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John G. Stevens

Goodreads Author

Website

http://www.echowake.com

Twitter

echowake

Genre

Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction

Influences

Tolkien, Rothfuss, Eddings, Toriyama

Member Since

May 2017

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John is a hardworking Husband and Father of three boys. He has spent most of his life on the East Coast of the US and currently resides in Southern Maine. They lived in Japan for a few years, love to travel and try to focus on what connects us all rather than what separates us. He considers the apex of all delicacies to be anything with buffalo chicken in it. Being a musician, avid reader and dabbler in Parkour gives him many avenues to pull from in his writing. A lifelong storyteller, John has always imagined worlds where there are no limits.

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Popular Answered Questions

What was your inspiration for creating such an interesting steampunk/fantasy/sci-fi world?

John G. Stevens Thanks for the question!

Wow. Where to begin...

The world of Echowake has a lot of influences. I didn't really plan it that way but it evolved over time…moreThanks for the question!

Wow. Where to begin...

The world of Echowake has a lot of influences. I didn't really plan it that way but it evolved over time.

The setting started out as "a barren wasteland with air whales flying overhead." I've always liked post-apocalyptic/dystopian fiction so that idea excited me. The air whales overhead gave it a nice fantasy element too.

I also knew I wanted to have magic. I borrowed a page from things like Dragon Ball and Naruto and decided to make the magic chi-based. Something based on the life-force of a person, but it wasn't something everyone could do.

One of the characters early on belonged to a guild of inventors, so I wanted to have some technology, but not too futuristic. I settled with a gear + steam engine level of technology. It fit well with this recovering dystopian (or even post-dystopian) world as they entered a second industrial revolution. The character, incidentally, was definitely influenced by Lucca (from Chrono Trigger) and Bulma (again, from Dragon Ball.) I never really setout to do "Steampunk", and as such it's not the typical Victorian and parasol style of Steampunk. It's a bit dirtier than all that.

Speaking of dirty. Being a dystopian world, there wasn't much in the way of government and certainly no militaries or police force. So how do people go about protecting their towns and cities? Probably by forming some kind of militia. Let's call them Marshals. And they should be armed... We have plenty of metal craft in this world (thanks to the steampunk inventors) so guns seem plausible. Hmm. A group of do-gooders running around in the Scorch (a desert-like environment) with guns fighting wild raiders... is this a Western? Just a little bit! ;) But let's mix it up. One of the characters has a large 6-chamber revolving rifle. Now that's dystopia!

Because this dystopian world was created by some great cataclysm hundreds of years prior, that meant the world as it was before was gone. But what was it like? What vestiages might be left from those old civilizations? There might be ancient technologies left behind that are more advanced than anything steam power could offer. Enter: Science Fiction. This is a popular trope in many stories and it fits just perfectly in my world.

Maybe it's true what they say, there are no more original ideas, only original combinations of ideas. If that's true, then I'm in a good place!(less)

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What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

John G. Stevens Love what you do.

I think it's vital to be writing (especially at the beginning) because you love it. If nothing ever comes of your current writing pr…moreLove what you do.

I think it's vital to be writing (especially at the beginning) because you love it. If nothing ever comes of your current writing project and you still want to do it: you've found something special. You've found the art that you want create in this world because no one else has. No one else can. No one else can take your unique thoughts and build a tangible experience out of it. I forget who said it first (Neil Gaiman?), but there's a phrase, "Write the story you want to exist but doesn't yet." For me, this is the key. I write because I love the thing I'm creating and no one else will do it.
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Combine Editions
John G. Stevens’s books

Average rating: 4.11 · 45 ratings · 12 reviews · 3 distinct works • Similar authors

	Echowake (Echowake Saga, #1) 4.05 avg rating — 38 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Tempest Born (Echowake Saga, #2) 4.33 avg rating — 6 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Lost in the Light (Echowake Saga, #3) it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.

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John G. Stevens's Blog

Lost in the Light (Echowake #3) Publish date!

Here just in time for Christmas, the third and final book in The Echowake Saga is (finally!!) landing on Christmas! That’s right, on Christmas Day you can purchase the E-book or paperback from Amazon! And for the first time ever, you can download the E-book from the Kobo or Apple iBooks stores on release day as well. Until then, you can pre-order the ebook here.

It’s been a monumentally long road t

Series by John G. Stevens

Echowake Saga (3 books)
by

John G. Stevens (Goodreads Author)

4.11 avg rating — 45 ratings

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John’s Recent Updates

John G. Stevens rated a book it was amazing Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making by Andrew Peterson (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jan 23, 2024 02:46PM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Adorning the Dark by Andrew Peterson. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Adorning the Dark by Andrew Peterson
John G. Stevens rated a book really liked it The Harvest of Souls (Artilect War, #3) by A.W. Cross (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
May 12, 2023 07:41PM · like
John G. Stevens is finished with The Harvest of Souls The Harvest of Souls (Artilect War, #3) by A.W. Cross (Goodreads Author) progress:	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Apr 12, 2023 04:32PM · like · see status
John G. Stevens rated a book it was amazing The Vine Witch (The Vine Witch, #1) by Luanne G. Smith (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Oct 31, 2022 10:02AM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Vine Witch by Luanne G. Smith. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Vine Witch by Luanne G. Smith

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Genre Specific Re...: General fantasy - MK2 (CLOSED)	72	41	Jul 14, 2018 05:18PM

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