Usually when I interview the author of a science fiction novel for this site, and get to the questions about influences, they’ll cite other sci-fi novels or movies or TV shows, even occasionally some games. But in the following email interview with D.J. Butler about his situationally-humorous sci-fi mystery thriller Abbott In Darkness (paperback, Kindle), he instead cited such decidedly not-science fiction-y stuff like Horatio Hornblower, Rudyard Kipling, and the East India Company.