Bestselling author Matt Dinniman launches newest action-filled novel in Tacoma
Bestselling author Matt Dinniman is celebrating the launch of his newest action-filled, science-fiction novel in Tacoma this weekend.
Best known for the “Dungeon Crawler Carl” series, Dinniman’s standalone, “Operation Bounce House,” will release Feb. 10.
The book follows a farmer who resides on another planet and has to fight for his home when gamers from Earth try to destroy it. In the book, “Operation Bounce House” is a game created by a corporation that plans to evict, or kill, all the people from the farmer’s planet.
Gig Harbor’s Invitation Bookshop will host Dinniman at the STAR Center on S. 66th St. Sunday from 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The event begins with a conversation between Dinniman, and Youtuber, Bookborn. After the conversation, readers can get two of their items signed by Dinniman.
Dinniman’s events tend to draw crowd, with fans dressing up as characters from the Crawl series, according to a recent profile by The New York Times. He told The News Tribune that they had to find a larger venue for the event, which is why it will take place at the community center. He also hoped for Invitation Bookshop to get one big event in this year as it has “risen to the challenge” of selling and shipping the signed copies of his books.
“It’s gonna be fantastic. I always want to either start or end my event tours someplace local, and I’m happy to do it there,” he said.
Dinniman said he has lived in Washington since 2012, and before that moved around a lot before his father retired from the Army in Arizona. He moved to Gig Harbor in 2013 where he not only an author but has been an artist and bass player.
“We moved up here partially because I was, again, an artist. I drew pictures of cats, and there are so many more opportunities to have shows and events up here than there were in southern Arizona,” he said.
Dinniman said he uses the coffee shop culture of the Pacific Northwest by going to different places to sit down and write as he cannot work in one area for more than two days. Cutter’s Point Coffee, Kimball Coffeehouse and Davenport Coffee Shop are some shops he has written at.
Inspiration for ‘Operation Bounce House’
Dinniman has had many different ideas for books over the years, but the idea of people fighting a war where both sides had completely different priorities seemed most relevant for current times, he said.
“For the main character, Oliver and his farmers, this is literally life or death. This is the only home they’ve ever known. And for the people that are, you know, attacking them, it’s a game. They’re not taking it seriously. They’re kids for the most part,” Dinniman said. “They’re in no danger to themselves, and they’re being as cruel as some online people can be in the process.”
Dinniman said that is a dynamic not explored often in fiction, and it was a bonus he got to incorporate giant robots and explosions.
“Some of my favorite things,” he added.
“Operation Bounce House” delves into the topic of generative artificial intelligence and corporations, specifically the fictional one in the book, utilizing it.
Dinniman said as an artist, writer and musician those three corners of the world are being invaded by generative AI, a technology that he believes is slowly getting better.
“... and so many people who make art for a living are finding themselves without a job because the people who are paying for that art are like giant, soulless corporations that don’t care about the human element that’s being put into the AI,” he said.
Dinniman said with AI getting better and better every day, he wanted to write a book about how humanity deals with the technology.
“But I thought what was really interesting was how do we recover from a society where you can no longer trust anything you see unless it’s face to face? And it’s terrifying. Not even from the point of view of an artist that’s losing their livelihood because of it, but the implications of everything being an illusion is, I don’t know, it’s horror, it’s a dystopian nightmare, I think,” he said.
While on the surface, the ideas between “Operation Bounce House” and “Dungeon Crawler Carl” might sound similar, once readers read his new standalone, he said they will see they are both different in tones.
“I think [’Operation Bounce House’] is still funny, but it’s not nearly as over-the-top ridiculous. There’s no talking cat in ‘Operation Bounce House’,” he said. “It’s not wacky over-the-top, insane, like Carl is, but it’s still, I think, dystopian nightmare, and still over-the-top compared to the average of everything else. It’s just a different sort of vibe, and we’ll see how that lands.”
Dinniman hopes readers have fun with “Operation Bounce House.”
“There’s going to be a lot of people who read it and say, ‘Well, this is really about this, this is really about X, this is really about Y.’ And maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But what’s important is that the book itself is entertaining. And I think oftentimes we read stuff, and we get so lost in the messaging that we forget that there’s a story there. And I just want people to have fun with it.” he said.
Readers interested in celebrating the release of “Operation Bounce House” can purchase tickets, which start at $45.58, according to Eventbrite.
