AMANDA DYAR: One of the first things we need to talk about is the Echo's Revenge series. The series follows the story of two young gamers as they experience adventures in both the gaming world and the real world. Please, tell us why you chose to target the seldom covered young gaming demographic.
HART GETZEN: It seems that very few authors are writing fresh, non-derivative material for this audience. I love writing for gamers because I know that they have special skills related to gaming and I find this very exciting. Gamers possess unique, rapid-fire decision making abilities, intellectual flexibility, openness to new ideas, and social networking skills. In my mind, this is all a very new way of thinking, almost a possible precursor to a new state of evolution. What I’m trying to do is develop a new narrative style based strictly on gamers’ unique sensibilities, like being able to shift perspectives rapidly from 1st person to 3rd and process information suddenly introduced from outside the direct narrative line. Writing in a pure game style is a new and very exciting art form, one which I hope other writers will begin to explore.
AMANDA: Why do you feel this demographic is often overlooked in many forms of media including books, television and films despite the fact that gaming is one of the fastest growing industries in the world?
HART: It’s perplexing that hardly anyone has done much to engage this vital, growing audience. Perhaps video games are so new that traditional entertainment producers don’t know what to do with it yet, so they follow something they recognize--the traditional narrative--rather than the kinetic spirit of this type of engagement.
AMANDA: The Echo's Revenge series takes a serious approach to revealing the world of video game creation to its young target audience in hopes of opening their minds to a whole different view on games beyond just playing them. How important is this aspect of the book to you, and how difficult do you find it to present this knowledge in a way that will resonate with your books' target audience?
HART: Pulling back the curtain is a big theme in the series. To accomplish this, I decided to pull the designers into the game to compete with their audience. I’ll only know how effective this construct is when the second novel comes out, in which the development of the alternate reality game is revealed.
The creative process of game production is challenging and exciting; but at the same time, a lot of the creative supervision is an almost prosaic, day-by-day slog through one mire after another in a very incremental process. It requires incredible patience. So one quesion I wanted to touch on was what core values are needed in this world? Patience, courage, perseverance, flexibility in analytical thinking, and follow-through of critical, repetitive tasks. The process is technically challenging, but also requires patience, social competence and ethics, or one can get into very frightening, costly problems quickly.
In book 2, we see what just a couple of specific human failures mean at the end of the production process: An extraordinarily logical, sentient, and overwhelmingly powerful machine which is tragically flawed, causing the horror which takes place in book 1. ECHO is completely out of human control because competing programs have been inserted into its operating system, resulting in corrupted control systems and a host of other human-created problems. These problems arise from several crew members’ personal deficiencies and character flaws. The end result is completely unpredictable.
AMANDA: In the first book in the series, The Ultimate Game, young Reggie and Jeremy must tackle massive trials in the gaming world, but they must also overcome problems at home within their own family--ultimately deciding to run away. Do you think over the course of the series your young readers can learn to correctly deal with real life problems like the ones presented in the book?
HART: Everyone has personal problems they wrestle with, and everyone handles these problems differently. I’m excited that the first book has already prompted discussions about dysfunctional family dynamics. I hope that some of the tools the characters discover will give some readers ideas about how they can gain more control over their own lives when they’re caught in any type of destructive dynamic, and how to break that dynamic.
AMANDA: You've already planned a 2013 and 2014 release for your next two titles in the series. Can you give us any details or hints on where you plan to take series in the future installments? Also, do you feel any pressure to create a whole book for publish in such a short time span?
HART: The second book is pretty much done, but I’m rewriting it based on what I learn from the first book’s audience—that is, how narrative issues best work. It’s an iterative process. As I mentioned, the second book reveals how and why this unmitigated disaster occurred. The third book continues the narrative in a frightening new world we all live in, but cannot perceive and are completely unaware of. Readers will see very clearly how intelligent technology can spread like a virus across the face of our world. They will also see a very realistic depiction of things gone horrifically wrong.
AMANDA: We've heard that there are plans to release an online RPG based on the world of Echo. Has any timeframe been set for its release, and what sort of gameplay should we expect to see in the title?
HART: It’s actually an alternate reality game. I can't say much now because it's in development, but the game will use all of the websites associated with the novels. V 3.0 of the novels will include embedded code, data, leads and narrative to support the reality game. The game itself will begin with a rather prosaic whack-a-mole activity on the website. Robotic elements will sense certain human and natural activities, and other robotic mechanisms will trigger events which will cue humans to complete certain actions. GPS, QR codes, and geocaches will be used. That's about all I can say about the game right now.
AMANDA: You've created a really cool website to help promote the series called echohunt.com. How much time and effort went into creating this site? Also, what do you hope visitors will gain from visiting the website beyond an interest in Echo's Revenge?
HART: Echo’s “99.99%,” as the reader will learn from the first and third books, is an intel transmission from ECHO to the human game team on how they can become extremely powerful. It’s a synthesis of everything ECHO has learned from and about humans. In the ECHO’S 99.99% page in the website, we find links which ECHO has compiled--mostly instructional resources for personal development--as opposed to the social development scheme which ECHO proselytizes.
AMANDA: In addition to being an extremely talented author, you've also done extensive work in the film industry. Can you tell us a little about your adventure into creating movies, and why did you ultimately turn your focus back to writing professionally?
HART: Hybrid motion picture technologies have always fascinated me, whether it’s motion simulation, games in motion simulated environments, military applications of simulation technologies, or different image delivery systems such as retinal projection interfaced with interactive computing. I started writing out of necessity as a simulation producer, and eventually found myself producing large screen motion simulation entertainment in IMAX 3D, such as the Race for Atlantis ride at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. Eventually, for technical and aesthetic reasons, I found that I had to write the simulations so that production would go more smoothly.
What caused me to eventually write novels was something that I realized one day as I was sitting in an extremely large theatre while it was being built. I was thinking about the thousands of man-hours, tons of steel, concrete, and life support systems that were necessary for the show. I wondered about the possibility of some sort of immersive, social entertainment I could create almost alone, without a crew of 600 people. I thought a lot about this idea until digital publishing and web design evolved to where it is today, and these forms of transmedia formats were possible.
The medium I’ve adopted now is writing novels in tandem with creating a network of websites to support an Alternate Reality Game.
AMANDA: We're assuming that since you are basing your book series around gaming that you enjoy playing a few games from time to time. So, what are some of your favorite games, and what else do you enjoy doing in your free time?
HART: I love different types of games, from first person shooters to RPG’s to kinetic puzzles like Portal. But I’m also fascinated watching gamers play, especially groups of players, and how they interact with other players around the world. I love the fact that my 10-year old son has made friends with a Norwegian and bugs him all the time, asking questions about Norway’s educational system, what they eat, and about other mundane issues.
In my free time I run a 5K every week and do tons of swimming, skiing, hiking, surfing and running. I never have time to do enough surfing. I really enjoy swimming off the Channel Islands way out in the ocean, especially in very deep water.
AMANDA: What other projects are you currently working on that we haven't discussed in the interview?
HART: I’m helping publish a brilliant chick-lit novel and companion website due out this fall.
To learn more on the Echo's Revenge series, you can visit the official website here: http://www.echohunt.com/