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Books on the left are by Roland Allnach. Click on the book cover to purchase.

Timea Barabas:  Advent Blue is a striking title. How did you settle on it?

Roland Allnach:  While writing “Advent Blue”, I gave it the working title of “The Choice Institute”. I knew that was rather bland but creatively I needed some type of title to anchor the story. Later, as the narrative followed my usual process of organic development, I came to the point where the meaning of Advent Blue was defined. And at that moment I knew had found the final title for the book. I think it also has a bit of a hook, as the word ‘advent’ indicates the beginning of some type of change, and the color blue imparts a sense of mystery.

Timea Barabas:  What was the initial spark that inspired the story?

Roland Allnach:  It may sound cliché, but the idea came as a literal flash of inspiration in a waking thought. I was still in bed thinking through the book’s basic concepts and the idea coalesced exponentially. I knew from past experience when ideas hit me in that manner it’s time to type them out and start writing. So, I did. I find the current trends of active and passive data collection by big tech conglomerates to be unsettling. The initial inspiration was taking this to a much deeper and more paranoid extrapolation. From that the rest of the narrative’s elements came as second nature.

Timea Barabas:  What was the most challenging part of writing this book?

Roland Allnach:  In short, my health. I was diagnosed with lymphoma about two months before the concept for “Advent Blue” came to me. Given the heavy impact of dealing with my illness, I wasn’t able to do much of anything. However, with the concept for the book in mind, I figured I could back to writing. It gave me a sense of purpose in a difficult time and, for that, I will always be particularly thankful for the creation of this book.

Timea Barabas:  Will’s passion project, the Keep, mirrors it’s owner’s build. I find this a fascinating parallel. Could you elaborate on the similarities between Will and the Keep?

Roland Allnach:  I had a deliberate plan for the Keep while defining its setting within the narrative. It is a direct physical manifestation of Will’s psychological construct and everything about the Keep serves as metaphor for Will’s personality. The Keep’s fortress-like shell resembles Will’s emotional guard against the outside world, its secluded and windowless master bedroom is the privacy of his inner thoughts, the basement of his hobbies is his inner retreat, and the guestroom where he never treads serves as the hidden recess of his mind even he can’t access.

Timea Barabas:  Your novel features well fleshed out characters. Could you walk us through your character development process?

Roland Allnach:  In writing all my stories and books, I take the most satisfaction in crafting my characters. I have a writing rule for myself that if the story doesn’t feel real for the characters, it won’t feel real for a reader. From that perspective I simultaneously construct and deconstruct a character’s emotional and psychological make-up to understand how the character will interact with the story events, drive them as purposeful participants, and respond to the consequences. I always try to fashion the responses of a characters as if I was sitting in that person’s head.

Timea Barabas:  Sin AI is one of the central themes of the book, what are your thoughts on the current and near-future AI-scape?

Roland Allnach:  For “Advent Blue”, I settled on a narrative perspective that would not delve the technicalities of AI. My purpose was two-fold. One, AI technology is developing so quickly, and governing policies adjusting so haphazardly, that what AI technology will look like in the future under whatever controls have been legislated is simply not practical. I think the much more relevant consideration, and the one that plays out in “Advent Blue”, is how AI will shape itself in reaction to what it sees in us and thereby what we willingly—or not—in turn teach the AI through our example. In short, I think the greatest concern for AI is the sole learning perspective AI has on existence, namely, how we as humanity choose to handle ourselves. From that, I am concerned, because a truly aware AI will not think in the manner we think, and by extension may interpret us in a way we fail to predict. That’s not the “fault” of AI, that’s the fault of how we treat each other.

Timea Barabas:  In the Afterword, you invite readers to revisit the book. How do you construct a narrative that rewards rereading and offers a different experience on a second pass?

Roland Allnach:  One of my goals as an author is to build stories as gifts that can keep on giving. I look to craft my narratives and characters so that there are several layers of themes, morality, and interconnection working beneath the surface plot and character interaction. There are elements in my story I purposely include that may seem inconsequential but help construct these other layers. As the narrative builds, these underlying processes come to light. In a second or third read, they become more apparent as the reader will already know the basic story structure and hindsight will allow insight. To me, that’s how Life works. We often find it difficult to understand our lives until we look back and see how our decisions and behaviors echo forward into subsequent decisions and behaviors.

Timea Barabas:  How has your career in healthcare influenced the novel?

Roland Barabas:  For many years I worked midnight shifts and was exposed to the raw, real-life emotional situations that showed up in the emergency room. This gave me a fly-on-the-wall perspective to a number of situations one could not observe. Seeing how people respond, and seeing how those responses manifest, are experiences that I’ve utilized as emotional touch-points. Being in the middle of one of those moments while not being personally involved is also a strange experience. You are there and you are not there at the same time. In that regard, it’s no different than the perspective of third person narrative structure.

Timea Barabas:  You describe this as a deeply personal project, your “lymphoma book.” How does your personal life weave into the narrative?

Roland Allnach:  Being sidelined from my life in a very sudden and definitive manner was a mental challenge. In a matter of weeks I went from being very active with my family, work, and my local authors group to struggling to get out of bed, very little energy, and a long cold winter ahead of me. The situation in effect made me a recluse. There is the old saying, to write what you know. Since isolation was what I knew at the moment, I channeled that into the narrative to fashion Will’s character and the creeping paranoia surrounding him.

Timea Barabas:  Do you have any future writing projects planned?

Roland Allnach:  I have an idea I’m working on, although I have put that on the back-burner for now. The reason is that I have a backlog of finished projects ready for publication that I want to clear before getting into yet another new project. That was my plan until “Advent Blue” came to me and because of its timely themes I decided to bump that ahead of my other titles. My next planned publication is another near-term science fiction book tentatively titled “Providence”. I am hoping for early 2027 for publication, as I am still occupied with getting the word out for “Advent Blue.” For those who enjoy “Advent Blue”, they will be very satisfied with “Providence.”

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