While science fiction and comedy work well together — see Futurama, et al. — the thing about funny science fiction novels is how the humor often takes a back seat to the sci-fi. Not in a bad way, mind you. More just that authors are more inclined to write a sci-fi story that’s funny like John Scalzi’s Lock In or his Old Man’s War series than they are a funny sci-fi story like Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. But in the following email interview with writer Joe Zieja, he explains that with Communication Failure (paperback, Kindle, audiobook) — the second book in his Epic Failure trilogy — he’s actually trying to make science fiction readers laugh.