Coming Up In 2012 #16: Doom Rider by David Gatward

On Friday I revealed to you the cover for Doom Rider, the new book coming from author David Gatward in July. I also quickly rattled off an email to David, firstly to express my excitement over the new book and its fantastic cover, but also to ask him if he would be interested in writing a piece for my 'Coming Up In 2012' feature. Despite having a huge amount of writing to get finished over the weekend David very kindly said he would get something to me, and lo and behold, this arrived in my email inbox this morning:

The first mention of Doom Rider was in an email I sent through to my editor, Naomi, last January. I was in the process of knocking together a completely different proposal about aliens and sent the following idea through as little more than an aside:

'I've also been dreaming up something about a boy who discovers he's one of the four riders of the apocalypse... Now what's not to love about that?! And he's lived a 1000 lifetimes and been killed before reaching his 13th birthday in each one. But now...'

There! That was it! Not much, is it? And I didn't do anything with it until a month later. But it just kept on nagging at me so I worked it up and before I knew what was happening, my original proposal was ditched and the Doom Rider one took over!

Where the idea originally came from I'm just not sure. I've always been fascinated by the imagery associated with the four riders of the apocalypse, but what I didn't want to do was play on it to the point of making it amusing. From the start I wanted it to be a serious book. I was also fascinated by the whole notion of destiny and how freedom and free choice would clash with that. After all, a teenager is the very essence of wanting to be free. And I figured that, if my character discovered his future had already been chosen, he might be a little miffed.

In the end, what I came up with was this:

Seth Crow has lived a thousand lives, and in each one he's been murdered before he turns thirteen.

And now he's being hunted again. But this time it's different ... Seth is CONQUEST. The first of the four riders of the Apocalypse. And people want him dead, before he can fulfil his destiny.

Seth's only hope lies in finding the other riders - Strife, Famine and Death. Together the fate of the world will be in their hands.

The Apocalypse is coming. And the only ones who can save the world, hold the power to destroy it.

Sounds fun, doesn't it? And trust me on this: it really is...