William Shakespeare once wrote, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” But not every player has everyone’s best interest at heart.
Originally released in 1993, Kathe Koja’s queer, body horror / weird fiction novel Skin is less a story and more a performance. Or so she explains in the following email interview about the new version of Skin, which Meerkat Press are rereleasing in paperback.
While it may sound like it mixes elements of science fiction and fantasy, author Khan Wong says his multi-timeline novel Down In The Sea Of Angels (paperback, Kindle, audiobook) is more of a “speculative / literary cross-over.”
Which may explain why, in the following email interview about it, he cites such disparate influences as David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas and the X-Men comics of Jonathan Hickman.
Genre can be a tricky thing. Some people embrace it, others feel shackled by it. And still others don’t give a crap.
And then you have someone like author West Ambrose, who, in the following email interview about his new novel The Last Boy On Earth (paperback, Kindle), seemed to work through it before ultimately saying, “Let’s call it…without any limitations; Cosmic Love.”
For nearly 25 years British science fiction author Neal Asher has written stories set in a fictional universe he calls Polity.
But while his newest installment Dark Diamond (paperback, Kindle) is the 21st installment of this series, in the following email interview — in which he also discusses what inspired and influenced this new novel — he explains why this story may serve as a good entry point for this sci-fi saga.
As we all know, Death has lived a long and rewarding life. When not performing their duties as The Grim Reaper, they’ve taken a trip down the Nile, made a number of wishes of varying degrees of quality, and even gone on holiday.
But in Marc Watson’s comedic fantasy novella Death At A Wedding (paperback, Kindle) — the sequel to his 2017 novella Death Dresses Poorly — the embodiment of life always ending has to navigate an awkward social situation: being a guest at a loved one’s wedding.
In the following email interview, Watson talks about what inspired and influenced this urban fantasy / dark romantic comedy novella.
Watch enough episodes of Behind The Music and you quickly learn that terrible things can happen when a band goes on tour.
But I must’ve missed the episode in which a band’s tour go awry because of creatures from Irish folklore.
In the following email interview, author and rock journalist Randee Dawn talks about The Only Song Worth Singing (paperback, Kindle), in which an Irish band bring some unruly guests with them on their first U.S. tour.
Having previously written four novels about characters from Marvel Comics, author Tristan Palmgren is now turning their attention to one from a different fictional universe: the science fiction space opera board game Twilight Imperium.
In the following email interview, Palmgren talks about what inspired and influenced the sci-fi space opera spy novel Twilight Imperium: Voice Of One (paperback, Kindle).
There are people who are convinced that we’re all living in a computer simulation. And others who just wish it was true because they’d like to leave now, please.
But in Daryl Gregory humorous cyberpunk science fiction novel When We Were Real (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), people know they live in a computer simulation…and not a good one, either. Which is why two friends are taking a bus trip to see the glitches.
Well, that’s not the only reason.
In the following email interview, Gregory discusses what inspired and influenced this sci-fi story, including how he decided on the specifics of the sim.
In 1994, art director Paul Karasik worked with iconic author Paul Auster and comic book artist David Mazzucchelli [Batman: Year One] on a graphic novel adaptation of Auster’s 1985 noir detective mystery novel City Of Glass.
But while Glass was never a lone detective story — it was actually part of a series with 1986’s Ghosts and 1986’s The Locked Room that Auster called The New York Trilogy — graphic novels of the other two books were not to be.
That is, until now. In Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy: The Graphic Adaptation (hardcover, Kindle), fans of the titular novels not only get the original adaptation of City Of Glass, but also new graphic novels of Ghosts and The Locked Room.
In the following email interview, Karasik — who served as the art director on the collection, as well as the artist on The Locked Room — talks about how this came together, how Glass happened back in the day, and how Auster was involved in both.