Tag: Interviews

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Books

Exclusive Interview: Highway To Hell Author Max Brallier

One of the joys of being a kid who reads is tearing through one of those Chose Your Own Adventure books. But like with comics, cartoons, and video games, there’s no reason you have to put those books aside just because you’re not a kid any more. You just have to read ones made for adults. Ones like Max Brallier’s Highway To Hell (paperback, digital), the spiritual sequel to his similarly multiple choice tome Can YOU Survive The Zombie Apocalypse? Though in talking to Brallier about his new book, he admitted that no, it’s not about you trying to survive a zombie apocalypse because you have AC/DC tickets.

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Exclusive Interview: “The Hike” Author Drew Magary

 

There are a lot of reasons to stay indoors. Bees. Rowdy teenagers. Wild Pokémon running amok. But for those who aren’t afraid of the great outdoors, might I recommend you read Drew Magary’s weird new horror/sci-fi novel, The Hike (hardcover, digital), in which a guy has a terrible, no good, very bad day because he decided to take a walk in the woods. To find out more about this cautionary tale, I spoke to Magary about the impetuous and influences behind this freaky and oddly semiautobiographical story.

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Exclusive Interview: “Dark Matter” Author Blake Crouch

 

The idea that there are parallel universes where other versions of us exist is one that’s been explored in everything from Michael Moorcock’s Elric novels and both DC’s and Marvel’s comics to such movies and TV shows as Star Trek, Family Guy, and The Flash.

But just as there may be infinite versions of our universe, so too are there infinite ways to explore the multiverse in fiction. Which is why, in this universe — and maybe others — I spoke to Wayward Pines writer Blake Crouch about his smart and engaging new multiverse-exploring novel Dark Matter (paperback, hardcover, digital).

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Exclusive Interview: Dark Run Author Mike Brooks

Though it only lasted long enough for fourteen episodes and a movie, Joss Whedon’s space Western TV series Firefly and its cinematic continuation Serenity has been far more influential than you might expect. Consider Mike Brook’s sci-fi novel Dark Run (paperback, digital), which follows a group of intergalactic smugglers who, in a different life, would probably rub elbows with Mal Reynolds, Zoe, and the crew of Serenity‘s titular spaceship. Though in talking to Brooks about the book, it seems there was a bigger influence on Dark Run than Whedon’s cult TV show.

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Exclusive Interview: A Hundred Thousand Worlds Author Bob Proehl

In his debut novel, A Hundred Thousand Worlds (hardcover, digital), writer Bob Proehl follows a mother and son as they travel the comic book convention circuit from New York to Los Angeles. But while the book is steeped in comic book culture, fandom, and comic book convention lore, it’s not just a collection of Spider-Man references and Superman jokes, as I learned when I spoke to Proehl about the book.

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Music

Exclusive Interview: Hedvig Mollestad Of The Hedvig Mollestad Trio

The convergence of jazz and rock is nothing new. Miles Davis explored it on such albums as 1970’s Bitches Brew and 1971’s A Tribute To Jack Johnson, while such disparate rock groups as The Rolling Stones, King Crimson, and Metallica have all cited jazz or specific jazz musicians as being an inspiration for what they do. Then there’s the Hedvig Mollestad Trio, a Norwegian threesome comprised of guitarist Hedvid Mollestad, bassist Ellen Brekken bass, and drummer Ivar Loe Bjørnstad whose music is equal parts hard rock and avant garde jazz, as evidenced by such albums as 2013’s All Of Them Witches, 2014 Enfant Terrible!, and their newest, Black Stabat Mater (CD, digital, vinyl). Though maybe it’s best if I let Mollestad explain it herself.

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Exclusive Interview: Grunt Author Mary Roach

In the thirteen years since she released her first book, Stiff — which explained how scientists have used cadavers to advance human understand of the body…and plastic surgery — writer Mary Roach has applied her patented mix of intellectual curiosity and situational humor to explain how scientists study such topics as sex (2008’s Bonk: The Curious Coupling Of Science And Sex), eating (2013’s Gulp: Adventures On The Alimentary Canal), and what waits for us after we die (2005’s Spook: Science Tackles The Afterlife) in a way that makes these science books as entertaining as they are educational. But like her 2010 tome Packing For Mars: The Curious Science Of Life In The Void — which took a different approach, and looked at how scientists were figuring out how to help astronauts survive their trips to the cosmos — her new book Grunt: The Curious Science Of Humans At War (paperback, hardcover, digital) is also more about what scientists do than how they study a certain topic.

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Music

Exclusive Interview: Jazz Musicians Matthew Shipp And Mat Walerian

In jazz as in life, you’re sometimes only as good as the people you work with. John Coltrane, for instance, made some amazing music in his career, but did some of his best work with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones, as best heard on such classic albums as Ballads, Crescent, Afro Blue Impressions, First Meditations, Sun Ship, and, of course, A Love Supreme.

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Exclusive Interview: “Sleeping Giants” Author Sylvain Neuvel

 

In his debut novel Sleeping Giants (hardcover, digital), writer Sylvain Neuvel uses interview transcripts and journal entries to tell the story of how a young girl from South Dakota found an enormous metal hand, and then grew up to be a scientist searching for the rest of the giant robot. Though in talking to him about the book, it’s clear that this story may be larger than one young girl and one big robot.

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