Author Jon S. Lewis kindly agreed to an interview with SciFiChick.com to discuss his recent release Invasion: A CHAOS Novel ! Lewis has written several books for children in the Grey Griffins series, co-authored with Derek Benz, as well as a comic series called Free Realms for Wildstorm/DC Comics.
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Can you tell us a bit about the CHAOS series and Invasion in your own words?
The series was inspired by the story of David & Goliath, but David has a jet pack and Goliath is a giant robot. It boils down to a land battle, where a race of aliens has destroyed their world and now they want ours. It’s part Fringe, part X-Files, part Star Wars, and part Rocketeer, all wrapped up in a unique twist.
During Colt’s training, he sees that CHAOS is using Trident technology. Yet they seem to be enemies. Will that connection be explored?
Great eye! Yes, it will. Trident is a lot like GE, where they have their hands in just about everything. So no matter what, you probably have something in your house from GE. Like that, the odds of the government or military not having something built by Trident is pretty slim.
Do you have a certain number of books that you’re contracted for in the series?
This will be a trilogy, but we’ve talked about expanding it. It’s hard to predict that future, because I have a short attention span and there are a lot of stories I want to write. You never can tell. But I love working with Amanda Bostic (my editor), and look forward to a long career together with her.
Thomas Nelson is a Christian imprint, yet the spiritual references in the book are fairly subtle. Is the hope that this series will be more mainstream than others?
Yes. What I like about Thomas Nelson is that they produce amazing books from a Christian worldview instead of books just because Christians wrote them. That is an important distinction. I loved The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe because you can read it as two different stories, and that’s my goal with these books. I want to be true to my beliefs while still writing fun stories that entertain.
What are some of the major differences between writing novels versus comics? Do you prefer one over the other?