Ultimatum follows a Marine Raider living in a post-apocalyptic world who has one mission: to reach Three Mile Island at any cost. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

​I am a sci-fi and fantasy lover. The inspiration for this story was wanting to make my sci-fi classic. My favorite movies are Aliens ’86, Jurassic Park, and Terminator. I love cyberpunk also. I believe if you look through the book you can see the inspiration of all those stories in this novel.

One of the stand-out features in this novel is the character development. Were the characters’ backstory something you always had, or did it develop as you were writing?

As for character development, I am someone who likes teamwork. My first draft was so bad. My main character D was a genetic uber-competent superman. He was the only real character in a story where he travels through the broken world to find out how this happened. That story was a train wreck. My next draft needed more characters, and all of them needed to have traits that complemented D and filled in facts for the reader in a natural way, so I created Zach and gave him tech smarts, Hank with long military experience, Betty with psychological knowledge, and Cella with bioscience knowledge. From there I had to round out the characters and their motivations. I used myself, other family members, and the many people I’ve met in my life to flesh out the main characters.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

The themes of this book are for people to care for resource management and to understand that war is not a game.

Is this the first book in the series? If so, when is the next book coming out, and what can your fans expect in the next story?

This is the first book of a planned trilogy. I plan to release the second novel, Ultimatum: Fallout County, later this year 2024.

Author Links: Goodreads | Amazon

Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2024/03/10/war-is-not-a-game/