It is my great honor and privilege to introduce you all to a wonderful writer and friend, Nicholas Rossis. I first met Nicholas through social media many months ago, and we hit it off right away. Those of you who know Nicholas know what a warm and generous man he is. And those of you who have read his work know what an incredible writer he is!
Let’s get to the important stuff. Nicholas is the author of the #1 Amazon bestselling epic fantasy series Pearseus (Year 18: The Schism, and Rise of the Prince are both available on Amazon, and I strongly recommend them).
Nicholas is releasing six amazing Science Fiction short stories in his collection “The Power of Six” on May 15th through Amazon. You can read one of the stories, Simulation Over, for free here!
But enough of me! I’ll let Nicholas explain in his own words.
The Power of Six
The Power of Six is an anthology of six short science fiction stories, originally written between July 2009 and March 2012. Shortly afterwards, I started work on my first novel, Pearseus. Although the stories seem to be concerned with various themes, there are certain passions that run through them, almost obsessively. What is the nature of reality? Is there more to the world than we can see?
The first story, “Simulation Over”, is based on a dream I had, and deals with Descartes’ age-old question; how far can we trust our senses? With technology progressing rapidly, the time can’t be far off when it will be practically impossible to tell apart sensory fact from simulation. How will we be able to tell fantasy and reality apart? The story was published by magazine 9 on October 17th, 2009.
The second story, “For the Last Time”, is lighter in nature. Another common theme, explored in depth in Pearseus, is that of the choices we make and their consequences. The main character here makes one mistake after another. As a result, he keeps getting in deeper and deeper trouble, until he realizes how happy he was before all this. As the saying goes, “I’d like to be who I was before I became who I am”.
The inspiration for the third story, “The Hand of God”, came while playing Starcraft™ (and getting pounded time after time in that final level). It deals with that old question of the nature of reality – digital and corporeal. What do the game characters do when we stop playing?
The fourth story, “I Come in Peace” (from the common sci-fi first contact words) deals with a tortuous question: how far would man go to alleviate his loneliness? In particular, a man experiencing what is possibly the worst kind of loneliness; that someone feels when surrounded by people?
This story explores this basic human emotion – the need for companionship. It won the SF competition titled Invasion and was published by Cube Publishing in the anthology of the same name. Readers of Pearseus will certainly recognise here the birth of the Orbs.
The fifth story, “A Fresh Start”, is, again, about choices – and a favourite question: if we were free to go anywhere in time and space, where would we choose to go? And, once there, would we repeat the same mistakes, or make new ones? What does a man really need to be happy?
The sixth story, “The Sentry”, was inspired by Philip K. Dick’s first story, Roog. Science fiction fans will surely recognize this nod to the old master.
One common characteristic of all stories is a disdain for names, both for characters and places. This is because of my conviction that names inevitably restrict the reader’s imagination. We all carry deep in our psyche an image for all names and places and this will necessarily carry on to the story, limiting the possible projections we can perform. I’d rather leave the canvas completely blank, so that readers can colour it any way they like.
About the Author
Nicholas Rossis was born in 1970 in Athens, Greece. He owns Istomedia Ltd, a web development company, and holds a doctorate in digital architecture from the University of Edinburgh, where he lived for a number of years before returning to Athens.
He loves books and writes children’s books and science fiction. He has had numerous short stories published in Greek magazines and in an anthology. He is the author of the epic fantasy Pearseus, that has reached number one on Amazon.
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Nat Russo is the Amazon #1 Bestselling Fantasy author of Necromancer Awakening and Necromancer Falling.
Nat was born in New York, raised in Arizona, and has lived just about everywhere in-between. He’s gone from pizza maker, to radio DJ, to Catholic seminarian (in a Benedictine monastery, of all places), to police officer, to software engineer. His career has taken him from central Texas to central Germany, where he worked as a defense contractor for Northrop Grumman. He's spent most of his adult life developing software, playing video games, running a Cub Scout den, gaining/losing weight, and listening to every kind of music under the sun.
Along the way he managed to earn a degree in Philosophy and a black belt in Tang Soo Do.
He currently makes his home in central Texas with his wife, teenager, mischievous beagle, and goofy boxador.
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Thank you so much for your kind words! High praise indeed, especially coming from an author whose work I admire so much!!
Thank you, Nicholas! I was blown away by Simulation Over and I’m eager to dig into the others!