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Exclusive Interview: “Before The Chop III” Writer Henry Rollins

 

For the last six years, Henry Rollins has been writing a weekly column for the L.A. Weekly in which he talks about whatever he wants. Well, mostly. Since newspapers, even free alternative weeklies, have a limited amount of space, and editors, his columns have always been, well, edited.

But for those of us who like our Rollins uncut, there’s his Before The Chop books, in which he presents the original versions of his L.A. Weekly columns.

Having just released Before The Chop III: LA Weekly Articles 2014-2016 (signed paperbacks, digital), I spoke with him about what he wrote in these columns, how being edited by someone else has impacted his writing (or not, as the case may be), and what we can next expect from him and his publishing house.

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Exclusive Interview: Halo Envoy Author Tobias S Buckell

Like books based on movies, TV shows, and other games, the novels based on the Halo games do their best to feel like they fit in with the shooters that inspired them. But with his new novel Halo Envoy (trade paperback, mass market paperback, digital) — in which a civil war between the Sangheili threatens the peace on a world where they and human colonists are trying to make a new life for themselves — writer Tobias S Buckell has actually come up with a story that doesn’t just compliment the Halo games, it could work as a game as well.

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Exclusive Interview: The Last Train Author Michael Pronko

While noir crime novels are a distinctly American art form, it’s one that’s practiced by writers all over the world. Sweden gave us Henning Mankell (Faceless Killers), Matz (The Killer Omnibus Volume 1) hails from France, while Japan’s Hideo Yokoyama recently made an impressive first impression with Six Four. But writer Michael Pronko is a little different. While the writer of The Last Train (paperback, digital) was born in Kansan City, he’s lived in Tokyo for the last twenty years, working as both a writer and a professor of American Literature at Meiji Gakuin University. All of which informed his own take on the noir crime novel.

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Exclusive Interview: Transformation Author James Gunn

 

How’s this for credentials: sci-fi writer James Gunn was inducted into the Science Fiction And Fantasy Hall Of Fame in 2015, made a Grand Master by The Science Fiction And Fantasy Writers Of America in 2007, and won the Hugo Award for Best Non-Fiction Book for his 1982 biography Isaac Asimov: The Foundations Of Science Fiction. With his new novel, Transformation, just released in hardcover and digital — thus concluding the saga he started with 2013’s Transcendental and continued with 2016’s Transgalactic — I spoke to this iconic science fiction writer about how this trilogy came together, how it relates to his impressive body of work, and that other James Gunn running around these days.

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Exclusive Interview: Soleri Author Michael Johnston

 

In the fantasy realm, it seems like most novels are set in medieval Europe-esque place (J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings), savage times (Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories), or the modern era (J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter). But for his new fantasy novel Soleri (hardcover, digital), writer Michael Johnston has chosen a different setting: Ancient Egypt. Though it talking to Johnston about this book, and the untitled series it begins, it seems he’d prefer Soleri not end up like Tolkien’s, Howard’s, or Rowling’s books as well.

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Exclusive Interview: “Japanese Notebooks” Author, Artist Igort

 

Though he’s been writing and drawing graphic novels for forty years, Italian author and artist Igort has only had a couple of his books published in the U.S. Which is a real shame because he’s clearly a unique talent, both literally and visually. In honor of his book Japanese Notebooks: A Journey To The Empire Of Signs (digital) being released here in the colonies, I spoke to him about how it came together, his plans for a cinematic adaptation, and why you won’t see his name in the credits of a Spider-Man comic anytime soon.

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Exclusive Interview: Kangaroo Too Author Curtis C Chen

007. Black Widow. Duchess. Secret agents always have the best nicknames. And Kangaroo, the hero of Curtis C Chen’s sci-fi spy novels, is no exception. Well, unless you don’t think marsupials can be sneaky bastards, that is. Though in talking to Chen about his new novel, Kangaroo Too (hardcover, digital) — the second in a series that started with 2016’s Waypoint Kangaroo — he revealed, among other things, that you might want to stick with calling his hero by his code name.

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Exclusive Interview: Mapping The Interior Author Stephen Graham Jones

 

The stereotype of college English professors who write books is that they only ever write academic tomes or equally intellectual fiction. But University of Colorado English professor Stephen Graham Jones is anything but typical, as his new novella Mapping The Interior (paperback, digital) is firmly in the horror genre. Though as he reveals in the following interview, so is his syllabus.

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Exclusive Interview: Slaves Of The Switchboard Of Doom Author Bradley W Schenck

When we think about flying cars, robot sidekicks, and heroes wearing bubble-like helmets, we typically think of the 1950s. But while all of those elements play a part in Bradley W. Schenck’s humorous new sci-fi novel Slaves Of The Switchboard Of Doom (hardcover, digital), in talking to him about it, he said it wasn’t the ’50s that were his inspiration, but an earlier time instead.