When people write science fiction stories about people on the moon, they often take the “science” part seriously.
But when Nathan Ballingrud was writing his pulpy lunar gothic novella, Crypt Of The Moon Spider (paperback, Kindle), in which there’s people living on the moon, and they worship a spider that used to live there, he not only didn’t bother being scientifically accurate, he also didn’t write a science fiction story.
When someone first coined the term “final girl,” they did so in reference to how, in many horror movies, the lone survivor is often a woman.
But in Chase Gamwell’s young adult sci-fi space opera novel Aiko’s Dive (paperback, Kindle), the final girl is not just the only person to survive a massacre, she’s the last human. Anywhere. Like, in the entire galaxy.
As for why, and what happens when she tries to figure out what’s going on, I direct you to the following email interview with Gamwell, in which he discusses what inspired and influenced this story.
We all love dogs, and we all love watching videos of otters.
But a seven foot tall otter dog with a taste for human flesh…not something I’d want to see on TikTok. Or in my backyard.
In my new interview with author Sherri Cook Woosley about her urban fantasy / horror novella Mother’s Instinct (paperback, Kindle) — the latest installment of eSpec Book’s Systema Paradoxa series — she discusses why she decided to get up close and personal with the Dobhar-chu, the 7-foot-long, human eating, dog / otter hybrid from Irish folklore.
With The Dragon In Winter (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), author Jonathan Maberry is bringing his Kagen The Damned series to an end…
Well, sort of. As he explains in the following email interview, while Winter concludes this trilogy of swashbuckling fantasy novels, this is not the last adventure for Kagen Vale.
A lot of people like making scrapbooks for other people.
But in her mystery thriller novel Scrap (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), author and artist Calla Henkel puts someone in the unique position of making a scrapbook for someone who turns up dead, and the scrapable items may be key to solving the mystery.
In the following email interview, Henkel discusses what inspired and influenced this story, including how making a scrap book for someone else in real life led to her writing this story.
When we talk about iconic cyberpunk stories, we usually mention Blade Runner, The Matrix, and the novels of William Gibson, Philip K. Dick, and Neal Stephenson.
But we should also talk about Cameron Reed’s The Fortunate Fall, which took what Gibson et al. did and took the genre in a unique direction.
And maybe now we will, since Tor Books are releasing A Tor Essentials version of The Fortunate Fall (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), which augments the 1996 novel with a new intro by sci-fi writer Jo Walton [Tooth And Claw].
In the following email interview, Reed discusses what originally influenced this story, as well as why the main character has an implanted camera as opposed to just some snazzy video glasses.
Be it the Marvel movies, Rick & Morty, or Star Trek, a lot of recent stories involving the multiverse have people visiting different versions of their world, complete with variants of their friends and coworkers.
But in Brenda Peynado’s new novella Time’s Agent (paperback, Kindle), she takes a different approach by having this science fiction story be about pocket universes.
In the following email interview, Peynado discusses what inspired and influenced this sci-fi story.
Science fiction is often about looking to the future, and this is especially true about sci-fi space opera stories.
So it’s not surprising that a sci-fi space opera short story anthology called New Adventures In Space Opera (paperback, Kindle) would also be forward looking. As editor Jonathan Strahan explains in the following email interview, “I edited two books [of space opera stories] with my good friend Gardner Dozois toward the end of the 2000s. … I wanted to put together a book that looked at what came next.”
We all do what we must to survive.
And in Alexandra Beaumont’s folkloric / historical fantasy novel Dissonance Of Bird Song (paperback, Kindle), what the people must do is inhale an enchanted mist from the lungs of birds.
(You can insert your own Affordable Care Act joke here.)
In the following email interview, Beaumont discusses what inspired and influenced this story, including why the mist comes from birds as opposed to some other musically-inclined animal.