Interview with Kenneth Preston

Tell us about your debut novel

Sure. It’s titled “The Passing of Each Perfect Moment.” It is a science fiction/mystery story. It’s been very well-received! It’s getting great reviews on Amazon! I couldn’t be more pleased by the response! It’s a great feeling to know that something you created is appreciated by so many!

 

What is it about?

It’s follows the adventures of a strong-willed, fiercely independent young woman named Emily Diaz. Emily is a nineteen year old student at Stony Brook University on Long Island. She is asleep in her dorm room, and as she begins to wake up, she hears screams and cries of anguish. Upon opening her eyes, the screams and cries of anguish cease. She instinctively knows that something is wrong. She leaps out of bed and throws the curtains open to discover that all animate life has vanished. She is the last person on Earth. Based on her observations that the clocks have stopped and that nothing in the natural world is moving, she believes that time has stopped for her and that the rest of the living world has moved into the future without her. She is shocked and baffled by her dilemma. However, the truly shocking part is yet to come as Emily is suddenly transported one hundred twenty years into the future. She finds her self in a utopian world. Incredible medical advancements are extending human life by decades. War and famine have been eradicated. Humanity is reaching deep into the cosmos. Emily is a bit skeptical about the world she finds herself in. As she begins asking questions, a powerful force from a distant planet begins to call to her. She is determined to meet this mysterious entity, because she believes that it has the answers to the questions she has been asking.

 

What kind of themes are you exploring in the story?

Technology’s influence on the evolutionary process is a major theme in the story. How much is too much? In this futuristic utopia, medicine has advanced to the point that people don’t get sick and injuries are healed almost instantaneously. This has a huge impact on the evolutionary process in that people have become pampered. They can no longer adapt to the hardships that previous generations had to adapt to and grow from. Another theme explored in the novel is overpopulation and its effect on the environment.

 

What writers influence your work, or you enjoy?

I wouldn’t be able to narrow it down to one writer or a group of writers. I’ve been influenced by nearly everything I’ve read. I’m currently reading book one of the Divergent series which I am enjoying quite a bit.

 

What did you do before you took up writing?

 

Well, I was an English major at Stony Brook University here on Long Island. Sound familiar? It was a great experience. It really helped me to hone my writing skills.

 

Did you read much scifi/fantasy as a kid?

No, not really. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t read much at all as a kid, a little here and there perhaps. I used to love those choose your own adventure type books when I was a kid. You would read a section of the book, come to a crossroads and have to make a decision. Whatever decision you made would send you off into a particular direction that could have positive or negative consequences for your character. I did a lot more reading in my twenties. When I was a kid, I was more into movies: Star Wars and Indiana Jones were among my favorites. I loved adventure stories.

 

What are you working on next?

I’m currently working on the first novel of a trilogy. I plan to release the three novels simultaneously once they are completed. It follows the adventures of a young man whose world is turned upside down when he’s told that his very existence is not what he thought it was. He is told, very convincingly, that he is not even human but an artificially intelligent life form, the first and only of his kind. He is told that his entire world is a computer simulation and that he is an experiment. He is being tested by his creators and his fate depends on the outcome of the test.
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