I met Bryan at Origins 2012 and found him to be a generous, personable guy. He read the opening chapter of Operation: Montauk and I was immediately hooked. ~JLB
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My latest book, Operation: Montauk, started one night at bedtime. I was reading A Princess of Mars to my then 8 year old son at bedtime and we couldn’t get enough of it. “Just one more chapter, dad,” he’d tell me. “Just one more chapter.”
It really got me thinking.
I’d never really written anything for him. I couldn’t think of any fiction I’d written I’d be happy to have him read. That thought fueled me. Sitting here, reading these old pulp yarns to him, what kind of story could I tell that had all of the things we enjoyed together in a science fiction novel I’d be happy to read myself?
That’s where Operation: Montauk came from.
It tells the story of a World War II soldier sent back in time to kill Hitler, but instead finds himself 65 million years in the past. There, he finds an entire community of time travelers from different eras, all trying to find out why they’re there, how to survive against the dinosaurs, and, above all, how to get home. Things get even worse when a team of Nazis find themselves in the same temporal anomaly.
It has all of the things a geeky dad and his 10 year old son love, wrapped up in a 1930s pulp style. Spaceships, dinosaurs, time travel, soldiers, Nazis, scientists, cliffhangers at the end of every chapter…even a monkey.
The work came quickly and I wrote it to put a smile on his face and keep one on mine.
It worked. I read my opening chapters to him during my editing process and he loved it, couldn’t wait to read more. I wasn’t going to let him read it until it was done, but he stole one of my galleys copies and took it to school. I was told he started a bit of a sensation. The book was all his friends could talk about for weeks.
I’d won. I created a piece of art that satisfied me creatively as an adult that my son could enjoy.
At that point, I didn’t even feel like I needed to publish it. The intended audience loved it and my job was done. The fact that it was published (by Silence in the Library) and other people have been enjoying the book, too, is all icing on the already sweet slice of cake my boy gave me.
Kurt Vonnegut wrote that you need to write for just one person. “If you open the window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.” I believe that. And if you’ve never written a story to please just one person, try it. You’ll benefit, your story will benefit, and you’re going to make someone important to you very, very happy.
If you want to check it out, Operation: Montauk is available from my website (www.bryanyoungfiction.com), Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or wherever books are sold.
