The engines of creativity are humming, the publishing lights are flickering, and an electrifying story just streamed off the line. On this launch-day episode of The Science Fiction Factory, host Mookie Spitz welcomes indie author Nathan J. Pearce, whose debut cyberpunk thriller Faith Faraday and the Cyber Samurai hits screens and shelves today!

Set in 2076 Tokyo, the book follows Faith Faraday, a daemon hunter chasing rogue AIs that masquerade as digital ghosts. Think Men in Black for machine intelligence—Blade Runner grit colliding with Gilmore Girls wit. Faith is part Batman, part Kim Possible, part existential therapy session. Pearce calls her a “self-insert with better hair and bigger guts,” and he’s on point.

Mookie and Nathan explore how to write and flourish in the indie trenches:

• The Birth of Faith: How one character obsession evolved into a full-blown cyberpunk universe over four years.
• Deception vs. Sentience: Why the Turing Test is a #fail and why true AI stories start with emotion, not code.
• Character-First Fiction: The danger of world-building yourself into distraction—and how to keep readers caring.
• Cultural Authenticity: Writing future Japan with respect, reality, and lived experience.
• Research as Worship: Three hours on neutrinos for two paragraphs, and why it’s worth it.
• The Indie Reality Check: Why self-publishing means doing everything—from cover design and blurbs to nagging for reviews and outsmarting Amazon’s black box.
• Creative Control as Currency: Why immediate freedom, not eventual fame, is the payoff for going indie—and why that’s enough (until the Netflix miniseries).
• Loving Your Own Work: How to finally drop the self-doubt and admit, out loud, “My new novel is awwwwwwwesome!"

They discuss how to fund a launch, build an audience, and make peace with algorithms that couldn’t care less about art. Their chat is raw, funny, and unfiltered about building worlds, building characters, and building as an independent creator.

Today is the day Faith Faraday comes online, and with her the future of indie sci-fi!

The Author

After photojournalism school, Nathan J. Pearce spent a year in Tokyo teaching conversational English. The people, the country, and the culture gave him a fresh perspective on his home country of the United States. Inspired by books like Shogun, Ender's Game, WOOL and Snowcrash, Nathan is eager to share his unique perspective with his readers.

The Novel

In 2076, a revolutionary AI elevates Japan as the world’s only technological mega-power. Samu, the Empress’s ‘Restorative AI’, leads a tech renaissance inventing quantum fusion, practical quantum computing, and a faster-than-light drive, promising a Japan-first colonization of the stars. That promise is broken when the colony ship explodes on launch, killing all aboard, including Hope Faraday.

Now it’s up to her twin sister Faith, a half-Danish, half-Japanese Daemon Hunter trained to detect and neutralize rogue AIs, to find out why. She infiltrates The Hollow, Japan’s research and development bunker deep inside Mt. Fuji, and she’s not coming out without answers. With her sentient AI, Grace, in her ear and her loyal utility bot, Chip, by her side, from tea ceremonies with mysterious cyber Geisha to horseback archery contests at the Empress's birthday celebration, Faith must prove herself ‘Japanese enough’ to uncover the truth.

Home: https://www.faithfaraday.com/

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FXP37XVR

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The seventh episode of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Factory explores how speculative fiction actually gets made — the grind, the vision, and the madness behind the worlds we can’t stop dreaming about.

Hosted by writer, ranter, and raconteur Mookie Spitz, he sits down with Matthew Carauddo, creator of the Diamond Dragons saga — a richly illustrated six-book fantasy series blending martial arts, mysticism, and philosophy. But Matthew isn’t just an author: he’s a stunt performer, fencing instructor, voice actor, and videographer who’s spent decades creating worlds in motion — from live saber duels to psychological dragon warfare.

Together, they dive into the guts of creativity and world-building:

• The Genesis of Diamond Dragons: why Carauddo made dragons the heroes instead of human characters, and how each one embodies elemental, emotional, and spiritual power.
• Lightsabers, Fencing, and Flow: how a life spent studying motion, combat, and rhythm transformed his writing into something kinetic — fiction that moves like choreography.
• The Art of World-Building: how much is too much? Mookie questions when lore overtakes story; Matthew argues that immersion and mythology are the story.
• Psychological vs. Physical Conflict: why true heroism begins inside the mind — and how emotional warfare can hit harder than any sword fight.
• Cinema as DNA: from Terry Gilliam to George Lucas, from 12 Monkeys to Pulp Fiction, they unpack how film language shapes written fantasy — structure, pacing, and the invisible rhythm of storytelling.
• Craft Over Commerce: why creators keep losing their way when marketing execs take over art, and how to resist that gravitational pull.

And yes — there’s a spirited feud. When Mookie challenges Matthew on how to catch the attention of an “OMG backer” (that rare investor or champion who can catapult a creative project into orbit), Mookie says it’s about attention, audacity, and bold branding. Matthew fires back that true backers follow excellence and integrity, not algorithms. The disagreement highlights the essence of decision for indie artists circling the same truth from opposite poles.

What emerges is not just a conversation about fantasy — but about creation itself: why we build worlds, why we destroy them, and why some of us refuse to play by the rules.

The Guest

Matthew Carauddo is an American author, actor, and martial-arts choreographer best known as the creator of the Diamond Dragons fantasy saga. A veteran of over three decades in performance and stage combat, he’s a licensed fencing instructor through the Fédération Française d’Escrime and has trained hundreds of students in California. Carauddo blends his theatrical background with epic world-building, crafting Diamond Dragons as a six-book series that merges mysticism, martial discipline, and cosmic fantasy. He founded Diamond Dragons Entertainment to expand the universe across books, animation, and interactive media.

Visit Diamond Dragons

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What do you get when a dopamine-deficient bald guy, a stack of manuscript pages, and an accidental reader with a doctorate walk into a podcast?

You get this wild, heartfelt, and honest episode of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Factory—where Mookie Spitz, podcaster, ranter, and writer talks about the creation of his latest science fiction novel: Jonnie Fazoolie and the Transfinite Reality Engine.

In a full-circle moment of gratitude and literary soul-searching, Mookie hands the mic to Michelle Waugh — the sharp-eyed first reader who flipped through his draft and called him out, pushed him harder, and helped bring his sprawling vision into the light. Together, they go deep.

Topics include:

• Origin story of the novel: How a 10-year-old kid obsessed with Asimov and infinity never stopped writing—even when he forgot he was a writer.
• The central idea: What if a con artist accidentally builds a machine that jumps between infinite universes, and every wish could actually come true?
• The characters: A lovable scumbag named Jonnie Fazoolie. A transgender orphaned physicist-genius with tools in her afro. A Gen Z journalist with Ivy League trauma. A four-dimensioanal MacArthur, and dinosaur executive. An alien kitty with 275 billion siblings. A mysterious cosmic woman named Alice who (spoiler alert!) is an errant Boltzmann brain begging for love...
• The cover: Drawn by his niece, featuring cats, a bathtub, poker chips, and chaos.
• The writing process: Why good books feel effortless—and why that’s a lie. The relentless, punishing craft behind those “easy to read” pages, brought to life over a year of work culminating in relentless 18-hour days for two months.
• Gender, identity & generational war: Writing women authentically. Giving trans characters dignity and power. Capturing the crackling tension between Zoomers, Boomers, and everyone spinning in between.
• The core theme: In a multiverse where anything can happen, how do we find meaning in this life, this version of ourselves?

Michelle Waugh doesn’t just ask questions — she reads from the novel, and her performance of “Alice Unchained” captures some of the mystery and madness.

Writers, readers, and anyone trying to make peace with their fractured attention span and haunted dreams will dig this episode -- One that's for anyone wondering if meaning still exists in a world of infinite versions of you. For anyone who’s ever created something and whispered, if only I could love the result as much as I love writing.

So tune in for an interview that's a cross-dimensional dive into fiction, failure, love, and redemption.

The Short Story

The Novel

https://a.co/d/bv5FBdl

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