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.”
Photo Provided By L.M. Sagas
To begin, what is Cascade Failure about, and when and where is this story set?
Cascade Failure is set in a far-future version of our own little corner of the universe, where humankind has expanded across dozens of new planets (and moons, and asteroids, and pretty much anything else they can stick a terraformer on) and everything’s governed by two conflicting-but-codependent political powers: the Trust, a massive corporation that’s responsible for colonizing and overseeing most of the settled worlds; and the Union, which supplies and protects the laborers that keep the colonies running. Between them, you’ve got the Guild, a bunch of contract marshals sworn to keep both sides playing fair — or to try, anyway.
That’s where the Ambit crew comes in. You’ve got Eoan, the intensely empathetic (and even more intensely curious) A.I. captain; Saint, the grumpy second-in-command; Nash, the medic / mechanic with the bedside manner of a pit viper; and Jal, a former Guild member (and ex-battle buddy of Saint) accused of desertion, who’s being taken back to Guild leadership for court martial.
They get sidetracked, though, when they get a distress call that leads them to a colony full of corpses. Something’s devastated the planet’s terraforming system, and the only clue to what happened is the intrepid (but hilariously under-qualified) programmer they find investigating the remains. She’s got a theory about what happened: that it was essentially a computer virus that wiped out the world. But in order to help her test that theory, find the ones responsible, and hopefully stop the same thing from happening to other planets, the five of them are gonna have to square off with the Trust — and what feels like half the universe, besides — and do their level best not to die in the process.
Where did you get the idea for Cascade Failure? What inspired it?
It was definitely a combination of things. This was right around the time that we were seeing that big push of corporations and private citizens heading into space and talking about the best ways to colonize Mars, and I’d just finished a class on white-collar crime where we’d spent a whole semester looking at all the ways companies have done wrong by people and kind of gotten away with it: company towns, oil spills, cataclysmic product defects, etc. And I just remember thinking: is that what we’re talking about, here? Is that what the future of space really looks like?
And Cascade Failure was an extension of that question, but it was also my way of trying to inject a little, I don’t know, optimism back into it. For myself, and maybe for other people. Because even in those awful stories we read about in that class, there was always somebody or somebodies out there trying to make things right, even when the odds were against them.
It sounds like Cascade Failure is a sci-fi space opera story, but one that has a little horror seasoning…
I’d call it a sci-fi adventure that dips its toes into both ends of the genre pool: a little bit of cozy, because it’s got these really soft, comfy character moments threaded through all the action; and a little bit of horror / thriller, because what’s happening on these worlds is truly terrible and terrifying (like eerie, neck-prickling walks through planetary graveyards), and they have to square themselves up and march straight through all the awful with pretty much just themselves to fall back on.
It also apparently has “…the sweet, tangy snark of Murderbot,” if the blurb by Chris Panatier [Stringers] is to be believed. Why did you think this story needed some sharp but subtle and situational humor?
I mean, I think most things are better with a little bit of humor. That’s kind of just me.
But in the particular case of Cascade Failure, it was about a couple things: showing how familiar and affectionate these characters are with each other (in their own, rough-and-ready way); and also just having fun. The story deals with some heavy subjects, and these characters are working through some heavy things, both personally and in the grander sense of the plot. So not only did I want the characters to have some way of surviving that — a way to stretch on a grin and say, screw it, we’ve got this — but I also wanted the readers to be able have that feeling, too.
So, who do you see as being the big influences on the snarky humor in Cascade Failure?
Gonna give the cheesy answer first and say my family, because honestly, we’re pretty relentless. When we’re all together, we can’t go five minutes without someone cracking a joke (and the badder, the better).
And I guess the less cheesy answer is that I love that kind of thing in media. The gutsy protagonist who’s under the gun and in over their head and still finds the nerve to mouth off? That’s the one I’m rooting for. Which means I tend to read and watch a lot of those kinds of protagonists, and I guess if snark’s not genetic (sorry, Dad), then maybe there’s such a thing as snarky-by-osmosis.
And then what writers, or stories, had a big influence on Cascade Failure?
There are so many names and titles I could put here, but if I had to pick a few, I think I’d go with the fundamentals — the ones that I read so much so early that I think they’re just kind of woven into the way I write, even if the stories themselves don’t draw a lot of parallels.
In high school, I read Jim Butcher ’til the pages started falling out; and then found my way into Simon R. Green and Mike Carey’s respective catalogs. I love most kinds of writing, but I’ve got a soft spot for voice-y, straightforward prose that really makes you feel like you’re riding along in the POV character’s head, and I like to think some of that has bled into my own style.
What how about such non-literary influences as movies, TV shows, or games? Because in her blurb, J.S. Dewes [The Last Watch] referenced Mass Effect, Battlestar Galactica, and Killjoys.
I have to say, I was completely stoked when I read Dewes’ blurb, because those were definitely influences when I wrote Cascade Failure. I don’t know how many times I’ve restarted the Mass Effect games, and I could probably recite whole Killjoys episodes from memory. It’s the idea that you have these massive, sprawling worlds and galaxies, and this small-to-the-point-of-statistical-insignificance group of people comes along and turns the whole thing on its head. Universe needs saving? Let me grab my four buddies and a cool space ship and sort that out for you real quick. It’s awesome. And that’s definitely what you get with Cascade Failure.
Buckley Underfoot
And how about your snuggly shelter pup? How did he influence Cascade Failure?
Ah, the inimitable Buckley Underfoot (not all dogs have middle names, but trust me, he earned that one).
Apart from much-appreciated moral support, I’d say his biggest influence in Cascade Failure is the amount of dog hair I had to pick out of my proofing copies.
But actually, there are a couple Easter Eggs for my childhood pups in Cascade Failure and Gravity Lost. I think maybe four people in the whole world would notice them, but I love ’em and they’ve made it to final copies, so no take-backs. Congrats, little dudes: you’re micro-famous.
Speaking of Gravity Lost, Cascade Failure is the first book in a series called Ambit’s Run, and Gravity Lost [out July 23rd] is the second. Do these books form a duology, are they the first two books in a trilogy or a four or five book series, or is Ambit’s Run going to be an ongoing thing..?
Hah, so the remarkably illuminating answer on that one’s gonna be: we’ll have to wait and see! I do think that readers will be satisfied with where things leave off in Gravity Lost, if it ends up being a duology. But on the other hand, I love these reckless little disaster dumplings so much, and I could happily write plenty more adventures for them if things shake out that way.
The good thing about these characters and this universe is that it’s all very dynamic, so even when we close one loop, there’s about a hundred others waiting out there to be cracked open and explored.
Given what you just said about this series, some people might decide to wait until July, when Gravity Lost comes out, so they can read it and Cascade Failure back-to-back. But is there any reason why you think people shouldn’t wait?
Setting aside the whole PR / publishing / please-buy-my-books-so-I-can-write-more thing, I think the timing of the releases actually works really well for the story. The books themselves are set a few months apart, so you could read Cascade Failure when it comes out, then fast-forward a few months and read Gravity Lost when it releases, and you’d be coming back to the story at the same time (figuratively speaking) that the characters are coming back to it. I just think that’s neat.
Earlier I asked if Cascade Failure was influenced by any movies, TV shows, or games. But to flip things around, do you think Cascade Failure could work as a movie, show, or game?
I think it’d definitely work well in a visual medium. Part of that’s just the way that I write: it’s like there’s a TV screen in my head, and that seems to translate onto the page. It’s all a little cinematic.
In terms of which medium I think would be best…if I’m being greedy, I’d say any of those formats would work. That said, as a kid who grew up watching the SyFy channel before it was actually called the SyFy channel (and we walked to school uphill both ways, in the snow, with dinosaurs for company), if I had to pick, I’d say it would probably work best as a TV show. It has a good rhythm for it: crests of action and resolution with some sweet, sweet sappiness sprinkled in on top. And I do love a good TV opening sequence.
If someone wanted to adapt Cascade Failure into a SyFy show, who would you want them to cast as Jal and the other main characters, and why them?
It’s funny, because my editor and I had this conversation really early on in the process. I’m a pretty visual writer (and a terminal optimist), so I’d kind of cast them when I was writing, and she’d done the same after she read it. We varied on most of the crew (Jal included), but we agreed on Idris Elba [Thor: Love And Thunder] for Saint, no questions asked. Everybody knows Elba rocks the grump-with-a-heart-of-gold role, and that’s Saint to a T.
For Jal, the Ambit’s golden retriever in residence, my pick would be Garrett Hedlund, hands down. I saw him in Mojave a few weeks after I started sketching out this book, and it was just like, Oh, that’s him! It’s the height, the hair, the twang, for sure — but his character in Mojave had this sort of lazy caginess (which I know is contradictory, but if you read the book, I promise it works) that was just right.
I’d pick [The Matrix Resurrections‘] Jessica Henwick for Nash, because she’s had some seriously BAMF characters and played them well, and that’s what Nash is: she’s a hurricane in a bottle. A force of nature in five-and-a-half feet, and I feel like Henwick could absolutely pull that off. Plus, I think she has a background in martial arts (?) and Nash has some pretty cool fight scenes across the two books, so bonus points!
And then there’s Eoan. Eoan’s fun, because they actually change a lot about their appearance pretty regularly, and whenever they do “appear,” it’s as a light projection. That makes them a little hard to pick, but I think Indya Moore [Pose] would be a pretty awesome Eoan. They’ve got style, and anyone who’s read the book will tell you, Eoan’s got style to spare.
(I’m sticking with the four on the cover for now, but this is a lot of fun. I might try casting the others for kicks later on.)
So, is there anything else you think people need to know about Cascade Failure?
As you can probably tell from everything I’ve said so far, Cascade Failure is a lot of things. It’s adventurous, and feelsy, and irreverent, and snarky. It’s got some tear-jerker moments and some serious thoughts on where humans are headed and where we’ve already been.
But more than anything, at the end of the day, I want this book to be something that gives folks a smile. I wrote it when I needed one, and I definitely found a few of them along the way (you know, once I got through all the dog fur — thanks, Buck). So I hope when people read it, they’ll find a few smiles of their own in there, too.
Finally, if someone enjoys Cascade Failure, what sci-fi space opera novel or novella that you read recently and liked would you suggest they check out while waiting for Gravity Lost to come out?
There are a lot of really awesome books out there that I think would scratch a lot of the same itches, but I want to shout out a fellow ’24 debut author whose book actually comes out right between Cascade Failure and Gravity Lost (how’s that for timing?). Jules Arbeaux’s Lord Of The Empty Isles has some amazing found family vibes and a great mix of high stakes and sweet character moments. It will punch you in the feels, and you’ll thank her for it.
