Media Kit
Press materials, free to use
Everything a reviewer, bookseller, podcaster or journalist needs. All assets may be reproduced in coverage of the book with credit to Madeira Desouza.
Assets
Front cover, high resolution
The full front cover artwork for Clavius Deep, suitable for print and web use.
Short biography (50 words)
Madeira Desouza is an independent science fiction novelist. His work examines institutions, obsession and the young men those institutions treat as expendable. Clavius Deep, his lunar time travel novel, is published through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing in Kindle, paperback and hardcover editions.
Long biography (120 words)
Madeira Desouza writes speculative fiction in which power, not technology, is the antagonist. Clavius Deep is the first book of a planned trilogy set beneath the floor of the Moon’s Clavius crater, where a secret directorate operates a displacement lattice it did not build and sends young male agents backward through time on missions whose real objectives are withheld from them. Desouza publishes independently by choice, retaining control of content, cover, pricing and schedule, and is currently drafting the second book of the trilogy.
Synopsis for press use
An ancient extraterrestrial civilization discovers that human male ecstasy is a biological energy resource to which they become addicted. To safeguard this resource for themselves, the extraterrestrials enslave humans and secretly siphon off emotional and physical pleasures. This explodes into a war between extraterrestrials and humans spanning centuries. The outcome of this war will determine whether humans remain the dominant species on planet Earth. If you've read authors like Peter Watts, Cixin Liu, Mary Doria Russell, or Stephen King, this book will feel familiar for how it seeks answers to alien first-contact challenges, the consciousness and cognition of extraterrestrials, and the moral complexities of altering history through time travel. Clavius Deep is high-concept science fiction for readers of legal age which explores political intrigue, betrayal, exploitation of men, and the violence caused by a burgeoning religious cult that worships the extraterrestrials. Bold storytelling pushes this book far beyond typical time travel adventures.
Interview material
Questions the author is happy to answer
Sample answers are provided so you can judge fit. Live interviews, written Q and A and podcast appearances can be arranged through the contact page.
- Where did the novel start?
- With the real crater. Clavius is enormous, old, and marked by a curved chain of later impacts across its floor. I wanted a station that used those holes rather than a base built on a blank plain.
- Why are the agents so young?
- The Directorate gives a physiological reason. The novel is interested in the other reason, which is that young men are cheap to house, quick to train, and easy to replace.
- Is the mythology based on anything real?
- No. The lunar geography is real, the geometry under it is invented, and the novel is careful about which is which.
- Is it a series?
- Yes. Clavius Deep is the first book in a planned series. It resolves its own story and opens the next.
- Why self-publish?
- Control. Kindle Direct Publishing let me set the content, the cover, the format mix and the price without negotiation, and Kindle Unlimited puts the book in front of readers who borrow before they buy.