- You have a passion and talent for music and even split your time between several bands for many years. Although you still perform (and we love hearing your music), you've switched gears this year to finish writing Catwalk: Messiah (A Leon “Catwalk” Caliber Story). When did your love of writing begin? Was writing fiction in your blood like writing music or is this something that slowly built over the years?
Thanks for the compliment. My love of writing all came from comic books. When we were growing up in Philly, our granddad ran a trucking company and a recycling company. We read Star Wars, X-Men, and all sorts of comics, usually with the front page ripped off. Catwalk actually made his first published appearance in 2001 in a comic called Independent Voices 3 from Peregrine Entertainment. I wrote and drew my whole life with sci-fi being the predominant style. Cat just happened to be a slow boil as I learned what the writing/publishing/editing/promoting process really entailed.
- Catwalk: Messiah is listed on the virtual bookshelves under the genre of Cyberpunk. Can you define this genre for my readers?
Definitely. Cyberpunk is that (no longer so) distant future where the dystopian vision has become reality, and desperate humans have turned to technology to improve their lives. Cybernetics exist today. Research is being conducted in many universities, primarily for healthcare. Imagine what people would do with bionic limbs, x-ray vision, or super speed if the so-called 1% scorched the earth and left the average Joe to fend for himself. If steampunk is Jules Verne, cyberpunk is Philip K. Dick and George Orwell.
- Your lead hero, Catwalk, is an interesting mix of man and machine and reminiscent of pulp detective heroes with a futuristic bent. There are times in the story where the coldness of his machine side seems to take over his humanity—something that is part of his ongoing struggle and adds to the story’s depth. What inspired you to create this character?
That came from Cyberpunk legend, Mike Pondsmith. There was a role playing game years ago called “Cyberpunk 2020.” One of the aspects was that a character couldn’t simply just keep buying cool new technology. Every new piece replaced a part of that person’s very human empathy. I wanted to explore what that would do to a character who never wanted the technology in the first place. Cat only has his powers because he was essentially a lab rat. He uses them, but as readers will find out, there is a serious price when he does. As for the voice, I’m a sucker for Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe and old school detectives like Sam Spade.
- Another character in the story was the world you built—a gritty, techno jungle. I enjoyed how you wove in the idea of a populace using technology to transform their bodies into weapons for justice (like Catwalk) and weapons of destruction (the Messiah's henchmen). Some citizens even morphed themselves into their favorite video game characters. Do you envision technology ever making this type of body modification a reality?
Absolutely. I think many of us use technology as an escape. Gaming is an easy example. Look at the extreme avatars people choose in “Second Life” or almost any MMORPG. The characters you mentioned not only let virtual reality and reality overlap, they’ve embraced it. It’s like extreme bionic cosplay, which will probably be a category in the X-Games by 2033.
- Ichi—an urban fantsy co-written with your wife, author Stacia D. Kelly—will be released this year under the penname N.S. Kelly. Can you give us a preview of what Ichi is about? First thing, take everything I’ve said about cyberpunk and shelf it. This series is definitely more supernatural than sci-fi. Shia, the female lead, is a 1,000-year-old samurai, who hunts demons and all things that go bump in the night. Ryan, the male lead, is a DC homicide cop who only sees things in black and white and doesn’t believe in any of that crazy paranormal stuff, until a giant lobster demon attacks him. We started it as a single paranormal romance, and it wound up becoming another series, because we had so much fun writing together.
Nick Kelly is a veteran musician, trainer and speaker. He is the author of the Leon "Catwalk" Caliber comic and upcoming novels, co-author of the Urban Samurai series with Stacia D. Kelly. Nick coaches those new to the entrepreneur's lifestyle, and those seeking to achieve their health goals. He lives in the Washington, DC area with his inspiring wife and son.
Love Music. Love Health. Love Life.