Tag: hard science fiction

Books

Exclusive Interview: “Crisis At Proxima” Co-Author Les Johnson

Post author By Paul Semel
Post date November 6, 2024
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With careers that have included stints working for and with NASA, it’s safe to assume that authors Les Johnson and Travis S. Taylor are no dummies.

Though you could probably also glean that from reading the novels they’ve written, most notably 2021’s hard sci-fi thriller Saving Proxima.

Now the duo have completed a sequel to that sci-fi story, Crisis At Proxima (hardcover, Kindle), which is the second book in a trilogy they call Orion’s Arm.

In the following email interview, Johnson — speaking for himself and Taylor — discusses what inspired and influenced this second story, including how they rectify conflicts between science fact and science fiction.

Books

Exclusive Interview: “Alien Clay” Author Adrian Tchaikovsky

Post author By Paul Semel
Post date September 16, 2024
1 Comment on Exclusive Interview: “Alien Clay” Author Adrian Tchaikovsky

Stories about prisons and prisoners are not new, and that’s as true in the realm of science fiction as it is in real world fiction (and horror, and fantasy…).

But in his sci-fi prison novel Alien Clay (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), author Adrian Tchaikovsky throws in the added wrinkle of having the central prisoner be a professor and xeno-ecologist (and, uh, political dissident) while the prison happens to be a place friendly to his area of expertise.

In the following email interview, Tchaikovsky discusses where he got the idea for this story, and the idea of making the main character a man of science.

Books

Exclusive Interview: “Tales Of The United States Space Force” Editor C. Stuart Hardwick

Post author By Paul Semel
Post date June 3, 2024
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When President Donald Trump started talking about establishing the U.S. Space Force, a lot of people — myself included — thought it was an idea whose time had not yet come.

But as I learned while doing the following email interview with C. Stuart Hardwick, the editor of the new short story and essay anthology Tales Of The United States Space Force (paperback, Kindle), the Space Force’s roots actually go all the way back to the Cold War, albeit under other names, including President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative.

In the following email interview, Hardwick discusses how this anthology came to be, as well as how it reflects both the truth and the possible future of the Space Force, while not shying away from the snarky comments of us doubters.

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Exclusive Interview: “Exadelic” Author Jon Evans

Post author By Paul Semel
Post date September 7, 2023
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In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Hydra used an algorithm to determine what people posed the biggest threats to their new world order. And in Jon Evans’ new hard science fiction novel Exadelic (hardcover, Kindle), an AI does something similar. Except that, in Exadelic, the threat is not a master of the mystic arts or a scientist with breathtaking anger management issues, but a mild-mannered member of middle management. In the following email interview, Evans discusses what inspired and influenced this sci-fi story.

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Exclusive Interview: “Halo: Outcasts” Author Troy Denning

Post author By Paul Semel
Post date August 9, 2023
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Having read nearly all of the novels based on the Halo games, and having interviewed many of the people who’ve written them, I’ve always thought of these books (and the games, and the comics…) as sci-fi space opera stories. But in the following email interview with Troy Denning, the author of seven Halo novels — including the newest, Halo: Outcasts (paperback, Kindle, audiobook) — he explains why these books (and games, and comics…) are more hard science fiction and space marine stories than anything operatic.

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Exclusive Interview: “Dual Memory” Author Sue Burke

Post author By Paul Semel
Post date May 18, 2023
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As the last few years have made abundantly clear, fallacies can be dangerous when enough people believe they’re true. It’s an idea at the center of Sue Burke’s new hard sci-fi novel Dual Memory (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook). Except that, as she explains in the following email interview, the falsehood believed as fact that influenced this story isn’t one that came up in the last few years, but a real one many years ago.

Books

Exclusive Interview: “The Ross 248 Project” Editors Les Johnson & Ken Roy

Post author By Paul Semel
Post date May 1, 2023
No Comments on Exclusive Interview: “The Ross 248 Project” Editors Les Johnson & Ken Roy

There are a lot of themes around which editors have constructed anthologies of science fiction short stories. Some are the best of a certain year or subgenre, some deal with a common idea, while still others are geographically- or identity based.

But for The Ross 248 Project (paperback, Kindle), co-editors Les Johnson and Ken Roy not only chose a subgenre, and a thematic connection, but all of the stories also share a fictional world. In the following email interview, Les and Ken discuss how this anthology came together.

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Exclusive Interview: “The Moon And The Desert” Author Robert E. Hampson

Post author By Paul Semel
Post date March 7, 2023
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Like a lot of writers, Robert E. Hampson’s influences don’t start and stop with books; they include TV shows as well. As he explains in the following email interview, his new hard sci-fi novel The Moon And The Desert (paperback, Kindle) wasn’t just influenced by his fellow writers, but also by a classic (and expensive) show from the ’70s.

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Exclusive Interview: “Poor Man’s Sky” Author Wil McCarthy

Post author By Paul Semel
Post date January 4, 2023
1 Comment on Exclusive Interview: “Poor Man’s Sky” Author Wil McCarthy

With Poor Man’s Sky (hardcover, Kindle), writer Wil McCarthy is continuing the series of hard sci-fi space opera / political spy thriller novels he started with 2021’s Rich Man’s Sky.

Though as he explains in the following email interview, you don’t need to read Rich to get Poor.