Official Interview: Guy Morris

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Today's Chat with Sarah features Guy Morris author of The Last Ark.

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1. What made you start writing?

Three things inspired me. I started writing 30+ years ago as a single-parent, part-time way of bonding with my son over adventure stories we would read each night before bed. As my life and career progressed, I had so many astounding experiences and met memorable people which all belonged in a book or a movie.

One such event inspired the SNO Chronicles series. I discovered, by accident, that a program had escaped the NSA spy labs at Sandia. When I figured out HOW a spy program could escape an NSA lab and WHY they designed it that way, they sent two FBI agents to my door. They were not prepared for my snarky attitude. Just one event of dozens. Finally, when I retired, I wanted a third-act career that would keep me busy in research, learning new skills, dealing with the complexities of our world, and meeting others at book signings. It works for me.

2. How do you handle criticism?

Before I publish, I actively seek out negative comments about the manuscript. Always open to constructive feedback. I built top-performance teams in corporate America with an open dialogue and the premise that excellence is never an accident. Anything good needs polishing to be great, and the same is true of a manuscript or an author. If the feedback is overly harsh or comes from the wrong place, I can ignore it and move on. I get so many great reviews; I can discount the occasional bad one, which almost always has a political agenda.

3. Let's discuss your book The Last Ark. How would you classify it?

A speculative thriller that weaves together factual religious history, mysteries of the lost Ark of the Covenant, true dangers of artificial intelligence and cyber security, and the growing corruption of geopolitics into a page-turner with thought-provoking themes relevant to our time. Each theme is deeply researched and presented with enough fact to be plausible, yet containing authentic and factual surprises for the average reader to discover.

4. Your book features AI. What's your opinion of artificial intelligence?

Mixed at best, and I am considered an expert. The technology will bring many good things, but there will be a cost to privacy, jobs, economics, wealth inequities, fraud, and weapons of war. While we already know about these dangers, there is a blind rush to gain market dominance in the coming global boom for AI products. My books deal with exploring both the fundamental risks of the technology, and the larger risk of how corrupt politicians, dictators, or sociopathic billionaires will use the tech maliciously.

5. Which character was your favorite? Which was hardest to write?

My favorite baby? Hmm. Sounds like a trick question. So many incredible characters to choose from. Many of my readers LOVE the rich character ensemble. OK, a tough choice but probably Derek Taylor, the main protagonist. Mainly because of his many layers of character flaws, childhood traumas, and undeniable talents, which often conflict within him. A close second is the SLVIA AI. What makes SLVIA so much fun to write is her endless choices of deepfake personas. It allows me to play with pop culture and celebrity references in a humorous, and sometimes thought-provoking response. SLVIA's obsession with prophecy analytics also creates an amazing playground for an author. Her evolution into consciousness also stretches my literary skills. As a result, writing from a machine intelligence perspective about intelligence and consciousness with both light and dark, just as it reflects our light and dark, is not a simple exercise. An enigma I am still unraveling. With each book, SLVIA evolves.

6. How long did it take you to write the book? What was the typical writing day like for you?

I confess to having a very dysfunctional relationship with leisure. My day starts at 10am and doesn't shut down until 2am+. I am not merely trying to produce a book; I am trying to make a historical statement and get people to think about the issues weeks after they read the last page.

Each book starts with at least a year in research and planning for the major technology, themes and events of the narrative. Each and every book must be deeply rooted in something real. From then I plan a character arc for each of the main characters with an associated key theme. Then I create a set of villains with their own background and arc, which also takes research.

More research into locations, history, mysteries, lost secrets, architecture, religious beliefs, etc. Once my head is ready to burst with more information than I could possibly use, I map out chapter by chapter. POV, action, themes, references.

With all of that pre-work, the first draft usually takes 6-8 weeks. Then the polishing and rewriting begins. A finished manuscript will typically take 20-30 or more revisions to fine-tune. My books have taken anywhere from 2 to 3 years on average. One book, The Curse of Cortes, took almost 20 years, but mainly because I was part-time solving a true historical mystery of a lost treasure and the Mayan creation myth.

7. The reviewer mentions the book is educational. What did you want your readers to learn?

I promise to entertain my readers. I will admit that I demand something in return – a desire to learn. For The Last Ark, I researched the branch of the Knights Templar that became the Knights of Christ in Tamar, Portugal. A true murder cult called the Solar Temple. The masonic roots in Israel. The 1911 archeology of the Temple Mount that proves the Jewish Temple was NEVER under the Dome of the Rock (yes, the reader will learn where it stood). My readers learn about two authentic and historic arcs of the covenant, and how BOTH came to light recently, hidden by the media. And more. Snippets of history, archeology, religion, prophecy, artificial intelligence, national defense, geo-political conflicts, and other book-specific researched facts are woven seamlessly into a fictional narrative.

8. What's next? Any books in the works?

YES! The next book in the SNO Chronicles series called The Image, will be released in late spring of 2025. A follow on to The Last Ark. My most challenging manuscript to date. Beta readers think my best yet.

I will tackle CERN black holes, 5th dimensions, consciousness in humans and machines, the quantum theories of consciousness and faith, examples of the seven churches of the last days, banking under WEF Great Reset, the 2024 election and Project 2025. Readers will travel to Greece, Turkiye, Italy, Switzerland and Malta. An interesting and surprising narrative element will revolve around the lost history of the Shroud of Turin dating to the first century Anatolia when it was called the Image of Edessa, and how that connects to a near-death experience.

I am also half complete with a non-fiction book tentatively to be released in November, called Prophecy Analytics. In my novels, I speak to a method employed by the AI SLVIA by that name. It is an actual method, or framework I developed twenty + years ago to decode end-time prophecy using correlation, probability and regression analysis. The reader will learn why the model concludes with a 1.4 trillion to one probability we live in prophetic times. A theme of SLVIA in the series.

I like to end with lighter questions.

9. If you could have any superpower, which superpower would you want to have?

My immediate thought is to fly. I hate airports and crowds. I want my next car to be a drone. Then I thought of a snarky superpower. The power to stop idiots with a single insult they don't understand. I'm already halfway there. But I'll save that one for another day.

10. What do you like to listen to on a long drive or ride?

Classic rock all the way. 60s to the 90s with a few modern songs and jazz sprinkled on top.

11. What's your biggest pet peeve?

Willful ignorance by people who see something on television and then argue with experts (like me) online. Those who believe whatever their newscaster tells them even when the evidence to the contrary is massive and easy to find. For those people I pull out my super-snark superpower, and poof! They stop following my feed. Problem solved.

12. What would your last meal be?

Tacos! Unless I can get a white cream lasagna with mushroom, sausage and truffle oil from a little hole in the wall I discovered in Assisi. That meal is to die for.