Wednesday, November 18, 2020

*Book Tour & Giveaway* The Rage Room by Lisa de Nikolits-GUEST POST

 


The Rage Room
by Lisa de Nikolits
Genre: Speculative Fiction


What if you had a chance to fix the worst mistake of your life...but only made things worse? The Rage Room dives into dystopia with an extraordinary tale about choices and second chances. Sharps Barkley jumps back in time and finds that changing the future isn’t as easy as he thought. 

Set in 2055, our plastic world is run by robots, fueled by consumerism, twisted religion and virtual data. Satellites control the weather, food is grown in laboratories. Arts and culture are distant memories. Beneath the sunny skies and behind the garbage-free suburban McMansions live deeply disturbed, materialistic families. Prescribed visits to rage rooms lance desperate anger, boredom and discontent but the band-aid fix hides disturbing governmental motives.
An intense and provocative exploration of societal coded messages, The Rage Room is an action-packed story of unravelling and alternate realities, of disturbing and searching re-runs. Can the army of feminist hackers restore Mother Nature?
Can love triumph over fear? And, ultimately, can the children be saved? 


Dark, fun, weird, imaginative, The Rage Room is a dystopic ride perfect for the anxieties and conditions of the present day. The paranoia of Sharps Barkley seeps into you, propelling this thriller that will keep you guessing to the very end. 
– David Albertyn, author of Undercard.

Leave it to the wild imagination of Lisa de Nikolits to bring us the dystopian future of The Rage Room,  an extraordinarily inventive speculative fiction thriller with a decidedly feminist bent. Fast-paced, funny, bold, and completely engrossing, The Rage Room is an allegory, a cautionary tale, and a rollicking good read that will stay with you long after the last page has been turned. 
– Amy Jones, author of We’re All in This Together and Every Little Piece of Me.

In turns unsettling and very funny, The Rage Room is a berserk science-fiction satire of toxic masculinity, narrated by your guide, Sharps, the neurotic, rage-filled Jason Bateman of the future. There are lines and descriptions that will stop you dead in your tracks and make you take notes. 
– Evan Munday, The Dead Kid Detective Agency series

In her latest captivating book, de Nikolits proffers not only a roller coaster of entertainment, but also, sharp political commentary in complicated times. The Rage Room  is an intricately woven dystopian world, rich in strong female characters who easily whisk readers to a world of futuristic follies. Move over George Orwell – de Nikolits shows us how the future can be scary, exciting, and above all, female. 
– Kelly S. Thompson, National Bestseller author of Girls Need Not Apply: Field Notes from the Forces.




Lisa de Nikolits is the internationally award-winning author of ten novels (all Inanna Publications). No Fury Like That was published in Italian in 2019 by Edizione Le Assassine as Una furia dell’altro mondo. Her short fiction and poetry have also been published in various anthologies and journals internationally. She is a member of the Mesdames of Mayhem, the Crime Writers of Canada, Sisters in Crime, The Australian Crime Writers, The Short Fiction Mystery Association and the International Thriller Writers. Originally from South Africa, Lisa de Nikolits came to Canada in 2000. She lives and writes in Toronto.


GUEST POST

What are your top 10 favorite books/authors?

That’s a very tough question to answer! I have a website called The Minerva Reader (www.theminervareader.com) where I review Treasures You Might Have Missed and I love all the books I have posted there. I’d love readers to check it out!


In terms of books I’ve read lately, Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood tops the list. I also love The Tender Birds by Carole Giangrande and so many other books published by Inanna Publications.


I love John Irving’s early work, Harry Crews and John Steinbeck, Lionel Shriver and so many more. It’s really impossible for me to answer the question and I don’t mean that as a cop-out. The thing is, I read about three to four books a week, I literally devour books so it’s hard to even recall!


But I do know this, there is a book for every mood and every person. I do give up on books – I previously forced myself to finish every book I started but there are too many books out there. Which isn’t to say that I don’t return to books I have abandoned – I do. I know that sometimes I wasn’t in a mood for a particular book and if a book wasn’t something I felt like at the time, it might well be a book I’ll love later.


Which is why I ask readers to give my books a chance – they are different and I ask readers to set aside expectations of the book being one thing or another and if they don’t work for you on one day, try them again on another. They do have a certain irreverence and humor that doesn’t suit everybody either and I understand that too!


What book do you think everyone should read?

I’d like to mention two books! The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz and The Oxford English Dictionary. The first will make you happier and the second is a treasure trove of thoughts, ideas and definitions. The dictionary is positively poetic and I love reading it. I love the smell of an old book, of weathered paper and ink.


How long have you been writing?

All my life. Even when my Mom read to me when I was a kid, I had a sense of wanting to have written that story myself or come up with a new, even better one.


Do the characters all come to you at the same time or do some of them come to you as you write?

Definitely one at at time! And sometimes they rush at me and other times they need a lot of coaxing. And sometimes, they don’t work out and I have to kindly kick them to the curb. It’s sad but true. I do have a sense of the ghosts of former characters who aren’t happy they didn’t make the cut. But it’s like a screening or model call for a photo shoot – sometimes you love a person but they just aren’t right for the job. It’s hard when you get attached to a character but they aren’t working.


What kind of research do you do before you begin writing a book?

I read a lot of sci-fi and I watched all the time travel movies I could. I also chatted to all my tech-savvy friends and got them to send me links about bio-hackers, body-modifiers, geek internet hackers – I didn’t stop talking about the book and asking people’s opinion about plot, character and potential technological advances! I think that this book, of all the books I’ve written, obsessed me the most, perhaps because I wasn’t sure if I could do it. I felt more challenged than ever before.


Do you see writing as a career?

I don’t. I see it as a joy, a beloved vocation and my participation isn’t by by choice. I’ve never liked the word career as it sounds so mercenary and planned. You can’t plan writing, or the success of failure thereof. Writing is like a relationship with massive ups and downs. It can be kind one moment and extremely cruel the next. Sometimes I wonder if it’s a negative codependent relationship but really, there’s no choice. I don’t think you choose to be a writer but you can choose whether or not you actually write. The writing part takes tremendous discipline and focus and you have to have a very thick skin because it can be brutal in terms of rejections and reviews. You also have to be tenacious and have the stamina of a long-distance runner. If you’re in it for a quick turnaround, then it’s the wrong game for you. I try not to look at the bigger picture or wonder how I’m doing. I just focus on the job of writing, the actual slog of crafting sentences and stories and try not to think about the rest. I’m like a blinkered horse in a long distance race – I just try my best to keep moving forward and not worrying about who’s running in front of me or next to me.


What do you think about the current publishing market?

I truly try not to think about it! One can fall into an ocean of speculation and comment and to what end? There are always opportunities in life but not always at the exact moment or place you’d like them to be. So if you aren’t where you want to be, try to say to yourself, well today isn’t my day but maybe tomorrow will be. And just stick to the writing. That’s the most important thing. I have one rule: Do One Thing A Day For My Writing and I stick to it. Ten words or ten thousand. And my second rule is to trust the that something will happen, something good. As Gary Player, famous South African golf player used to say, “the more I practice, the luckier I get” (not a new saying!) and I believe the harder I work, the better I will become and that’s all that matters to me, trying to be become a better writer.


Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!

$15 Amazon

1 comment:

  1. Thank you so much for having me as a guest today!
    I hope your readers will enjoy the book!

    ReplyDelete