To see it take on this new life as a book series has been amazing to behold. I wrote Nightmares! as a script when I was twenty one years old. What was your favorite part about writing NIGHTMARES!?.

Otherworld is designed as a trilogy and I can’t wait for everyone to see what we have in-store. Will there be more books about OTHERWORLD in the future?.

I was a pretty dorky kid, but it led me to who I am today! I would just meander around looking for secrets. While there was an element of gameplay, more than anything for me it was about wandering around this beautifully ornate virtual environment.

What were some of your favorite video games to get lost in as a teenager?Īs I mentioned, the only game I was really obsessed with was called Myst.

Finally for conspiracy theory we pretty much just turned on the Internet. As for mythology we decided that Otherworld would be built heavily on world myth so we did a lot of reading in that arena. It was exciting and scary to see not only what exists now but also to imagine what must be right on the horizon. For the Virtual Reality element, Kirsten and I both got VR headsets and delved into all the currently available apps. There were three elements to research for the book: Virtual Reality, Mythology, and Conspiracy.

What sort of research did you look into while writing OTHERWORLD?.

I couldn’t do any of this without a tremendous amount of hard work from Kirsten. We then hand the manuscript back and forth until we have created a funky masterpiece. We essentially create a really detailed outline then Kirsten takes a run at our first draft. Our weird tastes overlap, and we feed off each other in fantastic and unexpected ways. I brought a rough idea of Otherworld to Kirsten, and then she brought a whole world of life, depth, and specificity to it. As we’ve progressed, the dynamic has really evolved. I know scripts, and Kirsten knows books, so it was really a match made in heaven for me. The first Nightmares! book was a very particular situation in that we were adapting an existing script. If The Matrix and the Lord of the Rings went to their high school reunion and had a one-night stand, Otherworld would be their illegitimate child. I told her the idea, and our adventure began. I drew up a very rough outline and called Kirsten. That’s sort of where it all began for me. Then I thought, People will never want to leave. I imagined how extraordinary it would be to have that sort of experience in a truly immersive way. I had been a big fan of a game called Myst when I was a kid-it’s a computer environment that you get to wander around, explore, and solve puzzles in. My first thought was: This is going to change everything. The idea for Otherworld came after I first demoed the Oculus Rift at Sundance a few years ago.

Describe where the idea for OTHERWORLD came from, and how your writing process works?.

Jason segel and kirsten miller