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Matt Hartle is a writer, painter, director, designer, and VFX artist who began his creative journey in the late 90’s while he was studying Illustration at the Art Center College of Design. Over his career, he has worked on over 100 A-list features, with some career highlights being his work on Super Man – Man of Steel, several Harry Potter films, the Sony Pictures Animation logo and the Lionsgate logo. Hartle is also an author, having recently published his first novel, Of Courage and Sacrifice – Book One of the Bot Trilogy.
Hartle resides in Montana with his wife and children.
What inspired you to create a futuristic world for your novel, and how did you go about building this complex and intriguing setting?
For the world of Of Courage And Sacrifice, I began with a rough outline of the story I wanted to tell. There were a variety of settings I wanted to place the story in the mountains, underground subways and tunnels, and a medium size city. These locations required imagining a certain urban and mountain environment in which to set the story. Also, this is a dystopian world, so there needed to be examples of that. Next, I knew the primary arc of the story and some of the larger events I had planned as the more significant beats of the narrative. That led me to develop the kinds of characters I would need to tell the story. I believe good characters are flawed and multifaceted, and exploring backstories helps you get to know the people you are writing about.
Stories require a protagonist, whether an object, a character, or even circumstances. I wanted to create dire circumstances to force our characters into their own narrative arcs. I have always been intrigued by the concepts presented in movies like the original Red Dawn. What happens when our world comes under threat, and we are forced to detach from normal society and figure out how to survive. It’s a petri dish in which characters can develop. Some will be successful, others won’t. It forces aberrations in personalities to manifest, and for readers, I hope it’s interesting to read and be part of!
I enjoy writing science fiction because it allows for storytelling in a heightened reality, but I believe there needs to be a strong anchoring in believability to enable the more fantastical elements to play. Technology in our world today allows for constant connection and the dissemination of information. In a story like this, where I need isolation and independence, technology has to somehow be removed or disabled to bring things back to the basics – food, shelter, water, and safety.
And finally, because of the connection in our lives today, I find it difficult to believe that an authoritarian group, the military or the police, would ultimately turn against the population from which they are drawn. So, I needed to create an army that would be willing and capable to take on the task – robots!
Your Bot Trilogy is a unique take on the sci-fi genre. What motivated you to write about sentient robots, and what can readers expect from the next book in the series?
What I find interesting about robots and Artificial Intelligence is how innately disassociated they are from humanity. A robot might walk into a burning building to rescue someone without fear, but it could also push someone off the top of that building with no remorse or hesitation. A robot is a collection of parts and programming and will ultimately perform the functions asked of it as far as it can. Artificial Intelligence is much the same. We live in a fascinating time as things develop with large language models such as ChatGPT. These programs offer extraordinary capabilities that can be used for good or bad! I am currently using ChatGPT4 to help edit my next book, ‘The Magu Program.’ It’s incredible to be interacting with a piece of software that can infer intent, offer suggestions, and provide structural analyses of my writing. However, a program capable enough to do that could also be used in planning the sinister. Who sets those boundaries and designs the rules to guide positive outcomes? This is one of the big moral questions surrounding AI and the paradigm of machines that can think. In Of Courage And Sacrifice, AI has been militarized and tasked with organizing the theaters of war and controlling the operatives – robots. It synthesizes an uncompromising intelligence with vast resources and insights, commanding an unbridled fighting force. This pairing will not fatigue or become mired in political uncertainty. It will only execute, driving relentlessly toward its goal.
The three books in this series are laid out in much the same way a three-act structure teleplay is designed. The first book, Of Courage And Sacrifice, establishes the world, introduces us to the characters, and lays out the conflicts and stakes the characters face. The second book finds the characters on the next step in their journey. Not to give too much away, but they have left the city and are journeying to a new place. It will take them through a broader landscape and reveal how the conflicts and circumstances they have endured have spread to every corner of the country. Friendships and loyalties will be tested, and new relationships will be foraged. The characters will continue to develop, accepting or rejecting life’s paths while trying to survive in this dangerous new world.
The third book will be the climactic conclusion of these events. There’s a massive battle; leaders will emerge, conflicts will resolve, and the sun will rise on a new world, whatever that may be!
Your writing often incorporates themes of technology, artificial intelligence, and the consequences of rapid progress. How do you see these themes playing out in the real world, and what implications do they have for society at large?
As with any nascent technologies, it is hard to predict where things will eventually land, but Artificial Intelligence will undoubtedly be the next significant evolution our world goes through. It will touch and alter every aspect of our lives, even if we are unaware of it, much like the internet and smartphones have done. Now we are all connected at all times in nearly every circumstance, but those connections are with other people or things people have created. AI will become a dominant communicator and facilitator. It will do those things based on guidelines established by its creators, but how do you set boundaries when you don’t truly understand its abilities? It will be an evolving situation, and the proclivities of humanity will play a very active role.
Additionally, advancements in our world have always been governed by the humans making them and the machines they use. Again, AI presents a seismic shift–computers can process at a massively grander scale than humans can. We are already seeing this in the development of the LLMs. The first models took months, even years, to train, and now it’s happening in hours. Large models cost vast sums of money to train. ChatGPT4 was trained at the cost of over 100 million dollars, according to Sam Altman, the CEO of Open AI, the company that makes ChatGPT. Now, in educational labs like those at Stanford, models have been trained using existing data sets. The models are smaller and less capable but were built for hundreds of dollars, not millions – a disruptive shift. Things are evolving faster than ever, and we will struggle to keep up.
New jobs will emerge, and others will vanish or be modified. As humans, we will adapt to these changes with varying levels of success. I think it’s an exciting future that must be carefully negotiated. It’s far better to structure the path before you than to try and understand how you may have ended up where you are. People need to be flexible and accept change because it’s coming regardless of our individual points of view. Evolution is the nature of progress.
Writing a novel or trilogy requires discipline and perseverance. How do you manage your writing process, and what tips do you have for aspiring writers who are struggling to stay motivated?
I find consistency is critical to success with any of these longer-term pursuits, whether writing, painting, or even exercise. Establishing a protected time when you can work undistracted is crucial to achieving consistency. Early mornings provide that time for me. I get up at 5am, make coffee, and park myself in a chair. At this time, people are asleep, the house is quiet, and the stream of texts and emails from work are still several hours away. Lately, my son has been joining me, which has been amazing! He works on 3D modeling projects on his computer, and I sit on his bed and write. By finding this time every day, I can establish a rhythm, both in routine but also in following the story I am trying to tell. When significant gaps happen in my schedule, if I’m traveling, for example, and I’m unable to find that time, I quickly lose the threads of the story. Then, each session turns into a review before I can continue.
It’s important to be fully invested in your subject and your story. Because I weave writing into my full-time work and family, a manuscript seems to take me about a year to complete, followed by four to six months of rewriting and editing. That’s a long time to spend on one thing! If it’s a story you enjoy, with characters you love, it will be a time you greatly appreciate and look forward to. So, my advice is to enjoy the process, hold yourself accountable to your routine, and understand it’s a big undertaking to write a book but also very rewarding!
One last thing I’ll say, sometimes when I am writing, I get “stuck.” Some call this writer’s block. For me, this is a lack of planning and outlining. I rarely feel unable to write when I know where the story is taking me. So, I recommend having at least a loose outline of what you are writing. I also think the spontaneity of writing is essential, and don’t try to outline every last detail. I am also a filmmaker, and when preparing to film something, I always shoot lists and sometimes storyboards so I have a road map to follow when I’m shooting. But, it’s important to remain flexible and available for inspiration when it happens. When you’re on location, and the actors are there, and cameras and lights are being set, there is all this chaos. Frequently, wonderful moments will occur, and you need to be present to recognize them. The same is true of writing. The characters will live and breathe if you allow them, and they will lead you through the story.
Looking to the future, and as a bestselling author and emerging leader in the book space, what do you hope readers will take away from your writing, and what stories or projects are you excited to explore in the years ahead?
First and foremost, I want to entertain! Someday I would love my books to be in those stands you rush past as you hurry through the airport. Not that I aspire to write fluff, but that my work would be associated with an exciting, engaging escape! Back when we still had Michael Crichton, I was traveling a lot. I remember seeing one of his books on the stand and knew my flight would be much more enjoyable once I had it to keep me entertained!
As for future projects. I am in the final editing stages of my next book, The Magu Program. I am so excited to share this one! It’s set in a futuristic neon-soaked cyberpunk world. The story focuses on a man, Ashiro, who has lost his memory and had no recall before six months ago. He finds himself thrown in with a mother and her son, struggling to protect them from a relentless Corporation that is after them. Being set a hundred years in the future allowed me to create on a fantastic scale and imagine a much-evolved world.
Next up for me after The Magu Program is the second book of the Bot Trilogy series. I have been casually outlining but will begin in earnest. I’m excited to dive back into this adventure and reacquaint myself with the characters. Big things are waiting for them; enormous challenges as their world continues to evolve.
I’m also actively pursuing film and television projects for this series, so we’ll see where that goes. It’s a slow burn where I have much less influence but slow and steady wins the race!
Long-term, I have several projects I’ve been gently stirring for a long time. One is more historical, and another is a hidden world adventure. Maybe one of those will be next! Whatever happens, I know writing will always be there to keep me company, and I’m thrilled to share those efforts!
Bonus Question: If you could live in any fictional world, which one would you choose and why?
That’s an interesting question! My reading has a wide range covering many topics and genres. I think it might be exciting to live in the world of Jurassic Park; to know that kind of genetic manipulation is possible would be fascinating! We live in the mountains in a pine forest. Seeing a t-rex walk past a window of our house would be terrifying and extraordinary! Also, the world of Jurassic Park is about futuristic possibilities but not a dystopian future. Ironically, I am writing about that now, but it’s not a future I would wish to live in.
Or historically, I would like to go back to the time of the Italian Renaissance and walk through Rome, Florence, and Venice while the great works of art were being created. It was a different time then, with a complete absence of technology as we experience it today when extraordinary discoveries were being made. So many great minds lived then, and I would love to experience them firsthand without the interpretation.
