Clint Hall is an author, speaker, and podcaster who has been writing stories since middle school, where he spent most of his time in English class creating comic books. (Fortunately, his teacher not only allowed it, she bought every issue.) Known for stories of hope, wonder, and adventure, Clint is the author of Steal Fire from the Gods. He has also been published in multiple anthologies and magazines. You can find him hosting panels at conventions, online at ClintHall.com, or at The Experience: Conversations with Creatives podcast, available on all major platforms.
Clint talks with us in this interview about his latest time-travel novel, Echo Nova.
FF: What inspired the story in your book?
When I started writing this book, I had just finished a particularly large and ambitious project (which has yet to be revealed). While I thoroughly enjoyed working on that book, I wanted a change of pace for my next manuscript. I wanted to do something lighter and faster.
So, I came up with Echo Nova.
I love time travel stories. Many of my favorite books and movies involve traveling through time, so I wanted to contribute something new to the genre.
In many time travel stories, there’s an ever-present danger of altering the present and future if you change something in the past. Snap the wrong tree branch or cough in the wrong restaurant, and you might wipe yourself out of existence.
But what if it didn’t work that way? What if the ripples of change in the timestream moved at the same speed as time itself? If we went back 20 years and changed something, it would take 20 years for the effects of that change to reach the year 2025. By then, those of us in the present would already be in the year 2045, and our present would be unaffected by those changes.
Once I had that idea, everything else fell into place.
FF: What can you tell us about the main characters in your book?
Dash is a high schooler and a rooftop racer. To earn money, he participates in illegal races that require him to run and jump across buildings. The only rule? Don’t touch the ground.
It’s extremely dangerous, but where he lives, there aren’t many safe ways to earn money and make a name for yourself. And making a name for himself is very important to Dash. He’s driven by the idea that he needs to accomplish something grand to be significant. In other words, he believes that not only does he have to earn his value; he thinks he has to do it in a way that other people can see.
Life often feels that way, as if the world tells us our worth comes only from our achievements. This emphasis on accomplishment can overshadow the importance of relationships.
Dash struggles with this. He doesn’t intentionally disregard others, but his priorities are misplaced. He’s too focused on what he can achieve, and his sense of worth is tied to his accomplishments and notoriety.
FF: Which character surprised you the most?
I don’t want to say too much about Sheriff Duffy for fear of spoiling the story, but he’s one of my favorite characters I’ve ever written. He’s somewhat of a paradox in many ways, cursed by being extremely good at something he despises doing, but he also knows that he must do it.
He’s also hilarious and very insightful. Because I generally have very detailed outlines of my books before I start writing, characters rarely surprise me. But every once in a while, Duffy would say something that I absolutely didn’t see coming. That was a lot of fun.
FF: Why do you think storytelling is such a powerful way to share truth?
There are lots of reasons, but I’ll pick one.
Storytelling lowers our defenses. If someone is trying to share a truth about yourself—especially a difficult one—many of us will get our guard up out of a sense of self-protection and preservation. This can prevent us from hearing what we need to hear.
Stories subvert that by removing us one step from the truth being conveyed. The characters need to learn the tough lesson, not us, which lowers our defenses and allows us to be more receptive.
Of course, after hearing the story, it’s our responsibility to determine whether and how the truths it contains are relevant to our lives.
FF: What can you tell us about your next book?
Nothing to announce (yet!)
FF: How do you get into the right frame of mind to write for your genre/audience?
Music is the key for me here. I’ve been a musician for a very long time. I spent my twenties playing in hard rock bands around Atlanta and still record original music, though now it’s usually for my book promotions. A big part of my pre-writing process is curating a playlist for the genre I’m writing in, the tone of the book, the characters’ journeys, etc. This playlist usually includes instrumental music, although there are specific albums that I’ve listened to so many times while writing that the lyrics no longer distract me.
The playlist for Echo Nova mainly consisted of pop-rock music, including Angels & Airwaves, Fall Out Boy, and Yellowcard.
When I sit down at my desk and turn on that playlist, I’m locked in.
FF: What do you want readers to take away after reading your book?
More than anything, I hope this book is an absolute blast to read. The tone of the book has been compared to Ready Player One, which I appreciate. Ready Player One has some interesting things to say about relationships and how isolating gaming culture can be. But for me, that was a book I turned to when I needed to put my mind somewhere else. I had that same goal in mind when writing this book: to give people a fun escape.
However, as I developed the manuscript, I was influenced by real stories about how entertainment and fame can warp our sense of reality and dull our empathy for others, especially when it conflicts with our selfish desires. Echo Nova is a cautionary tale about our fame-obsessed culture, in which our worth is quantified by likes and followers.
Amazingly, this book I wrote years ago is coming out now, at a time when we’re seeing the dark side of fame in our culture more than ever. So many people have sacrificed so much to achieve fame and fortune. But when they get there, they’re often unhappy. They’ve lost pieces of themselves, broken relationships, and done things they once would’ve considered unthinkable. And they’re lonely.
But there’s a better way to live, a way that values deeper experiences with God and others above everything else. That’s what I hope people take from this book.
FF: What are the biggest challenges for you as an author writing in your specific genre?
Sci-fi readers are generally so astute. I’m writing a time travel story, but I’m confident that many of my readers know far more about string theory, for example, than I do. The challenge is to be true to my storytelling style—generally faster-paced and lighter on explanations—without insulting their intelligence.
To do so, I try to communicate to readers about what type of story they’re getting as early in the book as possible. While I spend lots of time developing the theories and ideas that go into my books, I don’t pretend that I’m smarter than the reader. I don’t assume that I know more about spaceships or time travel than they do. This is generally something that I can convey through the tone of the story and the perspective of the main character. When you do that well, sci-fi readers are happy to come along for the ride as long as you’re consistent in the logic of your technologies and their applications in the world you’ve created.
FF: What authors or books have inspired you as an author?
As a Christian, I’m supposed to say Tolkien and Lewis. Those are certainly true answers for me, but they’re also such common responses among writers of faith that they don’t tell you anything unique about who I am.
Instead, I’ll say Max Brooks, although I’m very different from him as an author. For one thing, his books are often epistolary, which is a word that makes me sound smarter than I am (in fact, I had a hard time Googling it because my first guess at spelling it was so far off). Epistolary means stories that are told through letters, such as his books World War Z and Devolution.
What I admire so much about Max Brooks is his use of genre storytelling to make important observations about society while also being incredibly entertaining. I find myself thinking about excerpts from his books constantly. Yes, they’re cool books about zombies and Bigfoot. But they also contain lessons that have legitimately impacted how I think about my life and the world around me.
FF: How has your faith or worldview impacted the way you tell stories?
In some ways, it takes the pressure off. I know that I’m writing with God, and while I’m certainly striving at all times to bring my absolute best, the actual quality and reception of the book are ultimately in His hands. Anything good comes from Him.
My faith also adds so much wonder to the experience of writing. I have experienced God whispering ideas in my ear while sitting at my desk writing, as well as in the shower, in my car, or during a worship service. Those are the moments that keep me going. When you experience that, there’s nothing better.
Echo Nova
Clint Hall
Enclave Escape
Genres: SciFi, YA/Teen Time Travel
Release Date: January 14, 2025
ASIN: B0D72GB96Z
ISBN-13: 979-8886051704
Book Summary:
Dash Keane is about to become the biggest star in history.
As a poor teenager living in the Dregs, Dash Keane can only escape his dismal reality by competing in illegal rooftop races and staying up late to watch the timenet with his younger brother.
When there is an opportunity to participate in a competition set thousands of years in the past, he uses his rooftop racer skills to catch the eye of Mr. Myrtrym, head of entertainment for the massive Dominus Corporation.
It is the chance of a lifetime when Dominus Corp. hires Dash to be a timestar—the focus of his own series in which he must survive some of the most dangerous periods in history, including the Cretaceous period, feudal Japan, the Wild West, and the Golden Age of Piracy.
But when empathy for the people of the past conflicts with the desires of his new employer, he must decide whether the price of fame is worth it, a decision that may cost him everything.
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