Gordon Gumpertz - Red Hot Sky - Author Interview

Author Interview

1. Who is your favorite character?
I created two protagonists for Red Hot Sky: Ben Mason and Claudine Manet. They are equal favorites.

2. Why is he/she your favorite?
Ben has all the traits people admire: courage, loyalty, selflessness, quick thinking under stress, ability to accomplish great things against impossible odds. And he does it with modesty and a sense of humor. Claudine has beauty, brains, determination, and a soft, loving side. She's fearless when it comes to driving people to get the job done. But her love and caring for Ben run deep.

3. How did you come to create him/her?
I wanted to write a story about a relationship between two strong people who love each other but have their own ideas. And about their reactions when the ideas conflict and the relationship is strained.

4. When did he/she first enter your mind?
The character profiles developed as I was outlining the plot and storyline for Red Hot Sky.

5. Where was he/she given life in the creative process?
Ben was introduced on page 1 and we came to know something about him by the end of Chapter 1. Claudine was mentioned early as being out of town, and not introduced till page 33, after which we gradually learn more about her.

6. What do you like the most about him/her and what do you dislike the most about him/her?
The likes are same as question 2. As for the dislikes, Ben can keep his head under extreme pressure and do great things. I guess I'm jealous. Also, his addiction to danger puts him in conflict with his responsibilities to others. The main discomfort with Claudine is her set of rigid expectations for her relationship with Ben.

Book Summary

CO2 buildup in earth’s atmosphere reaches a tipping point. Global weather destabilizes, turns chaotic. Ice storms, dust storms, floods, blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes pummel the earth nonstop. A secret computer model reveals that the frantic weather will peak out, and transform world climate into an alien environment devastating to human survival.

Scientists Ben Mason, Claudine Manet, and Bertrand Short are developers of the computer model. Ben and Claudine are lovers as well as lab partners. While they work frantically to head off the approaching catastrophe, a disgraced Russian general hacks into their model and sees earth’s bleak future as his opportunity for ultimate world power.

Ben, who had left the CIA to develop the computer model at the national lab, is reactivated by the Agency and sent on a perilous mission to block the rogue general’s plot. Claudine, not realizing that Ben is on a secret mission, misunderstands his absence, putting their relationship on thin ice.

Claudine is placed in charge of a massive NASA project that, if completed on time, could stop the approaching doomsday climate change. But her project is stalled by bureaucracy. Ben is on the run in hostile territory. The climate change calamity steadily approaches.

Author Bio


Gordon Gumpertz brings fiction readers another exciting action/adventure experience in his new novel RED HOT SKY. This is the author’s second book, following his highly acclaimed novel TSUNAMI.

In addition to writing novels, Gordon has won gold and silver awards in national and regional short story competitions. He is a member of the Authors Guild, the Palm Springs Writers Guild, a UCLA graduate, and an instrument-rated private pilot. He keeps his website current by blogging on natural disasters and natural phenomena.

Gordon and his wife Jenny live not far from the San Andreas fault, where the Pacific Plate thrusts into the North American Plate, building increasingly high levels of faultline stress which, the seismologists say, may soon produce the Big One.

Visit his website at www.tsunaminaturaldisaster.com.

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