THE BREAK-IN Release Party: Five Quirky Things about Forbes and Oliver

June 18, 2014


It’s Aidee, again.

My characters, like me, are a little quirky, a little unique. Here are some things you might not know about them despite reading their first story “The Applicant” and the new novella, THE BREAK-IN.

Five Quirky Things About Dr. Forbes Pohle

1.  Forbes prefers to wear pants, not jeans. This probably has something to do with how he was raised. He was often put on display by his parents and therefore didn’t have a lot of casual playtime.

2.  Forbes finished his undergraduate college degree at 14 and had his second graduate degree at 18. He described attending classes as sitting next to giants who looked at him as if he was the experiment instead of whatever the instructor was cooking up in the front of the hall.robot

3.  Forbes has an unfortunate habit of building his friends instead of making them. He has always been more comfortable interacting with a robot or even a computer than interacting with humans. That is not to say he’s not competent at social interaction. He is quite adept at securing research grants and contracts to fund his work.

4.  Forbes’s house is located outside the city, not rural, but beyond the suburbs. It’s a very large house with its own attached laboratory. It also has a garden that he pays landscapers to keep for him. In the center of the garden is a fountain with a bench beside it where he likes to sit and think at dusk.

5.  Forbes still has a teddy bear robot shaped dent in his blast chamber door from when Future Oliver first time traveled back to meet him.

Five Quirky Things About Oliver Lennox

1. Oliver likes to dress in hacker chic: black t-shirt, hoodie, black jeans, red Chuck Taylors and black nail polish. But he’s not averse to wearing a leather jacket hand-me-down when he’s out on his motorcycle in the Fall and Winter.

2. Oliver’s favorite color is black (as evidenced by the clothes choices he makes) because he thinks of black like a rainbow. It’s what you get when all the colors are mixed together. One of his favorite childhood memories is of making a cake with his mom and being allowed to frost it himself. He added all the different food colorings in the bowl with the white icing and it made black frosting. It was the best tasting cake he ever ate.

3. Oliver has a tattoo of Newton’s gravity formula on the inside of his hip. He first read about Sir Isaac Newton in a partially torn children’s book that he found at the Hill Lake Farm Residential Center.


4. Oliver lost both his mother and his stepfather in a car accident when he was a teenager. It was very late and his stepfather was tired when he lost control of the car and slammed into a concrete barrier. Oliver still wonders if his stepfather had been drinking that night.

5. Future Oliver has used Forbes’s time travel device more than the one time that Forbes is aware of. This will come back to bite both of them in the future.


I hope you liked looking into a little bit of the history behind Forbes and Oliver. Is there anything you’d like to know? Favorite meal? Cats or Dogs? Zombies or Vampires?



12 Responses to “THE BREAK-IN Release Party: Five Quirky Things about Forbes and Oliver”

  1. Hannah B says:

    I enjoyed learning more about both Forbes and Oliver and especially like the robot pic! Zombies, vampires? Which do you prefer, I’d choose a sexy vampire over a zombie myself.

  2. aideelad says:

    LOL! Of course both vampires and zombies are dead. But there’s nothing like a good zombie chase to get your heart pumping. Or a sexy vampire in your bed.

  3. Hannah B says:

    So, from your author’s bio, were you really a magician’s assistant? I’ve always wanted know some magician secrets.

  4. aideelad says:

    Yes! I was a magician’s assistant and got paid and everything. My Dad is actually a magician and we spent hours rehearsing before the shows when I was a teenager. But…I can’t tell you any secrets! It’s not nearly as much fun when you know all the secrets. :)

  5. I agree on the magic thing. I have a good friend who is a magician, and the show loses a lot now that I know how it works.

    For me the zombie/vampire debate depends on the type of zombie/vampire. I love a sexy vampire, but zombies of a non-decaying, shambling sort can be interesting too.

  6. Hannah B says:

    How/why did you choose the names Forbes and Oliver. I am always curious why authors choose the names they do.

  7. Aidee says:

    I totally agree, Ashavan. As long as they aren’t too squishy, zombies can be fun. :p

  8. Aidee says:

    Forbes was easy. His last name, Pohle, is an homage to one of the greats in science fiction literature–Frederik Pohl. I thought that with his name being so close to the writer’s, Forbes would have to grow up reading him and ultimately gaining an interest in science. His first name, Forbes, sounded austere and a little grandiose–it is the name of a magazine catering to the business leaders of the world. I thought it would be a nice juxtaposition to have a smart little kid with a big name to live up to.

    As for Oliver, that one was also pretty easy. The name Oliver, to me, conjurers up Oliver Twist, a character from one of my favorite authors, Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist is an orphan who finds himself on the wrong side of the law but ultimately just wants love and family. That’s my Oliver, too. I’m afraid Oliver’s last name isn’t as exotic however. Lennox is a surname I’ve always loved because it has that uncommon “x” in it–and it’s Shakespearean.

  9. Hannah B says:

    Hi Aidee, thanks for sharing how you picked their names. Love it!

  10. Aidee says:

    You’re welcome, Hannah! I never remember to include things like that in posts, but I’m always curious as well, about names. Our names define us in so many ways.

  11. Trix says:

    Who are their favorite Muppets, and why? (I’ve always found this very indicative of someone’s personality, even though *my* favorite Muppet tends to change. Since I’m not normally a very mercurial person, I think that means that I just love Muppets…)

  12. Aidee says:

    Oliver’s favorite muppet would have to be Bunsen Honeydew. He’s got a soft spot for scientists.

    I think Forbes would be a Kermit fan. Kermit’s known what it’s like to struggle in your preferred profession because you’re a little different.

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