Bone Rider Question & Answer for The Blog of Sid Love

 *First of all… that awesome, fabulous title… so tongue in cheek! Was it a given? How did you come up with the concept of ‘bone riding’? 

McClane needed something to cling to and the squishy parts wouldn’t do. Then came the ‘lab humor’ bit with the scientists calling the armors ‘bone riders’ and it worked nicely as a title. I’m pretty happy about it, because I absolutely suck at assigning titles. That and summaries. Summaries are the worst.

*You suggest a few movies in the book. Which action movies are favorites of yours? Which ones influenced this book? 

Too many to list them all. Also, my favorites change. I grew up with the classics – Terminator, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Aliens – and if you offer me a chick flick and an action movie, I’ll reach for the action movie every damn time. I will happily settle in with all kinds of action movie, be it Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes or Rodriguez’s Desperado, Norrington’s Blade or Bruckheimer’s King Arthur. I enjoy most of the current Marvel superhero stuff, some of the The Fast and the Furious movies, and had a blast watching Pacific Rim. In a way, they all influenced Bone Rider, because the things I watch and read and listen to shape the way I approach stories.

*This looks to be your first publication and it’s an ambitious project. Has it been cooking a long time?

Four years, give or take.

*Which came to you first, concept or characters? I assume Riley came first, where did Misha come in, in the line up? Who was the most fun to write? Which character spoke the loudest to you? What was the hardest scene for you to write?

Concept and characters influence each other so much I don’t really know what or who came first. They were all fun to write and took turns yelling in my ear, my muses are bastards like that. The hardest scene to write was the Misha/Riley reunion scene.

*So… Riley and McClane fucking… an interesting concept. Is this sort of like Riley doing himself…? What process took you through the ‘internal fuck’?  The dream sequence…how did McClane take on the look and mannerisms of Misha…does this happen all the time with him and Riley’s dreams?

“… the odorless, tasteless body moving against his developed a scent and a flavor. It took Riley some time to realize it was his own, mirrored back at him as if it was the best thing ever, rich and addictive. It might’ve freaked him out if he hadn’t been so busy coming again.”

The dream thing happens twice in the book for different reasons. The first time, McClane takes Misha’s form to put Riley at ease after his rather traumatic hijacking of Riley’s body, but he doesn’t quite get it right because he’s been there for a few hours only and all he has to draw on are Riley’s surface memories. The second time, as you might’ve noticed, he looks a lot like Riley, because he’s adapted to his host and is starting to consider himself part of Riley. I don’t see them doing this every time Riley dreams though – I mean, you don’t remember every dream you have either. I can see McClane being aware of and occasionally peeking into Riley’s dreams, but it’d be annoying if he interfered all the time.

*A couple of things confused me in the story… It’s sci-fi, so I’m willing to let go of a lot but… Mass-wise, how is it possible for a heavy metallic armor/weapons alien to incorporate Riley’s body? Or should we just not care?

I’m assuming McClane can change his density and infiltrates or surrounds pretty much every cell of Riley’s body, which is why Misha notices Riley is heavier now when he picks him up in the diner. This is not a completely new concept: one organism living inside the other, the two behaving as a single organism, is an existing phenomenon called endosymbiosis. Is it possible when the host is human and the symbiont some alien type of metal? I don’t know. It’s a pretty cracky premise, but then it is fiction and this is an alien being. So let’s assume that alien science is a little bit more advanced than ours and that they somehow made it happen.

*Lt. Dr. Leandra Butler really resonated with me… “… you had to get off your ass and fight for it… a lot of people were going to call you a bitch for not taking their shit… The lessons she’d learned at the age of ten stuck… she had to work harder, be better, be tougher.” She’s been through a lot to get to where she is. Is she based on someone you know?

No one specific.

*You get a call, they’re making Bone Rider into a film and you have a say in the casting. Who would be your Riley, Misha, Andrej? If McClane could take corporeal form who would he be? Or, who’s voice?

I do have specific actors in mind for these characters, but I’m not going to tell you who. Every reader will put their own faces on these people and I don’t want to interfere with that. Though I do believe that McClane would probably try to emulate Bruce Willis’ voice for obvious reasons.

*If Bone Rider had a theme song what would it be? Let’s orchestrate some critical scenes…

• Misha, Andrej and Kolya as they walk across the diner parking lot to do battle with the Special Ops force (what theme/song?)

            Death Dealer’s Descent (by Renholder, Underworld OST)

• the final scene as the guys drive off into the sunset. (what theme/song?)

            Love Like Semtex (by The Infadels)

*It seemed liked there could be something cooking between Andrej and J.C. King?

I don’t know. Could there be? *g*

*We didn’t get a lot of story about how Riley and Misha met. We know it was in a bar and that Misha was immediately smitten and had to work hard in his pursuit. “…he’d been the single most gorgeous thing Misha had ever seen. It had been a thrill unlike any other to have Riley yield to him…” Misha’s so used to being in charge and Riley poses a challenge. How long did it take him to wear Riley down? Any way we can share in that thrilling first time? A small scene perhaps?  ß say yes to this one PUWLEASE!  J

Let’s just say there was some serious wooing going on and careful but creative attempts to get to know each other that occasionally backfired spectacularly. (It didn’t help that Misha initially made the mistake of going to Andrej and Kolya for courtship tips.) And that it took a lot more time than Misha would’ve thought at the beginning, which amused both Andrej and Kolya to no end.

Fun fact: their first time did not go smoothly. They were both suffering from performance anxiety going in and then it turned out Misha was crappy at giving blowjobs because he used to be mostly on the receiving end and Riley was way too hesitant about everything because it had been ages since he’d last gotten laid. Anal wasn’t even on the table and they still managed to argue about who should bottom, hypothetically. On the plus side, neither of them had ever had so much fun while screwing up. To this day, they’re not quite sure how the hell they managed to get off in the end, but they do remember how their faces ached from laughing (and from that botched bj, in Misha’s case) and how safe they felt, how it didn’t matter that it hadn’t been perfect because it had still felt so good just to touch, to share this at last. They knew they had time to figure it out and get better at the details. And you know what? They totally did.

*Will there be a spin-off with another couple?  More aliens in the future?

I honestly never know what my muses will throw at me next. Right now, the Bone Rider boys are taking a break and I can’t tell you whether or when they’ll be back.

They will!!!!!  (ß Me with lots of hopeful thinking!!  I will get a T-Shirt that says “J.C. and his quiet brooding is giving me life”  Dramatic? I Don’t Care.)

*What happened to J.C.?  Is he still alive?

Yes, J.C. is alive and kicking. He also wants to know what the hell is going on, so he’s tracking Andrej right now to ask him in person.

Yaaaaahhessssss!!!!

*Misha is such an interesting character and his relationship with Riley an intriguing one as well.  You really had Riley fight and resist Misha much more than some characters do in books about the anti-hero.  They are complete opposites in every way.  What was it about the opposite personalities and looks that drew you to write them?  Will we get more backstory about Misha?

I’m going to answer this with a question: what would you do if you walked in on your partner with a gun in his/her hand, casually discussing an assassination? Because everybody I know, myself included, would do the sensible thing and run like a bat out of hell. And that’s exactly what Riley does, because Riley is an ordinary guy and not a complete idiot. It wouldn’t make sense for him to stay. He just became a witness. That’s two killers he surprised. Honestly, he should’ve called 911 and asked for police protection – I assume he didn’t because he was a) in shock and b) despite everything, too much in love with Misha to want him locked up or put down. It sure as hell wasn’t a rational decision.

This was one of the fun things about and challenges with this story: how can you get past something like that? How can a decent man end up with a professional hitman? McClane hops on board uninvited and then charms the socks off Riley, but deciding to try and accept all that Misha is and has done, to trust him again… that’s a choice. A tough choice, for all that the two of them love each other. It takes major shit going down to get them there, get Riley in the right frame of mind to even consider this. And that’s what drew me to write those two. Easy love stories are the best in real life, but in fiction I need conflict, I need them to fight for it, or else you’re facing 300-odd pages of domestic fluff and that’s just not my kind of thing.

What books do you have in the works and do you plan on continuing to write stories such as Bone Rider: sci-fi, action, etc. or can you see yourself writing a vampire, a shifter, or maybe a YA novel?

I’m currently working on four projects in various stages of completion. One will be a series (I hope) of short stories about two specials ops soldiers trying to prevent an apocalypse, one is a werewolf western that is driving me absolutely nuts and will probably be rewritten and kicked at for a while yet even though it’s already two books in rough draft form. The one I’m currently focused on is another genre hybrid doing bad, bad things to various mythologies. I may never look at elves the same after this. *sigh* The last one is still in the planning stage and will be a riff on Arthurian myth. Could be awesome if I get the fucker off the ground.

We’d like to find out more about you…

*You love horses and so does Riley. Yet there isn’t a single horse in Bone Rider…

Seriously, how was I going to fit a horse into that plot? 🙂

OK, she’s right but I *had* to ask LOL.  I could so see Andrej and Misha riding in on horses while J.C. drinks his coffee in silent bemusement and Riley is all wide-eyed curled up lip on one side.  HA!

*What work do you do with horses?

I own an old, retired school horse I’ve known since he was five. Having him in my life is a blessing and quite an experience. It’s worked out great for both of us.

*Have you been writing for a while and do you outline and plan heavily or do you write as you feel it?

I’ve been writing since I was a kid. I don’t plan heavily, I’m mostly an intuitive writer, but I do outline and I do my research.

I always loving hearing writers answer this question because some swear by it and others never, ever do it.  I would have loved to see when those random bits of inspiration hit you for several of the book’s scenes.

 

BONE RIDER by J. Fally

Reviewed: Taylor

Title: Bone Rider

Author: J. Fally

Publisher: Dreamspinner Press

Pages: 310 pages

Blurb: Riley Cooper is on the run. Misha Tokarev, the love of his life, turned out to be an assassin for the Russian mob, and when it comes to character flaws, Riley draws the line at premeditated murder. Alien armor system McClane is also on the run, for reasons that include accidentally crashing a space ship into Earth and evading U.S. military custody. A failed prototype, McClane was scheduled for destruction. Sabotaging the ship put an end to that, but McClane is dubbed a bone rider for good reason—he can’t live without a host body. That’s why he first stows away in Riley’s truck and then in Riley himself. Their reluctant partnership soon evolves into something much more powerful—and personal—than either of them could have imagined.

Together, they embark on a road trip from hell, made all the more exciting by the government troops and mob enforcers hot on their trail. Misha is determined to win Riley back and willing to do whatever it takes to keep him safe. When hit man and alien join forces, they discover their impressive combined potential for death and destruction. It will take everything Riley has to steer them through the mess they create.

Review:

I loved this book so damn hard!!!  I love the characters, the humor, the action, the fact that the author wrote something so crazy and different and took chances and things are a mish-mash of every genre, but it all works.  J. Fally is probably one of those authors that I’d love to go grab a beer or glass of wine with and discuss our favorite movies, books and the like because I’m dying for a sequel with these characters and this world.  Sequel talk: more on that later because I will use whatever Tumblr inspiration pics I can find to inspire the woman for more!

OK, so as a Die Hard/District 9 aliens are among us! with assassins! and caves! plot this had it was basically straight-forward.  An alien weapons-and-armor system abruptly crashes on Earth – right next to some military folks.  These aliens use host bodies and as they fight with the humans, one particular alien decides to fight in a different manner, to take a different course.  It manages to escape and enters cowboy Riley Cooper.  Riley is fleeing from his hit man boyfriend, Misha.  Misha and his friends and partners Andrej and Koyla are coming after Riley, but probably not for the reason he believes.  So, cowboys, Russian hit men, aliens, military, road trip, etc.  Just trust me.  The alien or System Six invades Riley and uses him as his host.  This is a pertinent part of the book, the relationship between man and alien, but this particular man is of most importance.

System Six or McClane as he begins to call himself after watching Die Hard has had other hosts before, but never anyone he bonded with on a real level.  Riley and McClane bicker, they make each other laugh, they confide in each other, protect each other and sometimes need a stern talking to in order to not stray and do something crazy…like blow up humans.  It’s a relationship the reader has to look at differently than Riley’s relationship with Misha.  There is love there, even love similar to Misha, but it is most certainly a different and intriguing relationship.  One I felt I just barely scratched (much like McClane does to Riley when he’s tense).

One thing I want to mention is McClane is hilarious as hell!!  His running commentary on how yucky certain people were and his pride at holding back from killing characters or that he wanted “mancakes” made me *die*.  He’s indignant, slithery, dangerous, confused with emotions, and he’s insistent that he’s not a parasite.  He’s wise and clever, even.

“McClane’s not real,” he argued, once he was coherent again. “He’s a movie character. He’s make-believe.”

“All names are make-believe”.

The side characters brought me big smiley face joy because they stood out!! They had quirks and their relationships with the main characters and each other were all just slightly different and unique.  The bromance between Misha and Andrej is probably my favorite friendship in a book this year, aside from Merrick and Crane from The Magpie Lord.  Dr. Butler is a female that I admire, that intrigues me and I’d love more background story and future story with her.  General Young had many facets because he was tough, of course, but he felt conflicted on many things, knew he might be wrong on several things, but the man kept on fighting.  There are many more (with accompanying point of views) but I never felt confused with that and it kept me invested in all of the characters throughout.  My only complaint is with so many point of views it did hinder me from getting to know any one character completely.

A morning scene and a shocked character in a car was powerful.  Punch in the gut powerful.

The relationship between Riley and McClane is complex, especially given Riley’s relationship with Misha but it all works.  I don’t understand how it does, but it’s fascinating and sexy and I would gladly be the third/fourth in that party.

This book is over the top and non-stop and many might roll their eyes, but I ADORED it.  And what kills me – KILLS me – is a hinted at relationship between Andrej and his friend J.C. (I won’t go too much into J.C. because it’s best that readers experience the ride of the book than me go plot point by plot point).   I don’t know if J.C. and Andrej are boinking but let me tell you – they are missing out, if they aren’t.  Those two gahhhhhh sigghhhhh thud.  Oh come on!!! Give. It. To. Me.

This would make a perfect movie and I felt I only just got the beginnings of these characters and I mean that about every single one of them.  I could read off-shoots about any of them and be happy, because the other knows how to write interesting and funny people.  One of my definite faves of the year.  So happy this gem came upon me towards the end of the year, too, to end it all amazeballs.  I would hi-five McClane right now if I could.

Rating:

Links: ARe  ::  Dreamspinner  ::  Amazon

 

We thank J.Fally for visiting our blog and generously offering a give away of an e copy of Bone Rider  to one reader commenthing on this post

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