Hello everyone and welcome to my stop on the Escapist Book Co. virtual book tour for C.M. Caplan’s Science-Fantasy novel The Fall Is All There Is! Today, I am excited to help kickoff the tour by sharing an interview with the main character of the book, Petre Mercy!
You can find our interview below, along with all of the info about the book, the author, links to purchase a copy of The Fall Is All There Is for yourself, and a chance to win a copy in our giveaway! Also, be sure to take a look at the schedule here or at the top of the post and follow along to see the stops from our other awesome hosts!
Book Information:
The Fall Is All There Is by C.M. Caplan
Series: Four of Mercies #1
Genre: Science-Fantasy
Intended Age Group: Adult
Pages: 411
Published: November 1, 2022
Publisher: Razor Sharp Books (Self Published)
Blurb:
You never want to ruin a really good dramatic exit. When you flee home on a cyborg horse the exact second you turn eighteen, you don’t really expect to go back to the place you fled from, you know? But sometimes your old life hits you from behind.
Sometimes you spend years away from home, killing dangerous people who had the bad luck to get infected by a lungful of ghostfog, only to find out that your dad, the king, is dead, and now your siblings are ordering you back home for a high stakes family reunion.
But when you’ve got four heirs who are all the same age, the line of succession tends to get a wee bit murky. So in order to regain your independence, you’ve got to navigate a deadly web of intrigue, where every sibling wants your allegiance, and any decision might tear your country—and your family—apart.
See Also:
First Person Smartass • Sorry Princess I Only Date People Who Might Stab Me • But My Whole Body is a Weapon
Book Links:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BHDBD8M7
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62887419-the-fall-is-all-there-is
Character Q&A
Could you please introduce yourself to our readers?
Oh man I never know how to begin these things. Like I wanna start off with “My name is Petre Mercy” but that feels too generic, y’know? I dunno I guess I got my name out there already. I am to my own great shame a Prince of Mercy House, and fourth in line to inherit the throne. The other three were born two minutes apart on the same day. I guess the doctors who got us out of there liked those three better, I dunno.
What music do you listen to?
Oh you know it’s Britney, bitch.
What are 3 items you can’t live without?
The chameleon coat makes it easier to blend in so I don’t have to make eye contact with anybody, and once every few months I need these muscle memory injections so that I don’t embarrass myself by stimming or making weird noises or some shit—brings me up to a baseline of functionality with stuff like riding, swordplay, and court etiquette. And I don’t necessarily like the cyborg horses but I kind of need the damn things to get around.
If you were stranded on a deserted island, what is one thing you’d like to have with you?
Some goddamn peace and quiet, for once.
What is your biggest pet peeve?
That thing some people do when they say they’re not actually mad or upset even though they’re clearly stewing in their own misery and sulking or like aggressively doing a chore or something. Like just own it please I’m begging you come on.
What do you do in your free time?
Oh man that depends on who I’ve got free time with. Some options are more fun than others.
What makes you want to get out of bed in the morning?
That two minute long morning piss waits for no man or God.
What is the best advice you’ve ever been given?
“Take a deep breath.”
What do you carry in your bag?
An old chainsaw-knife I stole from my Dad. A science-sword with a battery of artificial-human thyroid. A couple cigarettes of Muse for when I’ve got to calm down, and ideally a lighter.
What’s your favorite animal?
Animals the way you’d think of them aren’t really a thing where I’m from, though back home we’ve got a legion of robot security pugs with one mismatched camera lens for an eye ranging about the place, which is pretty entertainingly freaky.
What do you think about your siblings?
I want to stab them but also only I can stab them. Nobody else is allowed. Does that make sense?
Do you have favorite saying?
Whichever one lets me keep talking, honestly.
What is your favorite holiday?
There’s one holiday we have where we go hunt a cyborg white hart, but I don’t think that get a mention in this book. Maybe in the sequel.
If you could go anywhere in [the book’s world], where would you go and why?
Well I tried to hang out in Blackheath House, where all the halfway decent people tend to cluster. But my siblings had to come in and fuck with that.
What do you do to relax?
Oh hey speaking of fucking with things…
What is your favorite food?
There’s this sandwiches made from trees of fur and bison meat. It’s farmed in The Forest Wall and on The Outlying Islands, and I would do unspeakable things to get ahold of one.
What is your favorite season?
It’s gotta be spring. It’s like nature is realizing its potential but it has yet to get really annoying about it the way it does in the summer.
How would you define happiness?
I dunno man I’m 23 I don’t know what I’m doing yet.
What are you passionate about?
I’m 0-100 on everything. So pretty much anything, if you give me enough time.
How do you feel about your government?
I refuse to answer this on the grounds I might incriminate myself. One of my brothers might stab me or something if I say the wrong thing, you can’t be too careful.
If you could change one thing about [the book’s world], what would it be?
It’d be really great if nobody in my family was ever put in charge of anything. Alas.
What’s your biggest secret?
There’s the time I got a handjob in a bathroom next to some urinals from [REDACTED] but they’ll have my head if I tell anyone about that.
What do you hate?
Oh man how much time have you got? Get comfortable!
What’s your biggest fear?
I am at all times just a little bit terrified of being the biggest fuckup in all of history but apart from that small detail I can’t think of anything.
What do you think your best quality is?
I’d like to think I’m deceptively incisive.
How would you describe the world you live in?
A while back we had a magical apocalypse that terraformed the world, so we built a scientific one on top of the ruins, until we blew ourselves back to the stone age, and now we’re trying to piece together the tech those old societies have left behind, figure out how to get stuff working, while navigating a world where there’s no much separation between flora and fauna. It’s interesting, to say the least. See something new every day, in between the labcoats’ newest band-aid solutions to prevent environmental catastrophes.
About the Author
C.M. CAPLAN IS the author of The Fall is All There Is and The Sword in the Street. He’s a quadruplet (yes, really), and is disabled. He has a degree in creative writing and was the recipient of his university’s highest honor in the arts. His short fiction also won an Honorable Mention in the 2019 Writers of the Future Contest.
If you enjoy his novel, you can rate it on Goodreads or Amazon.
You can also subscribe to Caplan’s mailing list at cmcaplan.net to receive any free short stories, future updates, information, or sneak previews into future projects.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/thecmcaplan
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecmcaplan/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecmcaplanauthor
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21121094.C_M_Caplan
Giveaway
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