Dealing with Death: The story of Smoke and Mirrors
AS TOLD BY MATTHEW LEDREW

When I was sixteen, I wrote an eight hundred and fifty page long novel called Black Womb.

In 2007 when I published a novel called Black Womb, it was two hundred pages long. As you can imagine, something happened between the to events that grossly changed the outcome of the finished product.

I've said many times during the production of Smoke and Mirrors that it was written hot on the heels of the first novel. Now I'm going to admit that that statement was something of a fib. They were actually written as one singular work, with the first chapter of Smoke and Mirrors taking place directly after the last chapter of Black Womb.

In these articles, I usually talk about what inspired me to write the stories I write. With Black Womb it was the television shows I watched as a child. With Transformations in Pain it was my experiences while living in Calgary. The inspiration behind Smoke and Mirrors was unique to me, in that it was inspired, mainly, by Black Womb.

One of the things I set out to do when I started writing the series was to play with the conventions of the genres in which I wrote. To write heroes that didn't nessesarily fit the achetypes of heroes and villians that were rougishly likeable. To challange the preconceived notions of the science-fiction and horror genres until the lines became so blurred that it couldn't be pinned down as one specific thing.

That said, one of the things I set out to do when I wrote Smoke and Mirrors was to play with the conventions of the Black Womb series.

Any time you start a series, after the first book, rules get laid down. Everyone knows Superman isn't going to die permanently, because its his book. Those unnoffical rules are set up early on, and everybody knows them.

Smoke and Mirrors is my way of letting people know that they shouldn't assume anything about the status-quo of the series. Every book shakes up the lives of the characters in some way, this one more than others.

So I guess that it. If you were looking for deep insights into the nature of the text itself you're sadly out of luck... for now. Once it's been on the shelf a few months, I'm sure I'll get chatty-er. For now though, I'll see you all over in Roulette!

Best Regards,
Matthew LeDrew
author