When writing a trilogy, it’s easy to forget that the middle book needs to add something to the story, not just the thing that connects the beginning of the end.
It’s something writer Marina Lostetter clearly thought about while writing her fantasy with a dash of horror novel The Cage Of Dark Hours (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), the middle piece of The Five Penalties trilogy…or the following email interview about it.
There’s no shortage of funky robots in sci-fi: Bender, Marvin, Murderbot, Claptrap, R2-D2… But that doesn’t mean we don’t want more, especially when they put a unique spin on the idea.
Which brings us to Unit Four, the “biological soft” maintenance robot from Marina Lostetter’s new sci-fi space opera thriller Activation Degradation (paperback, Kindle, audiobook).
In the following email interview, Lostetter discusses what inspired this robotic story, as well as whether this is the end for our favorite new ‘bot.