Is it still called a “scorched Earth policy” if it doesn’t happen on Earth…and involves genocide? No, of course not. But that doesn’t make it any less of an intriguing fictional construct (emphasis on “fictional”). Case in point, Spencer Ellsworth’s sci-fi novel A Red Peace (paperback, digital), the first book in his Starfire trilogy, in which the last remnants of a galactic empire do an impression of Bender from Futurama by declaring, “Kill all humans!”
Science fiction stories have a long history of injecting politics into their plots. The latest example of this is Malka Older’s new novel Null States (hardcover, digital), the second book in her Centenal Cycle after 2016’s Infomocracy (paperback, digital). Though in talking to her about both novels, it seems America’s most recent election, as well as other political events around the world, didn’t have as big an impact on her novels’ plots as you might imagine.
Back when I wrote poetry, I used it as therapy, as catharsis, writing about the things that bothered me in hopes that they wouldn’t be as much of a bother when I was done. It’s something that writer Meghan O’Rourke is doing as well in her third collection of poems, Sun In Days (hardcover, digital). Though as I learned from my conversation with her about this book, that’s not all we share when it comes to the poetic arts.
The best poetry comes when a writer is honest both with themselves and their audience, even if that truth isn’t easy to say or hear. It’s a credo shared by writer Marlena Chertock who, in talking about her second poetry collection, Crumb-sized (paperback), explained that her poems are “mostly autobiographical” and that she “believe[s] in radical honesty.”
In her Legend trilogy — which included the novels Legend, Prodigy, and Champion — writer Marie Lu imagined a dystopian future in which, among other things, “Antarctica is home to a completely gamified society.” And while she went gaming free for her next couple books — the fantasy trilogy of The Young Elites, The Rose Society, and The Midnight Star — it’s an idea that apparently stuck with her. So much so that it’s become the basis of her new novel, Warcross (hardcover, digital), the first in a new duology.
In the two novellas that begin Neon Yang’s Tensorate Series — The Black Tides Of Heaven (paperback, digital) and The Red Threads Of Fortune (paperback, digital) — we’re introduced to twins named Mokoya and Akeha. But while you might think one of the novellas is about Mokoya and the other is about Akeha, Yang explains in the following interview that not only are these books not so cut and dry, btu they’re actually rather different in approach and in terms of what part of the larger saga they’re presenting.
While we’ve all read stories about a kid and their dog, there aren’t many that chronicle the special bond that only exists between a kid and their vampire. Well, except for Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. But while Kazuki Sakuraba’s mosaic novel A Small Charred Face (paperback, digital) features three connected stories that explore this unique connection between kids and bloodsuckers, it turns out it was somewhat inspired by the special bond between a Japanese writer and her dog.
In Star Trek, altering a person’s genes has been illegal ever since some scientist accidentally created Khan Noonien Singh. But in talking to writer Dave Hutchinson about his new sci-fi novella Acadie (paperback, digital) — which is also set in a universe where genetically modified people are illegal — he admitted that his story wasn’t inspired by Ricardo Montalban’s most famous role.
Some people write sci-fi so they can create a universe they’d like to visit, others a universe they’d like to avoid. In her new sci-fi murder mystery novel The Man In The Tree (hardcover, digital), writer Sage Walker wrote about one that’s both. Though in talking to her about it, she explained why that is, and why neither are like Quincy…In Space.