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.
In his Magicians trilogy, writer Lev Grossman put his own spin on the portal fantasy genre.
And now, with his new epic fantasy novel The Bright Sword (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), Grossman is doing the same — albeit in a very different way — to the legends of King Arthur and the Knights Of The Round Table.
In the following email interview, Grossman discusses what inspired and influenced this story, as well as why it’s about Arty and not some other King.
Plenty of people have written stories in which someone tries to stop World War II by using a time machine.
But in his time travel sci-fi adventure novel To Turn The Tide (hardcover, Kindle), author S.M. Stirling is instead trying to stop World War III, and other terrible things…and thinks sending a college professor and some students back to the time of the Roman Empire is how to do it.
In the following email interview, Stirling talks about what inspired and influenced this novel, as well as his plans for further adventures in the To Make The Darkness Light series.
Most of the time when someone says “suggestions welcome,” they don’t mean it; they’re just being nice.
But apparently the good people at Baen Books are open to your ideas…sort of.
You see, when someone recently suggested they reprint an out-of-print anthology of science fiction short stories about power armor, they decided to instead put together one of their own.
In the following email interview, co-editor David Afsharirad discusses Tomorrow’s Troopers (paperback, Kindle), which collects classic sci-fi and military sci-fi power armor stories by Brandon Sanderson and Ethan Skarstedt, Joe Haldeman, and Harry Harrison, among others, including how he and co-editor Hank Davis (who had to bow out of this interview because of computer problems) picked what stories to include, what subgenres are represented…and whether the person whose suggestion inspired this book got a free copy.
There are a lot of things mercenaries can do when they retire: start their own private military companies; train other mercenaries; ride off into the sunset…
But in Cat Rambo’s sci-fi space opera novel You Sexy Thing, some retired mercs started their own restaurant…only to still get into trouble of the mercenary kind.
Now they’re getting into even more trouble in Devil’s Gun, the second book in Rambo’s Disco Space Opera series. With that book newly released in paperback — and a third, Rumor Has It, coming September 24th — I spoke to Rambo about what inspired and influenced this second story, and this series.