As an ongoing promotion for my new novel, Null_Pointer, I will be interviewing some characters from the story. In the final character interview we talk with Joshua Jones the programmer hero from Null_Pointer.
My View: So how does it feel to have a staring role in your own Mystery novel?
Joshua Jones: Pretty cool, I guess. Although I have to confess, I don’t really read mysteries. I mean, sometimes a thriller, but mostly I prefer sci-fi.
MV: You are the perfect audience for this series then. You’re basically a geek, into programming and technology, and you like to read. This book is designed to appeal to folks just like you and Dancia.
Jones: You’re trying to get geeks more interested in the mystery genre then?
MV: Precisely. There’s enough tech in the story to keep you interested and once you are hooked, you will find out that the story is actually kind of cool. Hopefully, we can keep you coming back for more.
Jones: So this is actually the first book of a new series then?
MV: Right.
Jones: So how many books will be in the series?
MV: Depends on the popularity. If the first two books sell well, I’m thinking it could go to six books total. The next book will be called Kill Dash Nine and it should be out in the fall of 2011.
Jones: Oh cool, so you are using computer terms for the titles of the books then. Kill -9 is a UNIX command for terminating a running process. I like that. Oh, and I love how you start with Chapter Zero, like an array. Very cool.
MV: Thanks. So back to you then, what’s the best part of being in Null_Pointer?
Jones: Getting to drive a Porsche and of course my co-star, Dancia Rivers is the best. She will be back for KD9 right?
MV: Oh yeah, you both will be back in the thick of things, if you know what I mean.
Jones: Nice! Oh, can we have more love scenes in the next book? Just asking.
MV: LOL. I’m sure you will have at least one cowboy.
Jones: Sweet! Wait, you’re not planning on offing her are you?
MV: No. But you never know. The book has not even been outlined yet. But rest assure that I won’t kill her or you for at least a few more books.
Jones: Well, you can’t kill me, I’m the star of the series. Right?
MV: Anyway, back to the current book. In the book we see you editing code with VI, is that your favorite editor?
Jones: Pretty much. I mean, at work I use Visual Studio for the C# stuff we do, but I’m not a big fan of IDE’s in general. I feel like I can actually work faster when all that noise is turned off and I just type in my code. It’s cool when you are unfamiliar with a library, to have the stuff auto-fill and all, but heck, Vi has that stuff now.
MV: Do you ever listen to any computer related podcasts?
Jones: Oh sure. I listen to This Week in Tech, Linux Outlaws and .Net Rocks.
MV: What’s your favorite Linux distro?
Jones: Ubuntu. I started with Red Hat and then got tired of all the dependencies. Debian’s Apt-get won me over, but I just couldn’t use regular Debian. So when Ubuntu came along, I quickly moved over to it. The latest version come out this week. I’m really looking forward to it.
MV: Me too, I use Ubuntu myself. Well, thanks for taking the time to chat with me today. I guess I’ll be seeing you again next year when I start writing KD9.
Jones: No problem. I’m looking forward to it.