Hi.

I’m Alex Bryant, author of the God Machine series. Does it count as a series if it’s only two novels so far? Well, one novel and one novella? I’m going to say yes. Yes, it does.

You’re here because you want to find out about me. This is a mistake. The more you know, the more hurt and confused you will inevitably become. But here are my answers to some FAQs that I hope bring you some small degree of solace.

Tell me some basic facts about your life.

That’s not a question. I literally just said we were going into some ‘FAQs’. That stands for Frequently Asked Questions. And you open with that. Wow. Just wow.

You wrote that question. Isn’t it your own fault if it’s phrased badly?

What are you, the Question Police? You know, most interviewers try to develop some kind of rapport with their subjects, instead of launching straight into the attack. Now I’m feeling weirdly defensive. God, I never should have agreed to this interview. I knew it would only wind up being uncomfortable for everyone involved.

OK…well, I really don’t know what you want me to say at this point. Shall we just leave it here, or…?

No, no. We’ve already wasted half a webpage on this material. Those things don’t come cheap, you know. What did you want to know?

Oh, you know. The basic overview of who you are. What you do. Some fun facts about yourself.

Great. Well, if you’re looking for fun facts, you’ve come to the wrong place. But I can tell you this much. I was born in March 1990 - you’ll have to figure out my age from that, because I don’t want to keep updating this page. I grew up in London, just up the road from Highgate Cemetery. My main hobbies as a kid were reading and sulking.

Nowadays I live in Oxford. My window overlooks the exact spot on the road where I had a nasty bicycle accident 7 years ago. That’s just a coincidence - I didn’t live in this house at the time. I perform improv comedy twice a month in London with my troupe, Hivemind. Currently, we’re doing a fantasy show called Lord of the Game of the Ring of Thrones, and a superhero blockbuster Improvengers: Pretendgame. If you’re local, come check us out! All those links go to the exact same place, by the way.

I have a sister who has failed to learn from my example and is also trying to forge a “career” in “writing”. Follow her efforts here.

Where did you get the idea for the novel?

The first idea for the novel came when I was 19, shortly after falling off a horse. Or possibly shortly before - the exact chronology is lost to history. So is the horse’s name, so don’t even ask. The idea was for an opening chapter: a girl comes home one day to find that her dad’s disappeared, and the shadowy organisation he works for wants to take her away for questioning.

As you can see, while some minor details have changed, the core of the novel is still there. For example, it’s about a girl.

So, yeah, the novel as it stands has nothing in common with what I started trying to write. On the way, it’s picked up a bunch of other central ideas that came from all over the place. For example, the very earliest scene that made its way into the book dates back to a dream I had when I was 16. It was about being forced to visit a bizarre old house, meeting its strange inhabitants, and being shown into a vast underground library… It left a strong impression.

Cuttlefish was not supposed to be in this novel at all. He came into existence via a series of short scenes I wrote about a prisoner relating his criminal history to a prison psychiatrist. I originally wrote these just to get a better understanding of the criminal underworld, because you only see the occasional glimpse of this in The Identity Thief, and I wanted to make sure I understood what it was we were glimpsing. But what happened is, Cuttlefish opened his mouth and then Would. Not. Shut. Up. I ended up with 50,000 words of his grandstanding stories, about half of which I ended up turning into The Prisoner. Not happy with being the star of his own novella, he then stole the job of chief antagonist away from Prince. But now that Cuttlefish is out of the way, Prince is plotting his epic comeback…

Where did you get the idea for the world?

First up, magic is cool. Books with magic in are better than books without magic in. So there was always going to be magic in any novel I wrote.

In books, everyone is totally chill about magic. But in real life, people tend not to be remotely chill about magic. In fact, for a large chunk of history right up to the present day, people have gone around executing each other brutally for practising magic. In Europe, we literally only stopped doing that when it turned out magic didn’t exist.

In the world of the God Machine, magic does of course exist, so it stands to reason that people are still afraid of it - still hunting down witches and punishing them severely. That’s how I ended up creating the Sorcery Investigation Department, a modern-day Inquisition tasked with stopping sorcery in all its forms.

I’m a scientist at heart, and whenever I read fantasy or sci fi, I have this stupid unwanted module in my brain constantly asking “Wait, how is this possible?” If a character shrinks, I’m wondering how their neurons can be packed so close together without shortcircuiting. If they If someone goes back in time - well, come on, there’s a billion problems there. So the only magic I’d ever be happy with is one that a) all fits together into a coherent system and b) doesn’t mess with the laws of physics. I ended up with magic that, in reality, does nothing at all - that only affects people’s perceptions of the world. Because those, we know, can be manipulated easily - magic is only a slight exaggeration of the delusions and hallucinations that can grip us all.

Who were your literary inspirations?

I’m going to go ahead and assume that’s a pretentious way of saying “favourite authors”.

First up is Jonathan Stroud. Specifically, the Bartimaeus trilogy. Possibly the most underappreciated children’s books out there. Not by me, of course. I appreciate them a huge deal. But I’m just one pathetic human. That’s the smallest number of humans possible. One measly human could never give these books all the appreciation they deserve. Go read them! They’re about an alternative modern-day London where sorcery is wielded by a select few. So if you liked The Identity Thief, you like them.

If you like classics, read The Master and Margarita. This book is so influential that I straight up stole several quips and scenes from it. But because it’s a classic, this doesn’t count as theft; it’s an ‘allusion’, which actually makes me a better writer.

I supposed I’m obliged to say Harry Potter. I mean, it would be impossible to not be influenced by those books, given how they’re the reference point for all children’s books now. But they don’t require any more hype from me.

Contrary to everyone’s assumption, I don’t like either Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman. Sorry, guys. I’ve just never been able to get into them. Despite having had virtually every book in the Discworld series recommended to me, or just outright bought for me, at some point. And despite The Identity Thief being compared to them most frequently.

Douglas Adams, on the other hand, is great. The best version of the infinite Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy adaptations is, of course, the text-based adventure game. Look it up!

What’s your writing process?

I sit down at my laptop and open my novel manuscript. I like to check my emails before I start writing, to clear all that annoying admin out the way. One of the emails is about booking an appointment. I open my phone to see when I’m free. While I’m checking my calendar, I get a message notification from a friend about something I was supposed to do yesterday. I open up Messenger to say sorry, and I’ll do it now. But before I do it, I see an article someone’s posted in a group chat. I read it, and three more articles that the first article links to. I close the page, and wind up looking at an Amazon checkout page. Oh yeah, I was in the middle of buying a birthday present three days ago, and must have got distracted. Looking at it now, I could probably find a nicer thing on Etsy. I take a look, and spot some way cooler stuff I want but probably shouldn’t buy. I decide I’m better off thinking about it over lunch. Damn, I don’t have any lunch food. I decide to nip to the shops, but remember I have a package to send that I may as well take with me. I go back to print out a postage label. I discover I’m out of paper so I’ll have to go to the shops first anyway. I go to the shops and buy toothpaste. I forget to buy either lunch or paper.

It’s taken me ten years to write The Identity Thief.

OK, we can probably stop now. There’s surely nobody in the world who’s still reading this.

Yeah, fair enough. Well, this has been fun. Great questions. I really learned a lot about myself. I hope you did, too. I’ve got to get to work on the contact page now, would love to continue this chat another time. Maybe over a drink or something?

A drink?

Yeah. Or something else? I’m easy.

Yeah. Sounds… good! I’ll drop you a line, maybe.

Sure, or why not just figure something out now? I’m free Thursday. Or Friday? Actually, the thurs-sun stretch is looking pretty clear right now. Next week too.

Yeah, could do! Just to clarify, are you thinking of a friends thing, or more of a date thing?

Oh, hadn’t really thought about it. I mean, let’s just meet up and see where the night takes us! You know? Or we can just call it a date thing, if that makes you feel more comfortable?

Sure. Well, I should probably say now I’m not really in the right place for a dating situation.

Oh, OK. No worries. Should have asked if you were seeing someone.

No, I’m not seeing anyone. I’m just not in the right…you know…headspace for that kind of thing right now.

Oh, sure. I get it. Been through a rough break-up? We could always pick this up in a couple of months?

No, that’s OK. I think we should keep this on more of a friends level for now.

For now?

For ever.

Gotcha. Well, thanks again for everything. Really appreciate it.

No problem! This has been great. Really fun.

Alright. Awesome. So…if you’re actually still there, and you want to hear more, try emailing alexbryant [at] km-books.com, or use the contact icons just below! Believe it or not, I can’t yet afford a full-time customer service team, so you’ll be put straight through to little old me.