Like many authors, the husband and wife writing team of Sharon Lee and Steve Miller have often let the story dictate itself, let it and its character decide where to go. Which is how we got their newest one, Salvage Right (hardcover, Kindle), the latest in their ongoing sci-fi space opera series, Liaden Universe®. In the following email interview, Lee and Miller discuss what inspired this new novel, as well as how it willed itself into existence.
Writer Mo Moshaty isn’t the first person to write about sin, and she won’t be the last. But her collection of sin-related short stories, Love The Sin (paperback, Kindle), does have the distinction of being the first one (as far as I can tell) to collect stories of psychological horror written by a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist. In the following email interview, Moshaty discusses what inspired and influenced this collection.
Some scientists believe that, at some point in the future, humans will be able to use technology to become immortal. It’s an event often referred to as The Singularity. But while some consider The Singularity to be a positive step in human evolution, and others think it will lead to a dystopia, in his new novel After Death (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), writer Dean Koontz presents a version that’s neither entirely good nor entirely bad. In the following email interview, Koontz explains what inspired this thriller, and why it’s neither a cautionary tale nor a hope for the future.
Fifty-six years ago, a young Mexican American man named Raúl Herrera found himself on a Swift Boat during the Vietnam War. It’s an experience that’s stayed with him all these years, and one he’s now exploring, publicly, with his new memoir Capturing Skunk Alpha: A Barrio Sailor’s Journey In Vietnam (paperback, Kindle). In the following email interview, Herrera discusses why he wanted to tell this story, as well as why it took him so long.
Sometimes it feels like it’s the end of the world as we know it, and no one feels fine. But while the apocalyptic feeling hanging in the air over us may get oppressive, people still like reading — and seeing, and playing… — stories about the world coming undone. Which is where we find the stories in the new anthology, The First Five Minutes Of The Apocalypse (hardcover, paperback, Kindle); not in the laboratories or halls of government where they started the endtimes, or are trying to stop it, but on the ground, among the people whose lives are directly effected by the impending end. In the following email interview, First Five Minutes editor Brandon Applegate discusses how this short story anthology came together, and why he concentrated on the small side of the big end.
What was it that Michael Corleone said in The Godfather, Part III? “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”
It’s a sentiment that Emiko Soong can relate to in Ebony Gate (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), a new urban fantasy novel by writers Julia Vee and Ken Bebelle.
To find out what Emiko was out of, and is now back in, and why — and, y’know, what inspired and influenced this story — check out the following email interview with Julia and Ken.
Sometimes it seems like every fantasy novel is set in modern times, the renaissance, or medieval times, and in places that resemble America or Europe. But in his new historical fantasy novel The Judas Blossom (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), the first book in a trilogy called The Nightingale And The Falcon, writer Stephen Aryan is telling an adventure set in the relatively unexplored realm of 13th century Persia. In the following email interview, Aryan discusses why he set it then, and there, and what else inspired and influenced this story.
Like a lot of people, Kemi Ashing-Giwa picked up a new habit during the pandemic: drinking tea. But unlike people who took up baking bread or working out or playing Animal Crossing, Ashing-Giwa translated her newfound love into a novel, a sci-fi space opera story called The Splinter In The Sky (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook) that — in the following email interview — she calls a, “spy thriller in space.”