Exclusive Interview: “Devil’s Gun” Author Cat Rambo

 

There are a lot of things mercenaries can do when they retire: start their own private military companies; train other mercenaries; ride off into the sunset…

But in Cat Rambo’s sci-fi space opera novel You Sexy Thing, some retired mercs started their own restaurant…only to still get into trouble of the mercenary kind.

Now they’re getting into even more trouble in Devil’s Gun, the second book in Rambo’s Disco Space Opera series. With that book newly released in paperback — and a third, Rumor Has It, coming September 24th — I spoke to Rambo about what inspired and influenced this second story, and this series.

For people who didn’t read You Sexy Thing, or the interview we did about it, what was that novel about, and when and where did it take place?

The novel involves a group of retired mercenaries who have established a restaurant, The Last Chance, aboard a space station. The restaurant is doing very well — but then a mysterious package arrives, things start exploding, and the crew is forced to steal an intelligent spaceship, who isn’t really sure it wants to be stolen. They fall afoul of one of their old enemies, the pirate king Tubal Last, and manage to escape his grasp, but at a very high cost.

And then for people who have read You Sexy Thing, and can thus ignore me writing SPOILER ALERT, what is Devil’s Gun about, and when does it take place in relation to Thing?

Devil’s Gun takes place just after the events of You Sexy Thing.

It sees the crew trying to find a weapon they can use against Tubal Last and running into a mysterious archaeologist who claims she knows the way to an ancient artifact called the Devil’s Gun, which they hope to use against him.

At the same time, they’re dealing with the losses from the last book, and then the aftermath of what one character does to cope with that loss.

When in relation to writing You Sexy Thing did you come up with the idea for Devil’s Gun, and what inspired this second book’s story?

The story actually came from the title. I wanted to name each book with a disco song title, and I knew I loved the song “Devil’s Gun” by C.J. & Co, and wanted to use that for the title. That led me to thinking: What was the Devil’s Gun, and why would someone want it? I do have a very loose overarching plotline for the series, so I knew some of the character changes I wanted to happen in this volume. Between those two data points, a plotline emerged.

You Sexy Thing was a sci-fi space opera story, though as you said in the interview we did about it, you think it’s also hopepunk and has a little military fantasy. Would you say the same about Devil’s Gun?

Absolutely sci-fi space opera of the same flavor: lots of found family, hope, and a bunch of nifty eyeball-kicks. Same characters, same ship, new location, which was a great recipe for Farscape, one of the inspirations for this series.

Devil’s Gun is obviously not your first novel. Are there any writers, or maybe specific stories, that had a big influence on Gun, but not on anything else you’ve written, and especially not You Sexy Thing?

I would suspect one of the influences on this one is Lois McMaster Bujold, because I’d done a massive binge re-read of the Miles Vorkosigan books, looking at character development, but there isn’t any story / writer that I specifically patterned this one after.

It’s hard to know, though, sometimes. When I wrote “Clockwork Fairies,” I wasn’t consciously thinking of James Tiptree Jr.’s “The Women Men Don’t See,” but after someone pointed it out to me, I realized that yes, of course, it was deeply engaged with that story, but I’d been wrestling with it on some level of my subconscious. It may well happen again with Devil’s Gun.

What about such non-literary influences as movies, TV shows, or games? Did any of those things have a big influence on Devil’s Gun?

Definitely Star Wars! Jezli Farren actually started as a character in a Star Wars RPG I played in, and she ended up wandering into this narrative, which is a very Jezli thing to do. So that’s a movie influence wrapped up in a game one, and definitely Star Wars has been a major part of my experience as a sci-fi writer.

Now, the reason we’re doing this interview is because Devil’s Gun is being released in paperback. Aside from typos, did you add or change anything from the original hardcover edition?

Alas, nothing changed for me to expound on.

In the You Sexy Thing interview, you said that book was the first of a ten book series. Is that still the plan?

Yep, still planning on writing seven more of these. The fourth book is plotted out, but I took a little break this year to write a stand-alone fantasy as well as the last Tabat book, Wings Of Tabat [out late 2024 or early 2025], and I’m finishing those up in the next few months.

It seems like this series is going to be 10 stand-alone but connected novels, as opposed to a 10-part series people should read all in a row like The Lord Of The Rings. Or am I wrong about that?

I love a good binge-read, and one of my aims is to produce exactly that, so they will continue to go consecutively, time-wise. I think people will get more out of them read in succession, but I’ve also tried to write them in such a way that each can stand alone, although I always try to have a beginning section that tells you what happened in preceding books.

And is Amazon right in referring to this as The Disco Space Opera series? Because in the You Sexy Thing interview, you said, “I’ve been calling the series Niko And Her Crew.”

Tor asked me to come up with something the series could be labeled with, and after some back and forth, we decided the Disco Space Opera series captured the flavor of the books.

Speaking of this series, the third book, Rumor Has It, is slated to come out September 24th. Without spoiling anything in Devil’s Gun, what happens in Rumor, and when does it take place in relation to Devil’s?

In Rumor, which takes place immediately after the events of Devil’s Gun, the crew is off to a new destination, Coralind, which has some of the most fabulous ingredients in the universe, due to its fabulous garden spaces, called Confluences, each with its own flavor and theme. While restocking and trying to get their finances back on track, Niko and the rest are still trying to figure out how to thwart the pirate king Tubal Last, but some unexpected circumstances complicate everything. And Niko’s love life seems to be getting just a bit more complicated…

You also, earlier this year, co-edited an anthology called The Reinvented Detective. We did a deep dive on that book when it came out, but for people who hate clicking links, what is that short story collection about?

The anthology, which I co-edited with Jennifer Brozek, is an anthology of short stories imagining crime and punishment in the future, both near and far. That was the second installation in our Reinvented series, following the first volume, The Reinvented Heart. I love these anthologies because we do a mix of solicited and open call fiction that always ends up having some well-established writers next to some of the rising stars.

Going back to Devil’s Gun, is there anything else you think people need to know about it or The Disco Space Opera series?

They need to know it’s intended to be fun! In today’s dreary world, I’ve tried to provide a space to escape to for a while. I love these characters — it’s why I won’t stop writing them anytime soon — and I hope people enjoy reading them as much as I do writing them. And if you spot a little Easter egg or two referencing famous sci-fi writers, well, that is definitely by design.

Finally, if someone enjoys Devil’s Gun, and they’ve already read You Sexy Thing, what sci-fi space opera novel or novella that someone else wrote would you suggest they read while waiting for Rumor Has It to come out?

I always love Ann Leckie’s space opera, and I highly recommend her recent book, Translation State, because it has one of the best and most engaging characters I’ve ever read.