Interview With Author Maximilian Coolheit
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I write dystopian fiction about the small print of authoritarian systems — who pays, who watches, who is left inside. 'My Brother on the Moon: Volume One — A Dystopian Thriller' is my debut novella (published November 2025, on Kindle Unlimited). It is Volume One of a planned series; Book Two ('All For What') is already drafted. Before writing I spent years reading the dystopian canon in public libraries, which shaped how I think about the genre: the best dystopias are bureaucratic, not loud.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest book is 'My Brother on the Moon: Volume One — A Dystopian Thriller'. It was inspired by a simple question: what would a surveillance state charge you for, if it could? In my city, every citizen gets 23 hours plus 1 hour of borrowed time — and that extra hour is paid for by someone else. A parasite carrying a brother's consciousness is the device that makes the trade personal instead of abstract.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I outline on paper index cards pinned to a wall, then write drafts at night in one uninterrupted block. I also keep a 'parasite file' — notes on real bureaucratic rules and fees that could plausibly become dystopian mechanisms.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Yevgeny Zamyatin's 'We' is the foundation — it is the novel Orwell borrowed half of 1984 from, and almost nobody reads it. E.M. Forster's 'The Machine Stops' (1909) predicted video calls and algorithm-fed taste a century early. Bradbury for the feeling that censorship arrives quietly, Kafka for the paperwork of dread, and Le Guin for making systems feel human-scaled.
What are you working on now?
Volume Two of 'My Brother on the Moon' — 'All For What' — which follows the consequences of the hour-trade beyond the city, plus research for a standalone about memory licensing.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Review communities, honestly. Goodreads groups with real review-request threads, ARC readers on Reddit, and free-book sites like this one. For a debut with no reviews yet, nothing converts like a reader who chose to pick it up.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Finish the short thing first. A complete 68-page novella teaches you more about structure — and reaches more readers — than an unfinished 400-page epic. And post where readers actually gather, not where other writers promote.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
'Nobody owes your book attention — earn it one reader at a time.' It killed my fantasy of launch-day magic and replaced it with a habit: one honest reader, one honest review, repeat.
What are you reading now?
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban — a future written in degraded English where language itself carries the plot. It took me three chapters to learn the dialect and now I can't stop hearing it.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Finish Volume Two this winter, then revisit the longer manuscript that taught me how *not* to write a first book. Long term: enough readers that the series can grow past three volumes.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster (it is a novella, so it doubles as a survival manual), The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, and one fat anthology of Ray Bradbury stories.
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