In many sci-fi space operas, the way people get around isn’t as important as what they do when they get there. But that’s not true for Nancy Kress’ The Eleventh Gate (paperback, Kindle), in which the means of interplanetary travel actually drives this space tale. In the following email interview, the iconic science fiction writer discusses what inspired this new novel, as well as her new but unrelated GMO-centric science fiction novella, Sea Change (paperback, Kindle).
After years of writing non-fiction for such outlets as Artforum, e-flux journal, and uncube magazine (where she was a founding editor), writer Elvia Wilk is taking a more fictional route with her first novel, Oval (paperback, Kindle). In the following email interview, Elvia talks about the story’s inspirations, influences, and inclination to be relevant.
While so many post-apocalyptic novels are bleak and hopeless, Carrie Vaughn bucked that tradition with her (relatively) more hopeful post-apocalyptic mystery Bannerless. In the following email interview about The Wild Dead (paperback, Kindle), the second book in The Bannerless Saga, Vaughn discusses where she got the idea for this second post-apocalyptic mystery, what inspired it, and where this series may (or may not, as the case may be) be going.
With Only Human (hardcover, Kindle), writer Sylvain Neuvel is bringing to a close The Themis Files, the trilogy of epistolary sci-fi novels about giant alien robots buried beneath the Earth that he started with 2016’s Sleeping Giants and continued with 2017’s Waking Gods. But in the following email interview about this final chapter, he reveals that these books would’ve been very different if his kid had a say in their plotting.
In his comedic military sci-fi novel Terminal Alliance (hardcover, paperback, Kindle, audiobook), writer Jim C Hines introduces us to the unsung heroes of the universe: the janitors. But rather than give us an entire book about people emptying trash cans and cleaning up the mess hall, he’s instead given us an epic saga that exposes the truth about our past. Er, future. Whatever.
While it sometimes seems like people are taking the “shared universe” concept a bit far — we’re looking at you, producers of the connected G.I. Joe, Micronauts, and M.A.S.K. movies — there are some who still understand how to do it right. Take writer Seanan McGuire, whose Wayward Children series started with the main book Every Heart A Doorway, and now continues with the stand-alone prequel novel Down Among The Sticks And Bones (hardcover, digital). But in talking to McGuire about how the new novella came together, she revealed the clever way it connects, but also lets you disconnect it, from the main books in her series.
Seventeen years after was first released, Colleen Coover’s sex-positive lesbian comic Small Favors is being celebrated with Small Favors The Definitive Girly Porno Collection (hardcover), which not only includes the comics from both released volumes of Small Favors, but a previously uncollected color special and other fun stuff as well. In the following interview, Coover talks about how the comic initially came together, how this collection came to be, and why no, she’s not going to be writing any more Small Favors.