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[music] -This Tennessee author is a US Army veteran serving our country in the First Iraq War.

He's since married, made a home in West Tennessee, and has seven children, plus an office filled with action figures.

Straight ahead on Tennessee Writes, we're meeting Tennessee author Michael LaVoice.

We'll find out how this war veteran became a science-fiction writer, how he got his wife to do all his publicity, and what his most valuable action figure is.

Brew some coffee, find a comfy chair.

Tennessee Writes starts right now.

-Books about Tennessee.

-Books that come from Tennessee authors.

-Books and stories with a Tennessee twist.

-West Tennessee PBS presents Tennessee Writes.

[music] -Welcome to Tennessee Writes, the show that gets up close and personal with Tennessee authors.

My name is Peter Noll.

This show goes beyond the book to learn about its author, from their childhood to where their stories come from.

They even offer advice if you want to write a book yourself.

Plus, we put the authors on a stopwatch and see how many questions they can answer in the Lightning Round.

-Tennessee Writes welcomes author Michael LaVoice.

He served in the US Army during the First Gulf War.

He's been writing since childhood, and now has two science-fiction series.

He's a self-described sci-fi nerd and has a massive collection of action figures and collectibles.

Tennessee Writes welcomes Mi.. -Welcome to the show.

-Thank you very much.

Good to be here.

-You are a Kentucky boy?

-Native-born Kentuckian.

-Then you found your way, and now you live where?

-In Millington.

-Millington, Tennessee.

-Just north of Memph.. -Okay, and so you grew up there.

You wanted to be a marine, but you ended up in the Army.

Did I read that correctly?

-You did indeed.

Yes, I was lied to by a recruiter.

He told me there was a height requirement for the Marine Corps, and I didn't make it, which was very puzzling to me because after I joined the Army, I was in the First Gulf War, and I met a prior service marine who had transferred to the Army.

He was shorter than me.

I said, "Sergeant Rodriguez, what's going on?

What about the height requirement?"

He said, "LaVoice, you idiot.

He lied to you, man.

There's only a height requirement for the Coast Guard," which is also a lie because that's just a joke so they don't drown when they fall off the boat.

It's fine.

-How long were you in the Army?

By the way, thank you for your service, the station.

Yes, I'm a son of a veteran.

Channel 11, we air a veteran parade program and as many veterans events as we can.

How many years did you serve?

-Four years.

-Four years.

In what capacity?

-I was a mechanic in an air defense artillery unit, 6th of the 52nd ADA, Hooah, Hawk, over in Giebelstadt, Germany.

Then we got called up for Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

We followed the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment and Task Force 843 Patriot all the way into Kuwait and into Iraq after that.

-Your Army experience, good, bad?

You said you have a son now that went into the service?

-I do.

He's serving as an MP now at Fort Campbell.

He followed in my footsteps and went Army.

I tried to tell him not to, but that's okay.

He's currently serving at Fort Campbell.

You might see him at the gate checking ID badges or on patrol.

-How did that experience in the service impact the rest of your life?

-Well, it's made me keenly aware of when diplomacy fails.

Sometimes it's necessary to send young men and women in harm's way.

It's no surprise, current events, it's a very volatile world in which we live.

Readiness is something that has to be maintained.

Readiness and vigilance, which is the price of freedom, as the saying goes.

It also informs my writing to a large degree.

The story we're talking about today involves people who get called up when they're not ready for it.

Yes, it's important to me to-- I still support military causes.

I'm a member of the military service resource group at St.

Jude, where I work.

It's my day job.

We support military families and veterans and do volunteer work for the VA and other organizations.

It's something I'm still active in.

-Tell us, you got out of the Army, then where did life-- what happened?

-Got out of there, got back into broadc.. I had done radio work prior to that for WKYX, WKYQ in Paducah, Kentucky, and then I went into advertising sales.

Then things happened, and I ended up moving down to Collierville because my father and mother, they had retired down here.

I just started over.

I went back to the University of Memphis, did some schoo.. went to Crichton College.

I have not had a career path as much as a career meander.

I've worked in a lot of different fields, everything from retail to sales to-- you name it, private security.

I've done a little bit of everything, which actually has been fortuitous because I know a little bit about a lot of different jobs.

When you're writing a bunch of different characters, that does come in handy.

-I think when I graduated college in '94, they said you'll have seven careers on average.

That's probably doubled by now.

-Probably so because remember back in the day when my dad was coming out of his military service, you got hired and you stayed with that company and you got a pension and you retired.

They gave you the gold watch, and you rode off into the sunset.

That just hasn't been the case for a number of generations now.

-We just celebrated the anniversary of the GI Bill, which has been one of the most influential bills in our country that allowed veterans to go back to school, purchase a home, and so I think that's an important anniversary to remember, too.

-It's a very important anniversary .. I wouldn't have gotten through my schooling without it.

My son is definitely looking forward to his, to getting a degree when he gets finished, or even while he's still in if he stays in long enough, so yes.

-You got married, obviously, seven children.

-Right.

-Now, you're working at St.

Jude.

Tell us about that.

-I work in the epidemiology and cancer control department.

We are part of the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study and the Long-Term Follow-Up Study, which is a combination of survivors from multiple institutions across the country have very graciously-- and the participants, the survivors themselves, have very graciously allowed us to keep in contact with them and to ask them what I call inordinately personal questions over there.

It's via surveys, either.. That's what I do.

I do surveys over the phone with participant.. doing them online or on their phone to gather information about how their life is going, how their health is going.

What we're doing is pointing towards trends in long-term care of survivors that may be affecting them now that we can hopefully maybe even point back towards treatments they received as kids to either adjust treatments that kids are getting now, or even discontinue some entirely.

The study's been responsible for identifying some rather disastrous long-term effects of older treatments that are no longer in use and pushed the boundaries of science to develop new ones.

-How did you end up there?

-It was basically happenstance.

I'd done a lot of call center work, that career meander again.

A friend of mine asked me.

I'd been downsized from t.. I was on the look, and she said, "Well, we do have an opening here.

You do any telephone work?"

"Absolutely."

It just stepped right in.

It was very fortuitous.

-Do you have the headsets?

I call them the Time Life sort of thing.

-Yes, we do.

We do wear those.

Plantronics is your friend, yes.

-Let's move away from your work to maybe your hobby, if you call it that.

You've always been into comics, science-fiction.

By the way, your office is adorned with action figures.

I think I noticed some Star Wars.

I think that was the big first action figures that I remember from the very first Star Wars.

I had the landspeeder.

I think I got the original Death Star.

-With the little springy bottom.

-Yes, the Death Star with the sponges.

They were out in the backyard in dirt.

-Oh, yes.

Now, my first Star Wars toys didn't survive my childhood because my friends and I had an 8-millimeter camera, and we decided we were going to be filmmakers, too.

Several of our Death Stars and landspeeders and action figures were all blown up as we shot footage.

I don't know where it is today.

I hope somebody finds it.

That would be great.

-What is your most valuabl.. or collectible in your office?

-Most valuable collectible I have right now probably would be my die-cast metal Star Destroyer and Millennium Falcon that were produced in 1978, a year after Star Wars came out.

-How much are those worth?

-I have not had them appraised because they'r.. I found them in a bin in a comic shop in Paducah, Kentucky, when I'd gone back to visit family.

They were just sitting there.

I was like, [gasps] "Mine."

[laughs] They're probably not worth a lot because of the damage that was done to them.

The Star Destroyer doesn't have the little c.. that Princess Leia was on, if you'll recall, from A New Hope.

They're not too bad, but I got them proudly on display.

-Well, keep an eye.

Channel 11 is the home of Antiques.. where you can bring those treasures and find out how much they're worth.

Sometimes you just watch and you can get an idea.

As you said, it's all about condition.

Some people, they try and fix it up, and actually lessen the value.

-Yes, I've seen that.

-You've always been a sci-fi geek, nerd, as you say.

How did you turn that into a writing career?

-I'd wanted to be a writer since I was a kid.

I first fell in love with the written word around about fifth grade.

Oddly enough, I cut my teeth on the noir and crime-fiction categories.

I had no business reading it back then, but I was reading Mickey Spillane.

I was reading the adventures of Mike Hammer and Philip Marlowe, who was my all-time favorite, old-time, hard-boiled detective.

Then I stumbled quite literally over a stack of books in the library there that were Heinlein's Young Adult series, Have Space Suit-Will Travel, those books.

That was it.

I was hooked from that moment forward.

I devoured everything I could get my hands on.

Readmore Books in Paducah, Kentucky became my hangout, the public library when I couldn't buy books.

That started the love affair right there.

Then Star Wars was out and all the shows, the Buck Rogers TV show.

I started going back through old cartoons and realized, "Oh, this is a sci-fi show.

This is a sci-fi show.

These guys are on a ship.

This is awesome.

Star Trek, what's that?"

I had never known about it before.

That started the love affair.

Tried my hand at writing all the way through high school, wrote some short stories, didn't try long form until after I'd gotten out of college, actually.

Out of the military, actually.

I'd written some stuff while I was there based on some of the guys I served with.

That led me into reading, "Man, I wish I could mix these two together."

Then I discovered military science-fiction, the likes of Jerry Pournelle and David Weber and David Drake.

Baen Books became my temple at that point.

These series led me to say, "Oh, you can mix science-fiction and military stuff."

I started leaning more towards that way and ran across a few mentors who helped me develop some story ideas.

I was still a fan of space opera.

My first series, Galaxy's Most Wanted, mixed the two.

It was space opera and military science-fiction in a way because it's the story of a south side Chicago criminal, who gets sucked up into a galactic war that's older than humanity and finds himself commanding a ship, a warship of all things.

Yes, it was a way to mix all the worlds I've been a part of into one big happy pot.

[music] -Michael, let's dive into this book.

It's Book 1 in the-- Is it the Gladius?

Did I sell that right?

-Yes, Gladius League.

-Any Given Doomsday.

I read part of your book, and I listened to part of your book because you do have the audiobook option.

-Audio for the first book is available.

-It's a great audiobook, too.

Some books are not a great audiobook.

They're better on the page.

This one is great, and they really did sound effects.

It was like an enhanced audiobook.

-It is.

The gentleman that Chris Kennedy Publishing found to do this, he nailed everything I wanted nailed.

He sounds like the characters did in my head.

It was wonderful.

It was one of the best experiences with audio I've ever had.

-Give our viewers the 30-second elevator pitch about what Any Given Doomsday is about.

-Sure.

Humanity has spread itself amongst the stars.

We're still contained with our own galaxy, but we have managed to spread so far and so fast because we put warfare behind us.

Disputes between politicians and people groups are now settled in the arena in a combat sport called the Gladius Leagues, which the men and women of the Gladius Leagues wear power armor.

You have two teams that take it to the field.

Whoever wins the dispute that they were fighting for, they win that dispute.

We've put war behind us.

We've ended war in our time.

The weird thing is, and it's Fermi's paradox writ large, is that we've gone out into the stars, but we've never run across aliens.

Never even saw a dead civilization from an alien race.

It's very curious.

We just wrote it off and, "Okay, maybe we were the first.

Maybe Fermi had it wrong."

We go out there.

Then one day, a periphery system goes dark, and then another periphery system goes dark.

We don't know what's going on.

We have to send survey ships out to find out, but they're not there yet because it takes a little while.

We have FTL, but it still takes time.

In the meantime, the games go on.

Our main character is in practice one day when we find out that it is, in fact, aliens kicking in the front door to the galaxy.

We don't have armies and navies anymore.

All we have are a bunch of celebrity television athletes in power armor to save the day.

-I found the book is really like part-space football and part-space war.

-That's what I wanted.

I wanted the league to have that mech warrior mi.. with the WWE mixed with the NFL flavor to it.

If you look at the cover, you'll see that there's a logo on the armor that is red and blue with an armored figure.

It's very rip-off of the NBA and the NFL and the national basketball.. It's just like that.

You have corporate sponsors.

ESPN gets involved doing interviews.

It's the whole nine yards.

-You can get all this on his website.

We'll go over that later.

-Sure.

-Right now, though, we love to have authors read from their book.

It's in your own words, reading in your own voice, a section from your story that you created.

Would you mind reading for us?

-I would love to.

-Thank you.

-I'd be happy to, sure.

This is a section of Chapter 5.

The aliens have landed.

The Gladius League players are escorting a group of civilians to the spaceport to try to get away.

They have slugged their way through several blocks of the city t.. to get to their ship to get out.

Now, they're getting right there to the tarmac.

Yet, another wave overwhelms them, and we'll see what happens.

"The rest of the trek to the spaceport was more of the same, blasting the monsters apart as they got close and, once in a while, hacking his way through individuals who got past Brute's impressive use of the heavy Gauss cannons on her suit's shoulders.

Dead Eye and her snipers continued to take down individual attackers that got past the rest of his team as they provided a high-altitude overwatch for their grounded teammates."

"Dead Eye's team improved as they went, and the groups communicated and worked better together coordinating their fire.

As they rushed along, Landry's sense of time distorted, making mere minutes feel like hours as they slogged through the flaming streets of New Orleans toward their dropship.

After a brief eternity, the towers and launch pads of the spaceport loomed before them.

According to his HUD, the trek took them over two.. because of the attacks along the way."

"He checked his ammo count as they neared the entrance and stepped around an air car with a Gladius League's logo on it.

It was parked and abandoned with its doors still open, interior lights flickering as the engine cooled and the batteries slowly drained.

'It looks like Coach made it.'

'Let's hope he's got that bird warmed up and ready for takeoff,' Brute said, suddenly pivoting to her right to fire a long burst at a small group of the aliens bounding toward them."

"Two of them dropped from midair to the pavement while a third spun around as it fell with a screech, its arm blasters stitching a line of destruction into the facade of a building.

Landry's audio sensors deadened the screech for him, but it still set his teeth on edge.

Something about their howling screams affected him on a visceral level.

Landry led the way through the gates and into the spaceport main concourse, now abandoned by the ticketing agents and security personnel normally staffing the place.

He found himself wondering if any of them got to safety.

He hoped so, but the brutality of these attacking creatures was such that he doubted it.

He shoved the thought to the back of his mind as he retraced their steps from memory, back through the gates and checkpoints to the tarmac doors.

Once through those, they raced past the flaming wreckage o.. that had tried escaping but hadn't made it."

"There were bits and pieces of multiple dropships, as well as their passengers, littering the tarmac.

Again, Landry felt the bile rise at the back of his throat.

He'd led a rough life in the back streets of Larkington, but nothing he'd ever experienced before, during, or since had prepared him for the sight.

The Warhawks dropship sat where they'd left it, at the back of the tarmac, the only ship remaining that wasn't damaged or destroyed."

"An older model, the dropship had always embarrassed him a little with its faded paint job proclaiming the Warhawks' might and glory.

At this moment, it was the most beautiful ship in the universe.

The ramp was down, and he could see the coach waving them onward.. 'Let's move, people.

Everybody on board.

We made it.'

Deadeye and her combined snipers roared over the buildings and landed before him as what Coach called the 'civilians' struggled past them on their way to the boarding ramp of the dropships."

"The engines that powered the lift thrusters whined louder with the almost sense of urgency.

'Get on board, Deadeye,' Landry ordered.

'No overwatch needed for this part.'

'We lost three warlords out there,' Deadeye reported.

'Their blasters couldn't penetrate that armor, and those pincer blades at the ends of the enemy's arms are hard enough to penetrate a Gladius suit with enough effort.'"

"Her voice sounded bitter and angry to Landry, and knowing her history growing up in the wild lands of Eridanu, he knew this wasn't the first time she'd lost people to predators.

'Because they sacrificed, the rest of us made it, Deadeye.

Make it count, and get on board so we can get the hell out of here.'

Deadeye filed past him without another word, and Landry resolved to check on her later once they connected with their jump carrier and had gotten out of the system.

For now, covering their six was paramount."

[music] -Michael, we have come to the section of Tennessee Writes we call the "Lightning Round."

It's where we put our authors to the test against the clock.

-Okay.

-We ask them a series of reading, book, literary questions, and see how many they can answer in two minutes.

The key is to get as many as you can in two minutes.

If you don't have an answer, say, "Pass."

We'll put two minutes on the clock, and it will begin after I ask my first question.

Are you ready to play?

-Let's do it.

-How many pages would the book about your life be?

-300.

-What actor would you want to star in a movie b.. -Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

-What animal best represents your books?

-Honey badger.

-What is your favorite book of all time?

-The Bible.

-What's your least favorite book of all time?

-A Tale of Two Cities.

-How often do you check your Amazon or Goodreads book reviews and ratings?

-Far too often.

-What is the name of the font used in your book?

-Ooh, I think it's Helvetica.

-If you could pick a celebrity to narrate one of your books, who would it be?

-Jack Black.

-What one book are you reading right now?

-City in Chains by Harry Turtledove.

-What food item or drink most helps you write?

-Coffee, lots of it.

-What author, living or dead, would you most like to have dinner with?

-Robert Hundley.

-Where would you go for dinner?

-Any steakhouse you like.

[laughs] -Do you write your books on a computer or by hand?

-On a computer.

-What book have you read multiple times?

-Neuromancer by William Gibson.

-How many times?

-Over 12.

-Do you prefer paper books or e-books?

-Nothing like the feel of a real book, but e-books are so convenient.

-First book you can remember reading as a child?

-Clifford the Big Red Dog.

-What is your favorite place to read books?

-Anywhere I can be alone.

-What is your least favorite place to read books?

-In a car.

-Do you prefer pens or pencils?

-Pens.

-What book has most influenced your life?

-The Bible.

-What's your favorite magazine to read?

-The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy.

-What book are you most embarrassed to tell people you've read?

[buzzer] [music] -A lot of people watching this program may be thinking, "I should write a book.

I've got a story to tell."

What advice do you give to other writers on how to get it done from going like, "I should think about it," to doing it?

-I think the hardest thing is to actually start one.

For years, I would write ideas down and never develop them any further.

There's lots of different ways to do it, but my biggest piece of advice that one of my mentors gave me was, put it down on paper.

You can't edit a blank page.

You can make a story you've written better.

You can get feedback.

You can get readers to look at it and tell you if it's ter.. what you need to fix, but you can't do it until it's written.

Get started.

Then the other thing, I think, is educate yourself.

Hang out with people who want to write.

Hang out with people that are actually writers and start learning.

You can learn.

Never stop learning.

That's the most important piece because you can always improve.

-Speaking of hanging out, how can people buy your books?

How can people stay in touch with you?

Where should they go?

-All my books are available at amazon.com.

Just search for my name, Michael LaVoice, or you can search by title.

Either my first series, Galaxy's Most Wanted, or this series, Gladius Leagues.

You can also-- -There's three in this so far.

-Well, this is a complete series at the moment.

I wanted to have a nice tight arc, and so it is a complete series.

Nobody has to worry about ending on a cliffhanger or the George R.R.

Martin horror of, "He's never going to finish this thing."

[chuckles] -What's your website one more time?

-MichaelLaVoice.com.

That's where you can find me.

-All your books and all your merch and podcasts.

-All the merch is there, links to my podcasts that I've been on, and my YouTube channel, LaVoice In Your Head, are all there.

-I hear that all the time.

-[chuckles] -Michael, thank you so much for coming on and sharing about yourself, your service to our country, and your journey to becoming an author.

-Absolutely my pleasure.

-We want to thank you with a Channel 11 writer.. -Wow.

-It's a briefcase,.. all to help with your future endeavors in writing and keeping track of all your collections.

-Thank you.

It's okay to just drink black coffee from this, right?

-You can drink whatever you want.

It has a little spoon with it.

It's all ready to go.

-Excellent.

-Before you leave, we ask a.. if you would sign a book for us.

-I would be happy to, absolutely.

Let's see.

"Channel 11, thank you for having me, and for all the work you do in this community and abroad."

There you go.

-Thank you so much.

-My pleasure.

-For comments about today's show or to suggest a Tennessee author for a future program, email us at tennesseewrites@westtnpbs.org.

Tennessee Writes, on air and streaming now.

[music] -The program you've been watching was made possible through the generous financial support of West Tennessee PBS viewers like you.

Please visit westtnpbs.org, and make a donation today so that we can continue to make local programs like this possible.

Thank you.

[music]