1) Where is your home town?
Gold Coast, Queensland Australia. Though I was born in Toowoomba, grew up in Central Queensland and live for a couple of years in Europe.
2) Is this your first fiction book?
It is my first published fiction book. Over the years I have started a few but they were never finished.
Before this I published four textbooks on computer science, artificial intelligence and computer game development.
3) What was the one idea behind the book?
The main idea behind “Lost Souls” is that there are phenomena in life that cannot yet be explained by science.
4) Tell the readers what was strange about the people who were dying?
Otherwise healthy people were dropping dead without warning and all found with amniotic fluid in their mouths. The liquid that surrounds the developing baby in the womb.
5) How had the people for the 5 year Antarctic experiment been chosen?
They were chosen from an international pool of experts in their field. There was an interview process and the CEO of the biotech company held numerous Skype interviews with the researchers before selecting them for the expedition.
6) What as going to be the biggest challenge in the dome?
The biggest challenge while living in the hermetically sealed environment was to become self-sufficient with respect to food production. As is revealed during the story other considerations such as physical, mental and spiritual health of the inhabitants is as equally as important as nutritious for the smooth operation of an enclosed social environment.
7) How did Zoe get her team to Sydney if the case had been closed down?
When the case was closed the first time, Zoe and Nick “took a vacation” to Sydney as Zoe knew in her gut there was more going on than first revealed.
8) What lines did they cross to get some of their evidence?
Zoe and Nick pose as a pregnant couple to gain access to a medical clinic while they are not officially on duty. Nick illegally obtains medical records from an unmanned computer terminal and later in the story, Zoe breaks into a records archive to gather the evidence they need to support their case.
9) Will we be seeing more about this off-world experiment in a second book?
In the second book “The Chaldean Legacy” the characters find themselves running the first fully functioning space station orbiting the sun halfway between Earth and Saturn.
The team are involved in experiments to examine off-world food production and waste reclamation. They are also involved in in-situ resource utilisation (ISRU) in which minerals and ice are mined from nearby asteroids. In addition, the space station is begin used as an off-world genetic repository for storing a library of all life on earth.
10) Where can readers find out more about you and your writing?
Thank you Penny and Good Luck with the next book.
Rosie Amber 