There are a number of former soldiers who write military science fiction, and there are a number of anthologies that collect military science fiction. But in the following email interview with Stephen Lawson, the editor of Robosoldiers (paperback, Kindle), he notes that this anthology of military science fiction short stories not only has former soldiers as contributors, but that he specifically asked them to focus on their military specialties when coming up with their ideas.
While every Alien and Aliens novel is, of course, connected to the movies, comics, and games, David Barnett’s Alien: Colony War (paperback, Kindle, audiobook) is in the unique position of being the first in a loosely-connected mini-series that will also include Alien: Inferno’s Fall by Phillipa Ballantine and Clara Carija, and Mary SanGiovanni’s Alien: Enemy Of My Enemy. In the following email interview, Barnett discusses what inspired and influenced this military sci-fi space opera novel.
With Resilient (hardcover, paperback, Kindle) writer Allen Stroud is continuing the military sci-fi space opera saga The Fractal Series that he started with 2020’s Fearless. But as he explains in the following email interview, Resilient is as much an expansion as it is a continuation.
When putting together the alt-history military science fiction short story anthology Weird World War III, editor Sean Patrick Hazlett did so with the one limitation that the titular conflict be between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. But in the following email interview about the follow-up, Weird World War IV (paperback, Kindle), Hazlett says that while it is about Earth’s fourth all-invitational conflict, the previous restriction as to the participants was lifted.
Towards the end of the following email interview about his military sci-fi space opera novel The Deep Man (paperback, Kindle), writer Michael Mersault says, “Science fiction should broaden the reader’s view of the world and the future, not cause it to narrow.” A point he actually reinforced earlier by talking about the deep thoughts and big picture implications of his book.
Having explored the time before the first game (Karen Traviss’ Aspho Fields and The Slab), the time between the second and third (Traviss’ Jacinto’s Remnant, Anvil Gate, and Coalition’s End), after the fourth game (Jason M. Hough’s Ascendance), and both during the fifth and before the first (Hough’s Bloodlines), the novels based on the Gears Of War games are now mining the previously untapped era between the third and fourth games with Michael A. Stackpole’s military science fiction novel Gears Of War: Ephyra Rising (paperback, Kindle, audiobook). In the following email interview, Stackpole discusses what inspired and influenced this story, as well as why you don’t need to have played all of the Gears games, or any of them, to understand it.
While the current crop of conspiracy theories are ridiculous at best and infuriating at worst, some of the oldies are still goodies. Especially when they get co-opted by science fiction writers for their own purposes [insert evil laugh here]. Which brings me to this email interview with writer Ian Douglas (a.k.a. William H. Keith, Jr.) about his new military sci-fi novel Alien Hostiles (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), the sequel to 2020’s Alien Secrets and second book in his Solar Warden trilogy, in which the “Reptilians” of UFO conspiracies are real…and invasive.
It can be hard to find a new place to live, especially if you’re not moving across town but to another state or another country. But in his new military sci-fi novel Trinity (paperback, Kindle), writer Dave Bara is making one character’s life even more difficult by forcing him to move to a different planet…and be responsible for other people as well. In the following email interview, Bara discusses what inspired and influenced this moving story, as well as his plans to expand it.
People have long speculated how a third World War might start and play out. But in the alt-history military sci-fi short story anthology Weird World War III, we got to see what might happen if things got, well, you know. With this collection newly available in mass market paperback (it was originally released as a trade paperback and on Kindle last year), I decided to get weird with its editor, Sean Patrick Hazlett, for the following email interview.