Q&A With Ace Antonio Hall

My latest Q&A is with horror author Ace Antonio Hall. Ace is the author of Oware Mosaic & Lipstick Asylum. 

 Q: Ace would you care to tell the readers of the blog and I a little about your books Oware Mosaic & Lipstick Asylum and how you came up with the concepts for both books?

A: The Oware Mosaic story is set on alternate Earth and follows the life of Feeni Xo, a teenage enhuman girl who wants to become an investigative forensic coroner. Similar to vampires, ‘enhumans’ need human blood for sustenance but thanks to the creation of synthetic blood, they don’t need to break enhuman laws by harming humans for survival.

One night, coming home from a party, Feeni seems to kill a young girl. Her brother, who is a police officer, helps her cover it up but when Feeni retreats to the neural verse to play a virtual reality game that uses data from police cold cases, she discovers the dead girl in real life is actually the younger sister of her neighbor, who also happens to be a police officer. 

Overwhelmed with guilt, she’s forced to help her neighbor investigate her sister’s death in a case that becomes ominous when they play the House of Oware game that’s been reprogrammed to kill every participant.

Note: The neural verse is much like the metaverse except that gamers access the platform through their neural implants. In other words, the game is played in their minds and not through a gaming system or online.

As far as how I came up with the concepts: For Oware Mosaic, I wanted to mirror an old seventies show called Quincy, M.E but with a modern twist featuring a teenage phenom. Lipstick Asylum was borne from my love for playing the Resident Evil video game franchise and watching the movies and animated features. Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake vampire series was also a huge inspiration. 

Q: What drew you to writing in the horror genre? 

A: I love the scares, the psychological storytelling and developing scenarios using ordinary characters in supernatural circumstances. Writing about and exploring the extreme lengths of what people will go through when they’re frightened is almost a fetish for me; I love it! 

Q: Who are your favorite horror authors to read from? 

A: As I mentioned briefly above, I love Laurell K. Hamilton, and of course the usual suspects, Stephen King, Octavia Butler, Linda D. Addison’s horror poetry, and Robert J. Sawyer. I also love reading Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels and am a big fan of the writing in the TV shows Severance, Black Mirror, the Walking Dead, Stranger Things, Twilight Zone, the Star Trek franchise (especially TOS and Picard), the Vampire Diaries, Fringe, and last but not least, the X-Files.   

Q: When in your life did you realize that being an author was what you were called to do in life?

A: Right around 2008, when I met Heather Graham Pozzessere at the West Hollywood Book Fair. I’d just recently quit my job as Director of Education for the Sylvan Learning Center, and at the encouragement of a dear friend, Jane Eugene, who saw the void in my eyes from not pursuing my creative mind, decided to learn how to write novels. Heather’s advice and also, I might add, joining the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society, run by Tony N. Todaro, gave me the confidence to study, read and hone the craft of writing horror literature. 

Q: Are you currently writing something new right now?

A: Yes, I’m writing a science fiction/horror novel about a group of teens who when they’re not jamming in their rock band, solve supernatural crimes throughout the multiverse. 

Q: Does Hollywood have the rights to your work? The entertainment industry needs more original material instead of constant remakes, reboots, sequels and prequels. 

A: As a matter of fact, I’m working with a Hollywood production company, developing a TV series based on my novel, Oware Mosaic called Feeni Xo (pronounced Zoe). I think audiences who love teen horror dramas will not only become fans of the show but will enjoy the love story we have in store between two of the main characters.