The Resurrection of Rey Pescador captured my attention from the moment Alfred Cedeno revealed this incredible cover design. There’s much to examine here. Through my brief interactions with Al, combined with early praise garnered by his debut, I think it’s safe to say this author isn’t afraid to broach complex themes. His rich characterization, combined with dystopian adventures and an appealing romance both entertains the reader and causes one to think about the state of our own hearts.

“Alfred Cedeno’s debut novel sparkles. He engages questions and themes relevant to the human experience—such as love, death, materialism, and religion—and injects them with the fantastic and the epic. For the reader, this story has it all…” –E.M. Richards, reader
“Resurrection is something we all hope for in small and big ways. Join Rey and the other members of the Genius Brigade in their search for it. I was genuinely surprised by what they discovered in the end, and found myself thinking about it for days.” –W.T. McMaken, reader

Book Blurb:

You are invited to a world where everyone has mechanical hearts.

That is, everyone except Rey Pescador. You want to know him. You just can’t help it. And it’s not just his beating heart that lures you into this story. It’s the depths and heights of his journey that draw you into the tales of this legendary figure.

He’s incredible. He’s Rey Pescador. He’s boxed heavyweights. He’s freestyled in front of stadiums. He’s fought robots, but, for years, Rey Pescador’s greatest adventure remained a mystery.

Until Now.

Five Questions with Al Cedeno:

What was the inspiration for your novel?

I worked on Rey’s story on-and-off for seven years, so no single moment of inspiration exists. At the beginning it was a story about identity. I got married in college. Then my wife and I spent a summer working near the Giant Forrest in Sequoia National Park. We came back to Wheaton Illinois, and I longed for the adventure of the mountains but knew that my life would be in the suburbs. I wanted to explore an extraordinary character that follows his primal influences and juxtapose that with a character of faith and discipline and the ordinary. I wanted to show the adventure of life and the beauty of the mundane. Epic literature also inspired me. I allude to The Odyssey, Don Quixote, Huck Finn, and others. I thought it would be funny to have a world where great poets were more famous than Kim and Kanye and where philosophers and theologians were wealthy. In that world allusions seemed essential. I tried to have fun and celebrate literature while doing something new. Through that I tried to continually juxtapose the wealth and adventure with the mundane. At one point the narrator David Rosario says, “They say there are nine muses, does one deal in workflow solutions?” Can literature speak to the fractured person in a cubicle? I think it can.

If you could have dinner with three people (living or dead), who would you choose and why?

I’ll start with the classic Sunday school answer: Jesus. Yeah, he’s the obvious choice, but how could you pass up a dinner with Jesus? Teddy Roosevelt embodied the American spirit while being a total nerd, and is one of the few historical figures more fascinating than Rey Pescador. I mean, the guy read books daily, was an amateur Dante scholar, and continued giving a speech after being shot in the chest. The third person would be whatever ancestor of mine came to Puerto Rico from Spain. I’d love to hear that guy’s story—getting on a boat from a thousand-year-old culture to come to a little island in the Caribbean for a better life.

In terms of writing a novel, are you a plotter or a pantser? Or a hybrid combo?

Combo, I guess. My novel started as short stories and blog posts. I just wrote what came: inconsistencies didn’t bother me. Then my friends added their own fictional blogs with characters who interacted with mine. We developed a sort of mythology within a fictional universe. Once I had a basic idea of the characters and world, I plotted the book in detail. I knew the characters. I had been a “pantser” already, but I turned into a plotter for the novel. I’m currently a plotter in my second novel. I think that’s where I’ll stay.

What can your readers expect from you in the future? Prequel, sequel, novella, etc.

I’ve begun plotting a trilogy of novels. It’s not a sequel. My novel doesn’t really allow for a traditional sequel, but it does take place within the same fictional universe, with a few similar characters. Like with my first novel, I really want to experiment with genre, so I envision the first book of the trilogy to be a tragedy. The overall story will be a comedy. I’ve always thought The Divine Comedy was organizationally perfect. Start on earth, go to hell and end in heaven. I’d love to do something like that, but I’d fill it with humor and metafiction and technology and different dimensions while maintaining realistic characters.

Please share one piece of advice for aspiring writers you wish you’d known before you started this writing journey.

I teach writing to high school students, so this should be easy for me. However, it’s not.

Twitter and writing blogs celebrate any writing for any reason. Just keep writing; you’ll get there. Your story needs to be heard. As if the goal is to get words on the page. Writing is powerful. Fiction can tell the truth beautifully. But it can also demean. So maybe my advice is don’t write unless you have to. Or maybe, don’t write unless you have something to say. If you’ve seen something beautiful and true in the world, tell us about it. If not, search and search and read from those who have. Then when you have a vision of what you want to say—when you can really see it—get ink on the page. Most might say that’s terrible advice, but I believe it.

Alfred Cedeno believes human beings are made of three parts: saint, sinner, and robot. He explores all three in his fiction.
When he isn’t writing fiction, he teaches English, watches Doctor Who with his wife, and plays the types of imaginary games that a father of toddler girls plays–that is to say he is often the king of a castle.
His primary stories are about larger-than-life poet Rey Pescador, and his equally famous friends, The Genius Brigade. He began blogging about these characters in 2006. His novel, The Resurrection of Rey Pescador, chronicles Rey Pescador’s search for meaning and adventure in a metal world that has forgotten both.
He thinks you should buy it right now. Click here to purchase a digital or paperback copy of The Resurrection of Rey Pescador.

You can connect with Al via his website, Facebook, or  Goodreads. He Tweets via the handle @reypescador.

Thank you, readers, for stopping by and learning more about Al Cedeno and his fascinating debut novel. Al has offered to give away a digital copy of The Resurrection of Rey Pescador to one fortunate reader. Please leave a comment below with your current email address and tell us the one person (living or dead) you’d like to have dinner with. Contest closes at 11:59pm EST on October 13,2014.