself. I first tend to write my
novel in my mind. I’d just go through some major events, the main timeline, a
few characters, not all of them, only to get an idea of what is it about and
see if I want to write it.
Then I start to plan it. First, there’s the rule of
three. Every piece of writing, from the entire novel to the smallest scene
could be divided into three parts: beginning, middle, and end. Different
writers tend to divide an entire novel into three, four or five parts. But if
you analyze their parts, you realize they’re those three parts I told you
about, but differently explained.
Each part has certain things that tend to
happen inside them. I call these things pillars. Pillars are good
because instead of thinking I wrote the beginning, I know where I’m going,
but I have no idea what happens in between, you now have the opportunity to
place some pillars along the way and think of not how I can get from here to
the end, but how I can get from here to only several pages later, to the next
pillar. And from that pillar to the next and so on, until you finally reach the
end.
I like to get my pillars down and be sure that I have
sufficient meat to write a novel, not only a short story.
Then I start writing and what often happens is that
through writing (a slower process than imagining, running through the story in
your mind) a lot changes. Some scenes don’t make sense anymore. There are other
scenes I didn’t think of. Some characters behave differently. The story goes in
a different direction than originally thought because it’s more natural that
way, or because it makes it more interesting. Things discovered while writing
are always fascinating.
In the end, working on novel structure in the
beginning gives a writer the means to be able to write from the first page to
the last, without stumbling. But the writing itself brings a lot of surprises
along the way, at least in the first draft. The following drafts are less
surprising as one works in more detail on different aspects of the
novel—language, characters, world-building, etc.
The W Block
After talking about the process of writing, one topic
comes to mind—writer’s block. It can happen, but it is different from how
movies show it and therefore most people think of it.
Writers in general have ideas for two lives and no
time to write them all. So, writer’s block is not about the writer having no
more ideas and not knowing what to write next. It is about knowing what
you want to write, but not knowing how to write it.
What can happen is the writer may not have the
necessary life experience or cultural references to write that particular
scene, story, or character. Or they may not have the writing experience
necessary to write a particularly complex story or complex world-building.
And as an example, when I say complex
world-building I don’t necessarily mean a science fiction or fantasy world
completely different than ours. Maybe part of your story takes place in Tokyo,
but you’ve never been there or to Japan in general. So you have no idea of the
rhythms of life there, of the local culture, habits, tradition, food, weather,
how the air tastes, how the traffic goes, nothing concrete, and to write it
like you’re in New York or Chicago just doesn’t work.
Or one of your important characters is a doctor or a
Police detective. And you’re neither. If your inspiration is the medical dramas
or detective stories on TV don’t do it. You need to speak to a real detective
or a real doctor and ask them questions, find out details of their work, of
their daily life. Try to walk a little bit in their shoes. Only then you could
write a credible character. If you just start writing it without any research
you may end up with a writer’s block.
And then, there’s the matter of real-life experience.
Certain aspects of life can be gained only through personal experience, by
living several years through those particular situations. What it is to be
abused in a workplace, or to go through a painful or stressful experience and
eventually end up with depression. And so on.
If you get a writer’s block, the best is to look for
the right person to share their insights with you.
The “Corrosion” story
Initially, I wrote a short story for the National
Geographic Magazine in Romania, entitled “Corrosion”. Two main aspects are the most important
from an ecological consideration: air and water. If the air becomes too toxic,
or too polluted to be breathable, there’s little chance of survival or
adaptation. If the water is not potable anymore there’s no chance of survival.
So, when the people from National Geographic asked me to write a cli-fi for
them, I immediately thought of the most dangerous aspects of environmental
degradation. And doing some research, water seemed to be the deadliest.
Now, doing that research I discovered an interesting
fact—although the majority of people know that water can be found in three
states, some experiments in Austria managed to bring water to a fourth
state—that of a gel. And not only bring it into that state but maintain it
there. That looked to me like an interesting starting point for my short story.
Anyway, the short story “Corrosion” has been re-printed at least seven times
and has won two awards. My editor even compelled me to write a follow-up story,
which I did and I entitled it “Pink Corrosion”. The same editor then, said he’d see
this series turned into a novel. And I agreed. It took me several years to get
to the point of actually doing it, but as soon as I had some time, this was my
number one priority.
EXCERPT
The sky was the color of moldy cheese. A upside-down, frothy swamp
hanging so oppressively low, some of the decaying towers pricked its purulent
belly.
Geo always felt sick after looking at the sky, but he inevitably looked
every time he observed the Golden Tower, or the Silkers
Tower, as people called it. The only high-rise structure in the city still
in use. All the other high-rises had been abandoned long ago, after entire
floors collapsed with the tenants inside. They rose, derelict, their windows
clotted, in a ghostly jungle. The Silkers Tower, though…it supposedly had been
consolidated and adapted to the new conditions. The golden structure gleamed
like the only source of light in a city of eternal mist and green reflections.
Geo breathed deeply a few times to calm himself. The unwholesome
effluvia of corroding bodies coiled through the air. He shut his eyes and
ignored the fetid damp creeping through the rebreather. Then he looked around
and felt a pleasant thrill, an ever-present fear, and lust, all at once in a
bubbling, poisonous mixture. Lately, that had been the marinade his brain
floated in.
He was part of the Silkers procession that had traversed the city from
its port to their Golden Tower. Ninety Silkers soldiers had disembarked and
took to the streets of the city to be next to their brothers in the most
celebrated event of the year—the Water Passage.
The people of the city filled the streets, eager to glimpse the
glorious army. And Geo was at its head, in the lead. Next to Prince Boris and his court, surrounded by Boris’s elite
guard of Luna Warriors, atop the royal wheeled
platform of rust-red water-silk.
He was thrilled to be in such dangerous company. He lusted for the kind
of attention this display of power attracted. And the fear was ever-present,
fear of the Silkers’ reality and their way of life, their values and
ever-shifting interests. Fear that today he was at the center of their
attention and tomorrow he might wake up discarded. Fear of what being part of
the Silker Court implied and what not being part of
it meant for Geo’s clan.
The mayor and his Blue Officers watched the
passing procession from the central balcony of the City
Hall. It was supposed to show the people that the procession was for him,
for the ruler of the city. But Geo knew that in reality it meant that the mayor
was not invited to be part of the procession and was not invited to watch the
Water Passage Ritual, as he, Geo, was. Geo, the prince’s special guest. Last
year Nimesh of the Bones Clan, who had mysteriously
vanished; this year, Geo. Prince Boris’s special guests and friends. The
Silkers’ ever-shifting political interests.
The City Hall was a two-storey building lined with waves and waves of
mortar to keep it from collapsing under the continuous attack of the water. It
looked like a thick, monstrous candle, the wax melted in ripples from years of
burning. Its balcony was the only thing moved forward so it remained on the
outside, overlooking the Mayor’s Square and the
Golden Tower. Prince Boris said that they had decided to rehabilitate the
Golden Tower as a sign of respect for the City Hall. But Woodman
the Elder, Geo’s grandfather and the leader of his people, had a different
opinion on the matter—that Prince Boris wanted to rub the mayor’s face in the
fact that they had the knowledge to actually convert an old structure to
survive the vicissitudes of their times. And that the Golden Tower of the
Silkers looked a thousand times more royal than the City Hall. And that all the
people could see it, because the two buildings faced each other.
The procession stopped in front of the Golden Tower. The mayor waved
formally and the prince nodded elegantly. The crowd gathered in the Mayor’s
Square burst into cheers. The three detachments of the prince’s three armies
took their places around the royal platform and waited. The Luna Warriors
secured the tower’s entrance and took up position as a guard of honor.
Geo shuddered. He was about to enter the infamous tower for the first
time. He was about to pull his clan into history. They were about to go public.
Official. Known of. Dangerously exposed. Thrills and fear.
Amazon * Apple * B&N * Kobo * Bookbub * Goodreads
Book Links:
Amazon: https://a.co/d/4UYoH3n
Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/green-corrosion/id6450195871
B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/green-corrosion-costi-gurgu/1143643712?ean=9781738659333
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/green-corrosion
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/green-corrosion-by-costi-gurgu
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/177170225-green-corrosion
About the Author
Costi’s fiction has appeared in Canada, the US, and Europe. He has sold 5
books and over 50 stories for which he has won 24 awards. He was three times a
finalist for the Canadian Aurora Awards.
His latest sales
include the anthologies Tesseracts 17, The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk, Dark Horizons, Street Magick, Water, and Alice Unbound.
His bestselling
novel RecipeArium has won three awards (Kult, Nemira, and
Vladimir Colin) and was a 2018 finalist for the Aurora Awards.
His second novel, “Servitude” was published in October 2022. And his latest novel “Green Corrosion” is book 1 of the “Corrosion” series, and was published in September 2023.
To find out more
about Costi Gurgu visit https://costigurgu.com/
Website * Facebook * X * Instagram * Bookbub * Amazon * Goodreads
Author
Links
Website: https://costigurgu.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CostiGurgu
X: https://twitter.com/CostiGurgu
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/costigurgu
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/costi-gurgu
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Costi-Gurgu/author/B00JH616J2
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3519285.Costi_Gurgu
Giveaway
$10 Amazon
Follow
the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!
https://bit.ly/GreenCorrosionTour
No comments:
Post a Comment