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Exclusive Interview: Death And The Crone Author Megan Mackie

 

It’s an exciting time to be urban fantasy / cyberpunk writer Megan Mackie (and a dangerous time to be a bookcase). Over the next few months, eSpec Books will be rereleasing three of her Lucky Devil novels, with a new one on the way, as well as reprinting the first book in the Saint Code spin off series, The Lost, which will also be getting a new installment as well. But first Mackie and eSpec have Death And The Crone (paperback, Kindle), another spin-off of the Lucky Devil series that has a bit of a romantic feel. In the following email interview, Mackie explains how these books all connect and what inspired this new side novel.

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Books

Exclusive Interview: Gamechanger Author L. X. Beckett

 

It’s hardly surprising that a number of recent science fiction stories have explored what the world might be like if we don’t do something about global climate change. But in their new cyberpunk sci-fi novel Gamechangers (hardcover, Kindle), L.X. Beckett explores what the world might be like if we do something about global climate change, but doing so may have caused a newer, and possibly bigger problem.

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Books

Exclusive Interview: Zero Bomb Author M.T. Hill

In his new cyberpunk sci-fi thriller Zero Bomb (paperback, Kindle), writer M.T. Hill tells a tale of a man who’s radicalized by, well, the writer of a sci-fi novel. But as he, Hill, explains in the following email interview, this novel isn’t a case of wishful thinking.

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Books

Exclusive Interview: “The Tiger Flu Author” Larissa Lai

 

Writer Larissa Lai’s new novel, The Tiger Flu (paperback, Kindle), has been called a feminist cyberpunk thriller. But in the following email interview about it, she not only discusses what inspired this story, but why it needs more than three words to describe it.

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Books

Exclusive Interview: State Tectonics Author Malka Older

Winston Churchill once said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” But what if you didn’t just vote for a politician, but also for the kind of government they would lead? This was the premise of Malka Older’s 2016 political cyberpunk novel Infomocracy, the first book in The Centenal Cycle trilogy. With that series coming to a close, I traded emails with Older to discuss this series as a whole, as well as the third and final installment, State Tectonics (hardcover, Kindle).

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Books

Exclusive Interview: “Foundryside” Author Robert Jackson Bennett

 

In the following email interview, writer Robert Jackson Bennett explains how his new novel, Foundryside (paperback, hardcover, Kindle, audiobook) — the first book in his The Founders Trilogy — started life as a cyberpunk story, but ended up a mix of that and urban fantasy.

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Books

Exclusive Interview: Implanted Author Lauren C. Teffeau

One of the most frustrating things about pop culture writing is when a creative person denies that something they’ve done is similar to what someone else has done. “Yes, it is a first-person shooter in which you’re a genetically-modified super soldier in power armor who shoots aliens on a circular world, but it’s nothing like Halo.” But in the following email interview with cyberpunk sci-fi writer Lauren C. Teffeau about her new novel Implanted (paperback, Kindle), she refreshingly doesn’t deny that her story is, in some ways, similar to the movie Johnny Mnemonic and the William Gibson story that inspired that film.

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Books

Exclusive Interview: Koko Uncaged Author Kieran Shea

In the following email interview, writer Kieran Shea discusses his new cyberpunk sci-fi novel, Koko Uncaged (paperback, Kindle), the latest in his Koko Martstellar series after Koko Takes A Holiday and Koko The Mighty.

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PlayStation 4 Reviews Video Games

“Detroit: Become Human” Video Game Review

 

Science fiction has a long history of covertly (and not so covertly) tackling sensitive subjects of a social and political nature. Issues of race and racism, for instance, have been explored in everything from the original Star Trek and the movie District 9 to such novels as Octavia Butler’s Kindred and Rivers Solomon’s An Unkindness Of Ghosts. And now it’s the driving force behind thethird-person cyberpunk video game Detroit: Become Human (PlayStation 4), the newest interactive movie from Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls developer Quantic Dream. It’s just too bad the game isn’t as fun as it is thoughtful.