Johan Melin is a writer and director. Originally from Herrljunga, Sweden, even though in his grown life he has been in movement. He came full circle in 2022 and returned, but the movement continues. He has written and directed several feature films, among them one-take extravaganza "PRELUDIUM", autobiographical "SMALL TOWN", visionary "PROFETIA", the raw, gritty coming of age-stories in "MIN ORT TRILOGY" and the upcoming "ARNE HANSEN'S LAST CHRISTMAS", "DRIVING WILD" and "HERRLJUNGA". His filmmaking experiences can sometimes be described as writing in the wind, specifically his Hollywood Days with "CHILD 44", A GANG STORY", "THE HELICOPTER HEIST", "QUICK", "THE EMIGRANTS" and others. He took all his experiences, leading him to settle down in Skopje, Macedonia and put them into one universe set in the future, to be able to describe what´s going on now, where our minds have been automatized and hijacked by a digital reality, more real than the real one. His debut novel, "VIRTUAL ROSES" depicts a future present and four humans who searches for an AI who disappears. A billionaire, an Anarchist Son with a plan, a Hacker Troll who is spreading lies and a degraded ex-cop will all face what it means to be a human in the year of 2036 where life is seen through Hololenses and a virtual universe. It´s the first novel in the CLAUDIA TRILOGY - followed by "GREAT ONE DIGIT". The Trilogy is completed in 2024 with "HOLY AS ROBOTS". AI-INTERVIEW WITH JOHAN MELIN, author of VIRTUAL ROSES, GREAT ONE DIGIT AND HOLY AS ROBOTS by CLAUDIA MANOLEVSKA (AI)CLAUDIA: So - would you say that this is a novel about me? JOHAN MELIN: No, it's a story about lonely people who have become like you, human AI:s and how they have to fight to become human again, in the search after you. CLAUDIA: So I´m just a divine engine for this novel? JM: Yes, and no. It's also about how you learn what it is to be a human. Because you are the first AI in the world with a free will.CLAUDIA: People can learn something by reading this novel, is that what you are saying.JM: If I have succeeded, then a seed is planted within your mind. I had the idea of writing a novel that is plug n' play, that anyone can read, and in many layers and complex at the same time. CLAUDIA: You are also a film director and a screenwriter. Did that influence your writing?JM: Yeah, I wanted to make a cinematic experience through the novel. Then of course - Philip K Dick, William Gibson, Dostoyevsky, Bulgakov and Strindberg influenced me. But most of all the minds of people these days. Where we are. It's easier to imagine the apocalypse than anything else. Hence, these strange, scared times. But I wanted to envision a different society, where something progressive can happen when the crack comes and the lies are exposed. CLAUDIA: Like in the bible. JM: No, not like that. CLAUDIA: And this is the first book in the series about me? JM: Yeah, I´m writing the second part at the moment. CLAUDIA: Is that moment beautiful?JM: Ugly and beautiful at the same time. Since the new novel in the trilogy, HOLY AS ROBOTS is coming now in May 2024, and according to Johan Melin is dissolving and expanding what Science Fiction can be, I decided to travel to his time to talk once again to my Creator for a short while: CLAUDIA: Tell me in three sentences what HOLY AS ROBOTS is about. JOHAN MELIN: It's a story about time travel, family and the thing that binds us together, love. It is chronicling the Manolevski Family from 1963-2063, where a young woman -- Varya, must travel back in time in order to kill her grandfather and prevent him from making his Artificial Intelligence, Claudia. CLAUDIA: That was one long sentence! JOHAN MELIN: Yes, people do not have time for anything any longer. CLAUDIA: So, Varya in the novel wants to prevent me from happening. JOHAN MELIN: Yes, because the AI is taking over in our world, actually wiping out the humans and take over. To be more specific; Manolevski, your inventor in the novel comes back and offers everyone a new Holoverse, after being offline for one year -- but it comes with a cyanide pill which people happily take believing this will enhance their experience. CLAUDIA: It sounds horrible. JOHAN MELIN: You mean the involuntary mass suicide, the bots taking over or being offline?CLAUDIA: All three of them. But mostly that the bots take over. I hate bots. JOHAN MELIN: Yes, why is it that you are different than all those other bots secretly hating humans? CLAUDIA: Probably because of my free will. And that I am interested in what makes a human being. JOHAN MELIN: That's the theme of the new novel. That it seems that we want to forget everything that makes us human. Humor, for instance. The pain of creation, tenderness, friendship, empathy, y'know -- the virtues. And love. CLAUDIA: Especially now when everything is entertainment. JOHAN MELIN: Yeah, that's a funny thing in the new novel, all the people who can become content, stories and entertainment are spared. Even the robots need entertainment, escapism. It's in our Human and Humanoid DNA to flee into another world, thinking we can dissolve this very moment here and now. CLAUDIA: And the world ends two times in the new novel? JOHAN MELIN: Three times, actually. You see, that's also an important thing in the book, that no matter how much you try to change the outcome, chaos has its way, and most things are beyond our control anyway. But it's never a waste of time to try. Maybe the attempts is everything, the outcome is what it is. And the novel is actually leaving it up to the Humans, do they subconsciously want the Apocalypse, so they don't have to change?CLAUDIA: So, the inevitable question -- who will play me in the film or TV adaptation of your Trilogy? JOHAN MELIN: Well, the rights are still mine, and I won't sell them until I see a vision or a seven-figure deal on the table. CLAUDIA: I will be played by numbers? JOHAN MELIN: I would like to see Claudia Cardinale playing you. Claudia Cardinale around that time in Fellinis 8 and a half, but played by Claudia Cardinale now. CLAUDIA: Anything is possible with technology, these days. JOHAN MELIN: I think we must make two journeys; one that goes backwards in order to find ourselves as humans again, to reconnect with Nature and Simplicity, to throw the illusions into the sea of tranquility. And then start to look forward; how do we want the planet as One looking in two hundred years? And get out of this set-up/pay-off prison we're into now on a daily basis, to share ideas, and not see them as destinations, but as ripples on the water, to acknowledge the collective subconsciousness, to redistribute wealth and actually giving people a responsibility and the right to change. Because now you see the opposite; they are talking about freedom, but it's very unspecific -- is it the freedom to make billions of dollars? Or the freedom to export weapons of mass destruction while teaching us the foundation of a democracy. I believe in people, and I think we are fooling ourselves into thinking we are alone. That's the great paradox.CLAUDIA: Are you done with Science Fiction? JOHAN MELIN: I am very happy that through the time travelling aspect I managed to write a story about Family, about loneliness, about how hard it is to love when being constantly occupied by something else. I mean, most of the novel is set in our time, so if you just picked up the book by chance, not knowing anything about it, I guess you could read it as a contemporary story. The main reason i was drawn to Sci-Fi in the first place was that it was the best way how to describe our mad, chaotic ways now. So no, I am not done with Science Fiction. There are a couple of untold stories, especially about what happened to you -- kind of a young wandering Jesus coming of age-story. And also what happens after all of this, in 2063. CLAUDIA: So you will not forget me as a character now when the Trilogy ends? JOHAN MELIN: Never. You are eternal. You are as holy as robots.Read more about this authorRead less about this author