He has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo to raise the money to adapt his book into what he calls a “motion novel” for the latest virtual-reality devices, such as the Oculus Rift and Sony Morpheus. He has already written a screenplay that he has sent to studios and agents in the hope of a movie adaptation, but in the meantime he’s trying something a little different. Impressively, particularly for a first-time novelist, DeSouza has successfully retained movie and related rights as part of the publishing deal. Think Transcendence, but based on actual existing Virtual Reality technologies including one called Blue Force that is already being used by the US military. The book initially explores the use of technology to hold down long-distance relationships and then, following the death of the protaganist's partner, Maya, the possibilities of using it to digitally recreate people and continue relationships using digital surrogates – or 'dirrogates' as the author christens them. His debut sci-fi novel, Memories With Maya, has been picked up by Penguin/Random House for publication in March next year following a successful self-published run on Amazon.

Not content with writing technical tomes, DeSouza has now branched out into fiction. The terminology he uses in the book has even made it into the 3D Encyclopedic Dictionary. He set up and ran twofour54 Abu Dhabi's 3D lab, his book Think in 3D has been well received in Hollywood and throughout the global film industry, and he has given workshops based on it as far afield as Estonia and Singapore. Clyde DeSouza, an author and filmmaker in Dubai, is already a well-known face on the local film and television scene, particularly for his 3D expertise.

Memories With Maya by Clyde DeSouza