What were you like at school?
Breakfield pushed the envelope. Someone asked him, “This is your senior year, why the heavy course load?” He responded, “To see if I could do it.”
Burkey liked to study and often tutored others in high school, particularly in math and science.
Were you good at English?
Breakfield received an A in Senior English, but had his head handed to him in freshman English at UT of Austin. The freshman English teacher worked with him and he squeaked a B, but really learned how to write. Burkey earned As in English and liked to dissect poems or songs to find the hidden meanings.
What are your ambitions for your writing career?
Breakfield and Burkey strive to be great storytellers both in our fiction and short stories as well as in person.
Which writers inspire you?
Breakfield and Burkey enjoy many authors and are voracious readers. Breakfield was inspired by Richard F. Burton and Kevin J. Anderson. Burkey was inspired by Jack London and Charles Dickens.
So, what have you written? Feel free to include books, novellas, short stories, poems, blogs, awards or anything of interest.
Breakfield and Burkey have an award winning series currently with 9 books in The Enigma Series, TechnoThrillers. Book 10 is currently under construction. We received a first place award for a short story in 2017 and have three more entered for 2018.
Additionally, we wrote 2 non-fiction technical manuals from earlier days. Here is our website with all our titles: http://enigmabookseries.com/ and samples to download. When visitors sign up for our mailing list they get a free coloring book. The audible for The Enigma Rising was given a notable reviewer award by audiobookreviewer.com
Where can we buy or see them?
All of books have the links to buy from your favorite retailer and in the media of your choice whether that is trade paper, eBook, or audible so far on the first 4 in the series. Audio versions can be accessed via Audible, Audible UK, or itunes.
Give us an insight into your main character. What does he/she do that is so special?
That’s a tough one. Our main character(s) is actually a group, specifically the R-Group. In 2 of our books we spun off the CATS (Cyber Assassin Technology Services) Team, a more feet-on-the-street and much grittier group of complex characters with diverse backgrounds.
Our character universe has over 160 characters and we shuttle them in and/or out to tell the best story we can. This is about the cyber good guys against the cyber bad guys, so it is not just one main character. In fact the stories are more focal point based, as an example, The Enigma Factor has a focus on identity theft.
If we can’t go any further without a single character then we will tell you his name is Immersive Collaborative Associative Override of Deterministic systems or ICABOD our ever evolving, supercomputer.
What are you working on at the minute?
We just finished our 3 new short stories entered into three different genres, and are in the middle of our 10th techno-thriller in the series, The Enigma Source. A sample of this story is also on the website under Sneak Peek
What’s it about?
We are focusing on digital currency or crypto-currencies and we have the good guys/gals fighting the dark net bad guys.
What genre are your books?
Our series genre is techno-thriller. Which includes technology framework surrounded with international travel, romance, intrigue, mystery, humor and complex characters.
What draws you to this genre?
We each have over 20 years in the high tech world so we get a lot of our book themes, characters, and relevant technology vulnerabilities from our day jobs.
Which actor/actress would you like to see playing the lead character from your most recent book?
For a few of the characters, we would recommend the following,
Jacob
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Chris Pine
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Petra
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Keira Knightley
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Quip
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James Franco
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Otto
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Max von Sydow
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Haddy
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Glenn Close
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Julie
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Alicia Vikander
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Buzz
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Taylor Kitsch
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Wolfgang
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Christopher Plummer
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Master Po
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Ming-Na Wen
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Chairman Chang
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Benicio del Toro
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Jim Hughes
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Alec Baldwin or Aidan Turner
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How much research do you do?
Breakfield and Burkey actually do research on our books all the time. We like to scan the technical horizon all the time for vulnerabilities and possible attack vectors that we can take and turn into interesting stories. We like the challenge of taking high tech issues and making them a fun, relevant read to today’s adults.
Have you written any other novels in collaboration with other writers? Yes, but we have found we complement each other so well that we cannot imagine writing without having the ability to bounce ideas off each other.
Why did you do decide to collaborate and did that affect your sales?
We are confident that we turn out a better product by writing together. We use a technique called “literary ping-pong” where we bat a chapter, a character, or a story thread back a forth until it is finely polished.
When did you decide to become a writer?
Breakfield and Burkey had different forays into writing and started young. Like wine, we get better with time.
Why do you write?
Honestly, to get better and be the best storytellers we can be.
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About the Authors
Charles V. Breakfield
Charles likes to travel in Texas on a motorcycle, World War II history, wine & good food, and voice/data technology. As a colorful and somewhat controversial individual you can find him either in his shop building furniture, writing with his co-author Roxanne E. Burkey, or out riding his motorcycle, but always meeting people looking for suitable character material for the next thriller installment of the Enigma Book Series.
Roxanne E. Burkey
Writing is a passion for Roxanne that incorporates many of her interests and dovetails nicely with her full time work in customer experience technologies. After successfully writing white papers and technology documentation she wanted a different more fun, less stress writing outlet. Her co-author Charles Breakfield agreed and The Enigma Series began. You are invited to explore their website http://enigmabookseries.com/ and leave/read comments in the Enigma Chronicles Blog area.
She enjoys learning, travel, family, outdoor activities, good food, wine sampling, reading, living and visiting good friends which helps to bring diversity and new ideas into the stories.
She is still learning humor and there is hope for this century that she will master it!