Earth is plagued by the Black Rain turning water into a gel and destroying the whole ecology. Geo Woodman is on a mission to protect his clan and to save the people of Torono from the upcoming ecological disaster.
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Author Guest Post
The Writing Process
I’m a planner myself. I first tend to write my novel in my mind. I’d just go through some major events, the main timeline, a few characters, not all of them, only to get an idea of what is it about and see if I want to write it.
Then I start to plan it. First, there’s the rule of three. Every piece of writing, from the entire novel to the smallest scene could be divided into three parts: beginning, middle, and end. Different writers tend to divide an entire novel into three, four or five parts. But if you analyze their parts, you realize they’re those three parts I told you about, but differently explained.
Each part has certain things that tend to happen inside them. I call these things pillars. Pillars are good because instead of thinking I wrote the beginning, I know where I’m going, but I have no idea what happens in between, you now have the opportunity to place some pillars along the way and think of not how I can get from here to the end, but how I can get from here to only several pages later, to the next pillar. And from that pillar to the next and so on, until you finally reach the end.
I like to get my pillars down and be sure that I have sufficient meat to write a novel, not only a short story.
Then I start writing and what often happens is that through writing (a slower process than imagining, running through the story in your mind) a lot changes. Some scenes don’t make sense anymore. There are other scenes I didn’t think of. Some characters behave differently. The story goes in a different direction than originally thought because it’s more natural that way, or because it makes it more interesting. Things discovered while writing are always fascinating. In the end, working on novel structure in the beginning gives a writer the means to be able to write from the first page to the last, without stumbling. But the writing itself brings a lot of surprises along the way, at least in the first draft. The following drafts are less surprising as one works in more detail on different aspects of the novel—language, characters, world-building, etc.
About the Book
Green Corrosion
The Corrosion Series Book One
by Costi Gurgu
Published 18 September 2023
Kult Books
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian Science Fiction
Page Count: 336
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!
The devastating Black Rain has transformed the once-lush land into an arid wasteland, turning all water into a gel-like substance across the globe. Fresh, drinkable water has become the planet’s most precious commodity, sought after by all. Some have chanced upon underground liquid reserves, while those with no choice but to drink gelled water become “Corrosives,” disfigured by a verdigrislike substance covering their bodies.
The Golden Tower of Prince Boris shines above the otherwise derelict city of Torono.
From the Golden Tower, Geo Woodman secretly leads the fight to save his clan and the people of Torono from the dangers of corrupt leaders and the hazardous climate.
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Excerpt
The sky was the color of moldy cheese. A upside-down, frothy swamp hanging so oppressively low, some of the decaying towers pricked its purulent belly.
Geo always felt sick after looking at the sky, but he inevitably looked every time he observed the Golden Tower, or the Silkers Tower, as people called it. The only high-rise structure in the city still in use. All the other high-rises had been abandoned long ago, after entire floors collapsed with the tenants inside. They rose, derelict, their windows clotted, in a ghostly jungle. The Silkers Tower, though…it supposedly had been consolidated and adapted to the new conditions. The golden structure gleamed like the only source of light in a city of eternal mist and green reflections.
Geo breathed deeply a few times to calm himself. The unwholesome effluvia of corroding bodies coiled through the air. He shut his eyes and ignored the fetid damp creeping through the rebreather. Then he looked around and felt a pleasant thrill, an ever-present fear, and lust, all at once in a bubbling, poisonous mixture. Lately, that had been the marinade his brain floated in.
He was part of the Silkers procession that had traversed the city from its port to their Golden Tower. Ninety Silkers soldiers had disembarked and took to the streets of the city to be next to their brothers in the most celebrated event of the year—the Water Passage.
The people of the city filled the streets, eager to glimpse the glorious army. And Geo was at its head, in the lead. Next to Prince Boris and his court, surrounded by Boris’s elite guard of Luna Warriors, atop the royal wheeled platform of rust-red water-silk.
He was thrilled to be in such dangerous company. He lusted for the kind of attention this display of power attracted. And the fear was ever-present, fear of the Silkers’ reality and their way of life, their values and ever-shifting interests. Fear that today he was at the center of their attention and tomorrow he might wake up discarded. Fear of what being part of the Silker Court implied and what not being part of it meant for Geo’s clan.
The mayor and his Blue Officers watched the passing procession from the central balcony of the City Hall. It was supposed to show the people that the procession was for him, for the ruler of the city. But Geo knew that in reality it meant that the mayor was not invited to be part of the procession and was not invited to watch the Water Passage Ritual, as he, Geo, was. Geo, the prince’s special guest. Last year Nimesh of the Bones Clan, who had mysteriously vanished; this year, Geo. Prince Boris’s special guests and friends. The Silkers’ ever-shifting political interests.
The City Hall was a two-storey building lined with waves and waves of mortar to keep it from collapsing under the continuous attack of the water. It looked like a thick, monstrous candle, the wax melted in ripples from years of burning. Its balcony was the only thing moved forward so it remained on the outside, overlooking the Mayor’s Square and the Golden Tower. Prince Boris said that they had decided to rehabilitate the Golden Tower as a sign of respect for the City Hall. But Woodman the Elder, Geo’s grandfather and the leader of his people, had a different opinion on the matter—that Prince Boris wanted to rub the mayor’s face in the fact that they had the knowledge to actually convert an old structure to survive the vicissitudes of their times. And that the Golden Tower of the Silkers looked a thousand times more royal than the City Hall. And that all the people could see it, because the two buildings faced each other.
The procession stopped in front of the Golden Tower. The mayor waved formally and the prince nodded elegantly. The crowd gathered in the Mayor’s Square burst into cheers. The three detachments of the prince’s three armies took their places around the royal platform and waited. The Luna Warriors secured the tower’s entrance and took up position as a guard of honor.
Geo shuddered. He was about to enter the infamous tower for the first time. He was about to pull his clan into history. They were about to go public. Official. Known of. Dangerously exposed. Thrills and fear.
About the Author
Costi’s fiction has appeared in Canada, the US, and Europe. He has sold 5 books and over 50 stories for which he has won 24 awards. He was three times a finalist for the Canadian Aurora Awards.
His latest sales include the anthologies Tesseracts 17, The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk, Dark Horizons, Street Magick, Water, and Alice Unbound.
His bestselling novel RecipeArium has won three awards (Kult, Nemira, and Vladimir Colin) and was a 2018 finalist for the Aurora Awards.
His second novel, “Servitude” was published in October 2022. And his latest novel “Green Corrosion” is book 1 of the “Corrosion” series, and was published in September 2023.
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