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Exclusive Interview: “Cascade Failure” Author L.M. Sagas

 

You can’t turn on the news these days without hearing about some company doing something terrible, and getting away with it.

And by “these days” I mean the last fifty years (and maybe more, I’ve only been paying attention for my whole life).

But while there’s corporate malfeasance at play in writer L.M. Sagas’ new sci-fi space opera novel Cascade Failure (paperback, Kindle, audiobook) — which is the first of two in her series, Ambit’s Run — in the following email interview about Failure, she says she’s also “…trying to inject a little, I don’t know, optimism back into it.”

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Exclusive Interview: “The Inhumans And Other Stories” Editor / Translator Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay

 

When we think about science fiction, we often think of the future.

But there’s a lot of sci-fi in the past as well. And not all of it as well known as those we think of as the achitects of the form: Asimov, Wells, Verne, Clarke, and so on.

MIT Press’ Radium Age series is now exploring that past by publishing what they call “proto–science fiction stories from the underappreciated era between 1900 and 1935.”

In the newest installment, The Inhumans And Other Stories: A Selection of Bengali Science Fiction (paperback, Kindle), we get to appreciate the era courtesy of Hemendra Kumar Roy’s titular 1935 novella, as well as through three short stories by Jagadananda Ray (from 1895), Nanigopal Majumdar (1931), and Manoranjan Bhattacharya (also 1931).

In the following email interview, The Inhumans And Other Stories editor / translator Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay — an Associate Professor in Global Culture Studies at the University of Oslo, and the producer of Kalpavigyan: A Speculative Journey, a documentary on Indian science fiction — talks about how this collection came together, as well as the significance of these stories.

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Books

Exclusive Interview: “Toxxic” Author Jane Hennigan

 

In 2021, writer Jane Hennigan caused quite a stir with her self-published dystopian post-apocalyptic science fiction mystery novel Moths, which was later picked up by Angry Robot.

Now she has a companion novel in Toxxic (paperback, Kindle), which further explores a world in which good men are in short supply.

In the following email interview, Hennigan discusses how these two books work together, as well as what inspired and influenced this second installment.

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Books

Exclusive Interview: “Interstellar Medic: The Long Run” Author Patrick Chiles

 

Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching a lot of that show 9-1-1 lately, but I find myself appreciating EMTs even more than usual…and I’ve always appreciated them a lot.

It’s also why I’m excited for Patrick Chile’s medicinal science fiction space opera novel Interstellar Medic: The Long Run (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), in which an EMT becomes an E.T. EMT.

In the following email interview, Chiles discusses what gave him the idea for this story, as well as his plans for a companion novel…and maybe more.

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Books

Exclusive Interview: “RJ The Astronaut” Author Jon Turney

 

In his science fiction novel RJ The Astronaut (paperback, Kindle), writer Jon Turney has a stranded astronaut having a conversation with what may or may not be God.

But as Turney says in the following email interview, RJ The Astronaut is not a faith-based sci-fi story, but a sci-fi story about faith…and why that’s a distinction with a difference.

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Books Video Games

Exclusive Interview: “Halo: Epitaph” Author Kelly Gay

 

With four previous novels based on the Halo games under her belt, it’s not surprising that writer Kelly Gay’s newest, Halo: Epitaph (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), would connect to the other novels she’s written about the titular sci-fi shooter series.

But as she explains in the following email interview, this installment is actually more connected to someone else’s Halo novels than her own.

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Books

Exclusive Interview: “Exit Black” Author Joe Pitkin

 

Back in the ’90s, there were a string of action films that could be described as “Die Hard on a….” There was “Die Hard on a bus” (Speed), “Die Hard on a boat” (Under Siege), and even “Die Hard on a famous plane not a lot get to go on” (Airforce One).

But Joe Pitkin’s new sci-fi thriller novel Exit Black (paperback, Kindle, audiobook) is one upping them all — well, with the movie references, anyway — by being “Die Hard on a space hotel…with Knives Out.”

To find out how, and why, as well as the who, what, and a more specific where, check out the following email interview.

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Exclusive Interview: “Zombicide Invader: Death System” Author S.A. Sidor

 

Don’t you hate it when you’re wrongly convicted and sent to space prison, only to have your escape plans altered by zombies?

While this has happened to most of us, it can still be interesting to read how other people handled this predicament.

Which brings me to author S.A. Sidor, who, in the following email interview about his new zombie-infested space prison novel Zombicide Invader: Death System (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), explains what inspired and influenced this sci-fi horror story, as well as how it connects to both the titular board game and the other novels its inspired.

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Books

Exclusive Interview: “Stations Of The Tide” Author Michael Swanwick

 

To hear writer Michael Swanwick talk about his fantasy-flavored science fiction novel Stations Of The Tide, you’d think he wrote it last week and then rushed it into bookstores.

But Stations Of The Tide actually came out in 1990, when it was first serialized in Asimov’s Science Fiction, and then released in hardcover a year later.

It’s because of its continued relevance — and its contunuing popularity — that Tor have decided to release a new version of Stations Of The Tide as part of their “Tor Essentials” series (paperback, Kindle, audiobook).

In the following email interview, Swanwick talks about what originally inspired and influenced this novel, as well as how it fit into his oeuvre.