While so many post-apocalyptic novels are bleak and hopeless, Carrie Vaughn bucked that tradition with her (relatively) more hopeful post-apocalyptic mystery Bannerless. In the following email interview about The Wild Dead (paperback, Kindle), the second book in The Bannerless Saga, Vaughn discusses where she got the idea for this second post-apocalyptic mystery, what inspired it, and where this series may (or may not, as the case may be) be going.
Historian S.E. Grove once said, “Memory is a tricky thing… It doesn’t just recall the past, it makes the past. If you remember our trip as a few minutes, it will be a few minutes. If you make it something else, it will be something else.” It’s a sentiment writer Carrie Vaughn might agree with, especially given that her new space opera Martians Abroad (hardcover, paperback, Kindle) was inspired by her somewhat mistaken memories of someone else’s sci-fi adventure tale.
In her new sci-fi novel Bannerless (paperback, digital), writer Carrie Vaughn — who’s best known for the Kitty Norville urban fantasy series — delivers what she calls calls a post-apocalyptic murder mystery. But in talking to her about it, it’s clear you shouldn’t think of this as Mad Max meets The Maltese Falcon.