Email the Author
You can use this page to email Diogo A. F. Melo about Made in Brazil: Vol. 1 - Alpha Dog.
About the Book
I met this motherfucker through Layla. Apparently she knew some bloody Physicists (from where she must had taken some of her crazy ass ideas about multiple universes, space-time and all that shit) and we all got together to watch the Roger Waters concert The Wall in São Paulo. I must say the bastard had made quite the impression on me back in the time; how many people do you know who works at a freaking nuclear power plant, am I right?
Anyway, when I encountered him for the second time I had already recorded a couple of albums and I was collecting the fruits of such hard work. I had been approached by my agent about a biography project of yours truly. The thought of writing about my life didn't sound so appealing to me though. So when I encountered Diogo at a gig I was performing in the Circo Voador (Flying Circus for those of you who don’t know shit of Portuguese) it was like the stars had been aligned. He told me he had flipped, dropped his nuclear gig and was working as a ghostwriter, trying to pave his way into becoming a science fiction author, his true calling in life as he described to me. I looked at him with pity on my eyes; I mean the guy was delusional, trying to make a living out of science fiction in bloody Brazil. Then the idea hit me. I proposed him to ghostwrite the shit out of my biography. I mean, by that time he had shown me some of his short stories and, even science fiction not being my thing, I really dug his writing style. He was reluctant at first, but then I said "hey man, it's great to follow your passion and all with this science fiction stuff, but come on, this is a real opportunity to you. My agent and the publishing house are all over my neck, nagging me for some fucking words. You had done your share of ghostwriting romance, fantasy, erotica and whatnot; why don't you consider my shit? Let's get motherfucking paid!" My words of wisdom finally got under his skin and he accepted the gig after I agreed to publish the shit under his own name. What can I say? The fucker knew how to negotiate.
So for all of you my fans and haters, I give you a little account of the circumstances which set in motion the chain of events which would, eventually, transform me from a low life software programmer at São Paulo to the crazy fucker you all know and love (even if only in a very deep level, if you catch my drift).
Yours truly,
Ricardo "Dick" Maszkowski, A.K.A. Zig Moz
About the Author
Diogo is a Brazilian writer with a huge passion for the Science Fiction genre. He wrote a couple of short stories (which are still looking for a publishing home) and did some freelance ghostwriting jobs. He has recently debuted as a novel author. His background can be best described by his own short-story-like bio, which follows.
World Line with Finite Points Possessing Vanishing Partial Derivatives (about 500 words)
by Diogo A. F. Melo
"Most space cadets, facing the sudden appearance of a black hole in their traced route, will desperate over the promise of meeting certain death inside its gravitational singularity. What they fail to realize is, given the proper black hole angular momentum and spaceship's path configuration, the singularity can be properly avoid and a wormhole leading to a different space-time point can be crossed. It's up to the pilot to face the uncertainty of such a journey in a positive, upbeat way instead of avoiding the exploration of exciting new worlds and new civilizations by paralysis caused by fear of the unknown." - Hyperspace Navigation, Cosmic Topological Defects, Alien Diplomacy and All That - Rookie Edition
I have a physics major with a solid background on theoretical physics, mainly in non-linear field theories and solitons. That section of my world line thought me the importance of conservative quantities in physics and the role played by symmetries in the Universe, including all the magic that happens when they are broken. I salute the Noether Theorem, the Standard Model and all those beautiful variational principles without which none of us would be here to tell any stories.
I did some teaching along all my life, which thought me that one of the most efficient ways of learning something was to digest it long enough so you could properly teach it to someone else.
I also have some experience with computer maintenance, where I learned the hard way the important role played by the second law of thermodynamics in the inner workings of our silicon machine tools. A feel things in life beats the thrill of trying to install an OS on a computer made by hand out of cannibalized parts of dead machines while using a large piece of ice to cool down the interior air of a desktop cabinet (true story). I also did some fooling around with web development (Drupal). I have some programming skills, mainly working with simulated physics experiments in university classes (Pascal, FORTRAN, Maple) and some Java and Python fiddling aside. And, almost needless to say, I do believe Linux is the way to go if you want to explore to the maximum, most efficient way, your logical gates gestalt.
I also adventured myself as a Human Reliability Assessment analyst working for Brazil´s Nuclear Power Plants Angra 1, 2 and 3 in their Probabilistic Security Analysis group, where I learned the painfully way how predictable behavior is directly proportional to one's mechanical degree of response.
Finally, after doing all those crazy stuff above, and having occasional nervous breaking downs which twisted my path to a different direction, I decided to do like Sinatra did, my way, and follow my true calling. That calling which was present in my life since childhood, when I held Asimov's "I, Robot" anthology of short stories. The same calling which propelled me to enroll a Physics major at the first place, in a country where all the "sane" people follow a lawyer, engineer or medic life if they want to have financial stability. I decided to tell stories for a living.