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Exclusive Interview: “Countess” Author Suzan Palumbo

 

With numerous science fiction authors putting their own unique spins on classic stories — be it Rich Larson’s Ymir rewriting Beowulf or Darusha Wehm going full Shakespeare with Hamlet, Prince Of Robots — it was probably inevitable that someone would do a sci-fi version of Alexandre Dumas’ The Count Of Monte Cristo.

But while that’s kind of what Suzan Palumbo is doing with her sci-fi space opera novella Countess (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), as she explains in the following email interview about it, “…Countess has its own unique concerns.”

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Exclusive Interview: “The Last Shield” Author Cameron Johnston

 

In the following email interview, author Cameron Johnston says his new novel The Last Shield (paperback, Kindle, audiobook) is a “gender-flipped Die Hard.”

But while that might conjure images of Zendaya or Sydney Sweeny or some other actress of the moment crawling through a skyscraper’s air vents, Johnston says Shield actually takes place in a “mysterious castle” and is a “heroic fantasy [story], with shadings of grimdark thrown in.”

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Exclusive Interview: “Fears: Tales Of Psychological Horror” Editor Ellen Datlow

 

As she says in the following email interview, Ellen Datlow has edited the annual anthology series The Best Horror Of The Year, “…(in one form or another) for 37 years.”

But in that same time, she’s also assembled collections of horror short stories around a theme or type of scare, including Body Shocks: Extreme Tales Of Body Horror, Screams From The Dark: 29 Tales Of Monsters And The Monstrous, and When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired By Shirley Jackson.

Which brings me to her latest thematic anthology, Fears: Tales Of Psychological Horror (paperback, Kindle), which has stories by Joyce Carol Oates, Josh Malerman, Stephen Graham Jones, Priya Sharma, Margo Lanagan, and others.

In the following email interview, Datlow talks about how she defined the term “psychological horror” for this anthology, as well as how she chose the stories to include in it.

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Exclusive Interview: “Sunbathers” Author Lindz McLeod

 

There’s no end to the variety when it comes to vampires. Some are horrific, some are comedic; some are sexy and some are sparkly; still others are suave while others are feral.

But they usually share one common trait: an aversion to the sun.

Usually.

In Lindz McLeod’s new erotic horror novella Sunbathers (paperback, Kindle), she gives us vampires who thrive in the sun, while humans are forced to live underground, away from the light.

In the following email interview, McLeod discusses what inspired and influenced this story, how sexy and scary it gets, and how it connects to her short story of the same name.

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Exclusive Interview: “Mountain Of Fire” Author Jason Cordova

 

While writer John Ringo may have started the Black Tide Rising series of zombie novels and stories, he’s often handed over the reins to other writers.

In the following email interview, author Jason Cordova talks about how he came to write the new Black Tide Rising novel Mountain Of Fire (hardcover, Kindle), as well as what inspired and influenced this horror story.

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Exclusive Interview: “All Hallows” Author Christopher Golden

 

As someone who was a little kid in the ’70s, and not the ’00s or the ’20s, some of my fondest Halloween memories are going out for hours, and unsupervised.

That is, until I saw the movie Halloween; since then, my fondest Halloween memories are me hiding under my bed.

I suspect the same may have also happened if I had read Christopher Golden’s horror / suburban drama novel All Hallows…which would’ve been a neat trick given how it originally came out in 2023.

With All Hallows newly available in paperback (and still available in hardcover, Kindle, and audiobook), I crawled out from under my bed long enough to send Mr. Golden some questions about what inspired and influenced this scary story.

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Exclusive Interview: “Full Speed To A Crash Landing” Author Beth Revis

 

One of the cardinal rules of modern life is “Don’t engage the trolls” (followed closely by “Don’t read the comments” and “Get guac on that!”).

But for once, I’m glad someone didn’t follow that rule because — as she explains in the following email interview — it’s why Beth Revis wrote her sci-fi space opera novella Full Speed To A Crash Landing (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), which is the first installment of the Chaotic Orbits series.

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Exclusive Interview: “Up The Entropic Hill” Author Mattie Bukowski

 

They say the only guarantees in life are death and taxes.

But what if the former wasn’t a problem anymore…and you still lost someone.

This is where things start for Amber, the twenty-something history professor at the center of Mattie Bukowski’s new science fiction space opera novel Up The Entropic Hill (paperback, Kindle).

In the following email interview, Bukowski discusses what inspired and influenced this story, as well as his famous namesake.

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Exclusive Interview: “Navigational Entanglements” Aliette de Bodard

 

As someone way smarter than me once said, “Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.” It’s why getting from one planet to the next can be tricky. In some science fiction stories, traversing the vastness of space takes faster-than-light travel. In others, cryogenic sleep is involved. And in still others, it takes a willingness for some people to start the journey knowing that their ancestors will finish it.

Then there’s Aliette de Bodard’s science fiction space opera novella Navigational Entanglements (hardcover, Kindle), in which traveling through space involves eldritch monsters and…y’know, we’ll just let her explain it in the following email interview, as what as everything else you need to know about this character-focused sci-fi story.

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