The last couple of years really screwed up a lot of things. Weddings were delayed or reworked; TV shows were cancelled because they couldn’t film them correctly (R.I.P., Stumptown); and don’t get me started on my plans for world domination. But on some occasions, the terrible times we’ve been living through may have made some things better. Take The City Inside (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), Samit Basu’s near-future anti-dystopian science fiction novel, which, he reveals in the following email interview, was originally a rather different novel.