I consider Cyberdrome "hard" science fiction in that every bit of technology is based on current cutting-edge research (I'm a scientist in real life and I had access to a lot of stuff while researching the book). However, in an attempt to make the book as widely acceptable as possible (especially as a debut novel from an unknown author), I made a decision to write Cyberdrome as a classic "Mythological Hero's Journey" (See Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces"). As Carl Jung said, "The repeating characters of the hero myth, such as the young hero, the wise old man, the shape-shifting woman, and the shadowy nemesis, are identical with the archetypes of the human mind, as shown in dreams. That's why myths, and stories constructed on the mythological model, are always psychologically true." If you are familiar with this concept, you will probably recognize each of these archetypes throughout my book.
Of course, it doesn't hurt that many modern film makers, including Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Francis Coppola, follow this format as well (and don't we all want our books to be made into movies? ;)
One thing that separates Cyberdrome from from other "hero's quest" stories (including The Matrix and Star Wars) is that Alek (the protagonist) does NOT believe that he is "following his destiny" - in fact he says he is not, right in the story. So maybe he is a bit more of an anti-hero like Thomas Covenant in Stephen Donaldson's "Unbeliever" series (or even Malcolm Reynolds in the movie, Serenity), in that he is following the most obvious path that lies before him, but he doesn't believe it has anything to do with destiny. It's just a path and it is one that he has chosen for himself, not the other way around.
To be continued...
