Usually when a writer cites Star Wars as a major influence, it’s because their novel is of the space opera or space fantasy genre. Or has chatty robots. But in the following email interview about Ashes of The Sun (paperback, Kindle), the first book of his Burningblade & Silvereye trilogy, writer Django Wexler is instead talking about what he calls a post-fantasy-apocalypse tale.
These are serious times. And in serious times, it’s important to take things seriously. Well, when they’re things that should be taken seriously, that is. When it’s a book about unicorns and aliens, well… In the following email interview, writer Keith Rosson seriously answers my questions about his sci-fi / cosmic horror / magically realistic novel, Road Seven (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), which has both a very serious-looking unicorn and a very serious-looking space ship right on the cover.
It’s been said that the Chinese word for “crisis” is also the word for “opportunity.” It’s not, but it’s still a nice idea. Especially if the crisis is a medical one and the opportunity is writing a series of dystopia hard sci-fi novels. In the following email interview, writer and former Army helicopter pilot L.K. Hingey discusses how being forced to medically retire led her to write Kimber (paperback, Kindle), the first book of five in The Elyrian Chronicles.
Twenty-five years ago, science fiction writer Catherine Asaro kicked off her Saga Of The Skolian Empire with the 1995 novel Primary Inversion.
But for the last six she’s been telling some mysterious tales from that fictional universe with her Major Bhaajan Mysteries series, which began with 2014’s Undercity.
In the following email interview, Asaro discusses the latest in this side series, The Vanished Seas (paperback, Kindle), while also providing background on both the Skolian series and the good major as well.
With Kill Orbit (Kindle, audiobook), writer Joel Dane is concluding the Cry Pilot military science fiction trilogy he began in 2019 with Cry Pilot and continued a few months ago with Burn Cycle.
In the following email interview, he not only explains how this third and final piece came to be, but he also offers suggestions of what you should read while waiting for his next sci-fi story.
Originally published in 2003, under the name Polvo, Yoss’ comedic sci-fi noir detective novel Red Dust (paperback, Kindle) is finally coming to the English-speaking part of the world, courtesy of Restless Books. In the following email interview — which had Spanish translation help from Jenna Tang — the Cuban-born author discusses what inspired and influenced this novel, as well as the new English language version of Miguel Collazo’s The Journey (Kindle), another classic of Cuban science fiction, for which Yoss wrote a new intro.
A few years ago, writer Jasper DeWitt posted a horror story called “The Patient Who Nearly Drove Me Out Of Medicine” on the reddit subreddit NoSleep.
But as he reveals in the following email interview, when it came time to translate that posting into the novel The Patient (paperback, hardcover, Kindle), DeWitt didn’t just cut and paste his original.
On the surface, D.J. Butler’s new novel In The Palace Of Shadow And Joy (paperback, Kindle) looks like a Conan-esque adventure story, and sounds like an epic fantasy tale. But as he explains in the following email interview about it, there’s actually a bit of science fiction in this story’s foundation.
Many ghost stories are tales that have been passed down: from older brothers to younger sisters, from fathers to sons…. And many of the Greek tragedies have shared similar trajectories: from storyteller to apprentice, from college professor to student…. Which could bode well for J. Ashley-Smith’s novelette, The Attic Tragedy (paperback, Kindle), since — as he explains in the following email interview about it — it’s a ghost story with tragic Greek roots (among other things).