Chris Wright Merges Science Fiction And Horror Into Mind-Bending Realities
PHOTO: Author Chris Wright, creator of the Survival trilogy, masterfully explores where science fiction meets horror.
Exploring Cosmic Dread, Surreal Dimensions, And The Creative Force Behind The Survival Trilogy
British author Chris Wright blends science fiction and horror to create surreal, thought-provoking worlds that challenge perception, exploring fear, reality, and imagination through his acclaimed Survival trilogy and The Daemon’s Wish.
Chris Wright stands as a daring voice in speculative fiction, masterfully merging science fiction and horror into stories that challenge perception itself. Hailing from the border between Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, Wright doesn’t just write about alternate realities—he builds them with unflinching imagination and hypnotic atmosphere. Through his Survival trilogy, he redefines what it means to confront the unknown, transforming the familiar into a realm of cosmic dread and philosophical wonder.
As both the author and the driving force behind Omni UK Publishing and the electronic record labels Omni Music UK and Remnants Music, Wright’s creative reach extends far beyond the written word. His work resonates with haunting depth and sonic texture, echoing through every note and narrative he creates. From surreal nightmares to interdimensional mysteries, his fiction invites readers to lose themselves in universes where reality bends, reason dissolves, and fear takes on new forms.
Chris Wright’s storytelling is both daring and immersive, masterfully uniting terror and wonder to redefine speculative fiction and captivate readers with vivid imagination and intellectual depth.
Mosaic Digest is proud to feature this thought-provoking conversation with Chris Wright—a visionary who continues to expand the boundaries of speculative storytelling while inspiring independent creators to embrace the thrill of the unknown.
What first drew you to fuse science-fiction with horror?
I’ve always loved both genres and they fit together well. Sci-Fi has that ‘unknown’ quality to it, where humanity is confronting something new, which I think is the perfect breeding ground for it to merge with Horror as you don’t know what you will encounter. The Horror element is more prevalent at the beginning of the first book of the ‘Survival’ trilogy and then Science-Fiction begins to surface later on. Both genres merge more thoroughly in the second two books, keeping the Science-Fiction theme but delving into Horror frequently, no matter how absurdly it happens. One thing I wanted was to try and write something completely different, something that hasn’t been done before and I wanted it to be a fun ride that people don’t take too seriously, seeing how surreal the situations and concepts can become.
In ‘Survival’, reality itself becomes predatory; how personal are those shifting rules to your own fears or experiences?
I hadn’t really thought before whether it reflected my own fear or experience, but in hindsight perhaps subconsciously it did. Before I wrote the first book I had been working for the UK Government for many years but took a redundancy package and moved from the UK to Malta, so I everything I had been familiar with, including a secure stable pay check suddenly wasn’t there. My own daily reality had been significantly altered, which happens in more extreme ways to the characters in the books! The second book takes reality to new predatory extremes, in a complete different way to the first book, where reality begins to fall apart.
“My own daily reality had been significantly altered, which happens in more extreme ways to the characters in the books!” – Chris Wright
Gina’s amnesia in ‘I Am Auton’ lets the reader rediscover the multiverse alongside her—was that narrative choice purely strategic, or did it mirror something of your own creative process?
The narrative from her perspective is just the first chapter and I give each character the same personal narrative in different chapters before they all begin to coalesce. I wanted to make the first chapter an exciting and unusual thrill ride with Gina as a Ninja. It was a strategic thing so that the reader discovers this character from the prior books in a completely different setting, which I proceed to do with the other characters as I gradually build the multiverse they’re embedded in.
You juggle Omni UK Publishing and a record label alongside writing—how does running creative businesses feed back into the texture of your fiction?
The music I release on the record label is very atmospheric and full of deep soundscapes; genres that have their toes dipped into the sci-fi and fantasy themes, so they complement my books that deal with the very same ideas (I probably just take it too far in my books!). Rather than the businesses feeding into my fiction, I think it’s the other way. I’ve always been interested in the mystical and paranormal as well as Science-Fiction, so I think that comes first and everything else whether music or books are an extension of the subjects that resonate with me. For music I’m looking for something deep and cosmic just like in my writings, so I would say the businesses and my fiction are intertwined and stem from what I ‘m searching for.
“I’ve always been interested in the mystical and paranormal as well as Science-Fiction, so I think that comes first and everything else is an extension.” – Chris Wright
The trilogy escalates from intimate dread to cosmic scale; did you map the entire arc beforehand, or did the characters hijack the destination?
I had only originally planned to do the first book so it came to a conclusion. I then decided to do a sequel as I had fun writing the first one (but not the real horror of trying to self promote a self published book!). It was difficult thinking how to continue because the characters journeys had all been wrapped up. But I had a flash of inspiration while fleshing out ideas that is scientifically ridiculous but I ran with it anyway! I nearly left it at two books, but a friend pushed me to do a third book. Again, I had more or less wrapped up the story in the second book (which I was never happy with to be honest), but I had another idea that I thought would work, so started writing. So when I wrote the first book I had no idea there was going to be a more! The full storyline arc just came as I wrote each one, and I was able to reference earlier things that happened in later parts of the overall story. The last book ‘I Am Auton’ has a grander theme than the others, so actually ended up being as long as the first 2 books combined, which wasn’t planned, but just how it evolved as I had so much to get through.
Folk-creatures, AI, wormholes and quantum mutations all share space in your books—how do you keep such disparate elements feeling like they belong to one cohesive nightmare?
Probably because the nightmare is so intense in the first book that after that literally anything could share a nightmarish space with the next bizarre situation (and remember that I mentioned not to take everything seriously, it’s all about having a whirlwind of a time, especially in the second two). With the way the overall story evolved it was possible for any situation to present itself and it would always fit with every other outlandish idea in it. The idea in first book is what if reality isn’t what you think it is, so if you can start with such an unnerving proposition, everything else can naturally inhabit this questionable concept.
‘The Daemon’s Wish’ is your next book after the Survival Trilogy—does it inhabit the same multiverse, or are you building an entirely new playground of fears?
The Daemon’s Wish inhabits a totally different universe with new characters. It’s darker in subject matter and tone than the Trilogy. I think the difference is that the trilogy was more of a light-hearted rollercoaster of fun (for me anyway, readers may disagree!) where The Daemon’s Wish is much more ominous with a vicious serial killer on the loose. It’s also a mix of Horror and Science-Fiction, set on Europa in the far distant future when it has been colonized. It’s a detective story with the reader unsure of whether the main protagonist is a serial killer or possessed, as they follow clues across bladerunner-ish landscapes. I have already adapted this into a screenplay as well as the first installment of the Survival Trilogy, so hopefully one day hard work will pay off.
What single piece of advice would you give to British authors trying to self-publish dark genre fiction without losing their sanity or shirts in the process?
Just accept what it is, it’s an incredibly difficult industry as a self-publisher to be noticed and everyone will want to take your money and give you ‘reviews’, so be wary of them. Just roll with it and be satisfied that you can call yourself an author and have taken the time to write something no one has written before. Do it for yourself to let your creativity out there, everything else is what it is and not worth getting worked up about.
