Today I am welcoming Michael Diack, the author of the Super Spud Trilogy.
BioHi, my name is Michael Diack and I’m 26. I studied geology at the
University of Manchester and, after graduating, I was lucky to find a
job in Oman working for a geophysical company. I enjoy table tennis,
music, films, football, sailing and writing about magical potatoes
with a taste for adventure and humour. I’m also a proud geek and I
enjoy computer games and playing a four hour game of Risk with my
friends. I always wanted to be a volcanologist, like Pierce Brosnan
in Dante’s Peak, but I enjoy my current job and lifestyle. I released
my debut novel back in April 2012 as a paperback and e-book for
Kindle.
The Book ReviewThe world that Michael Diack created was one weird, funny and unique place to spend my days while reading the Super Spud Trilogy. Through our journey we get to meet so many Super Spuds that I can't even begin to mention them. I loved that depending on the flavour every Super Spud had a different personality. And I also loved the world building. The Super Spud cities, the tournaments, the races, the traveling, the wars, everyhting. It was very well structured.
What kind of made me tired were all the deaths. I don't want to spoil anything but some of them...well let's just say, I hoped would not happen. And decause of all those deaths we don't get to meet all the Super Spuds that much, before you know it they are dead. Never to be thought of again.
Anyways, still this book was really well writen and it felt like a thousand short weird stories and not really a trilogy. Each chapter is like a story by itself, but still there is the bigger picture at the background. And don't be dubious about reading the stories of potato chips, after a few chapters you are going to think of them as people, weird and unique people, but people nonetheless.
★★★☆☆
The Interview
I started writing properly during university, I think sitting through hours of lectures on rocks and minerals triggered my brain into writing fantasy stories as a way to prevent me becoming bored to death. Now I write because it is the best form of escape for me, nothing is better than sitting on my sofa, listening to rock music, drinking a beer and writing. I could write for hours and hours and never get bored.
2. What is the Super Spud trilogy about?
The book, three adventures in one, is about magical, genetically engineered potatoes called Super Spuds. Once placed in the foil crisp packet, if the Super Spud isn’t opened and eaten by its use-by date then it grows arms and legs and is free to live forever, in secret, away from humans. The personality of the Super Spud is determined by the chemical ingredients of the flavouring sprinkled over the Super Spud in the factory. So tuna flavours, enriched with omega-3’brainfood’, are super smart while steak and spinach have a high protein/iron content and become very strong and tough. There are lots of unconventional and conventional flavours, making for a whole range of unique and memorable personalities. The story is pretty much a non-stop adventure around the world and references many popular films and their characters that I idolized growing up, such as James Bond, Flash Gordon and Jack Bauer.
3. Why potato chips? What makes them so special that you had to create a whole world where they came to life? What sparked your idea of Super Spud?
The irony is I don’t even eat crisps all that often. I prefer Haribo sweets and gorging on chocolate or ice cream! It came about after I remembered a short story I had written at primary school: Colin and Lucy are crisp packets who come to life after their use-by date and try to find the rubbish tip. The first chapter of the novel is pretty much this short story I once wrote, except my primary school story had a more romantic ending. I think with crisp packets, more than other junk food, there is a lot of room for diversity with the flavours and I think this is the underlying strength of the concept.
4. What Super Spud flavor is your favourite and why?
I think steak and spinach flavour are my favourite and this flavour features quite heavily in the book. They are just so much fun to write about as they are the ultimate heroes and rigorously compete to outperform one another. I also like the blueberry flavours, as each of them takes on a unique character from human film or television, so they are always fun to write dialogue for. To be honest, it’s always great to write about the Super Spuds as it is just light hearted and a great escape from the real world.
5. Reading the Super Spud Trilogy someone can travel from one part of the world to the other and engage in many adventures, what was your favourite part of the story?
The Super Spuds use our postal service to secretly get around, which gives me a lot of room to play with as a writer. I think one of my favourite parts was writing about their trip to save Santa at the North Pole. I love Christmas time and it was great imagining all the Super Spuds having their own little Christmas celebration. I also enjoyed the Italy chapter and making a tribute to The X Files and Spartacus.
6. What should we expect from you in the future? Are there any more projects under construction?
I will be releasing the fourth book in the next few months. It focuses on four main characters: King Martin, G-Boa, Kate and General Nectarine and sees them travelling to China, sailing the Pacific, meeting the US President, flying on Air Spud One and encountering pirates, zombies and their most evil Super Spud to date. There are also a host of new flavours to add depth to the story and even a trip to the moon by Astrospuds Neil and Buzz. The story will be fast-paced and lots of fun, but more emphasis on character dialogue, plotline and developing the Super Spud world as a whole. The main difference with this book is a lot of the action takes place at sea, involving two flavours we didn’t see much of in the first three books – the sea salt flavours and Fisherman’s Friend flavours. After the Super Spuds, I think I’d like to write a fantasy series set in the desert.
Links to the book:
Links to Michael:
The Giveaway
Michael is offering a signed copy of The SuperSpud Trilogy
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a Rafflecopter giveaway
Now I'll never be able to eat another potato chip again.
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