While it’s already pretty epic, author Robbie MacNiven is pushing the sci-fi space opera board game Twilight Imperium into even bigger spaces with Twilight Imperium: Twilight Wars: Empire Falling (paperback, audiobook, Kindle), the first book in a new prequel trilogy. In the following email interview, MacNiven discusses what inspired and influenced this first part of the story.
With The Silent Hand (paperback, Kindle), writer Michael Mersault is continuing the military sci-fi space opera series he started last year with The Deep Man. In the following email interview, Mersault discusses what inspired and influenced this second story, as well as his plans moving forward for his series.
Writer David Edison isn’t alone in being influenced by video games. Or Frank Herbert’s Dune. Or Tori Amos. Or anime. But being influenced by all of them…at the same time… In the following email interview, Edison talks about how these influences coalesced into the sci-fi space opera / epic fantasy mash-up that is his second novel, Sandymancer (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook).
There’s an old saying: The devil’s in the details. But when you’re making a massive game like the sci-fi space opera action role-playing game Starfield — which is out now for Xbox Series X/S and PC, and is easily one of the best games of the year — sometimes it’s the little details that get lost in the shuffle, especially when you have so many big details to worry about. But in playing Starfield, I noticed a couple little things that I wanted to applaud the good people at Bethesda Game Studios for including, things that won’t make a big difference to a lot of people, but things I noticed and appreciated.
Having read nearly all of the novels based on the Halo games, and having interviewed many of the people who’ve written them, I’ve always thought of these books (and the games, and the comics…) as sci-fi space opera stories. But in the following email interview with Troy Denning, the author of seven Halo novels — including the newest, Halo: Outcasts (paperback, Kindle, audiobook) — he explains why these books (and games, and comics…) are more hard science fiction and space marine stories than anything operatic.
Like many authors, the husband and wife writing team of Sharon Lee and Steve Miller have often let the story dictate itself, let it and its character decide where to go. Which is how we got their newest one, Salvage Right (hardcover, Kindle), the latest in their ongoing sci-fi space opera series, Liaden Universe®. In the following email interview, Lee and Miller discuss what inspired this new novel, as well as how it willed itself into existence.
Like a lot of people, Kemi Ashing-Giwa picked up a new habit during the pandemic: drinking tea. But unlike people who took up baking bread or working out or playing Animal Crossing, Ashing-Giwa translated her newfound love into a novel, a sci-fi space opera story called The Splinter In The Sky (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook) that — in the following email interview — she calls a, “spy thriller in space.”
With The Lost Fleet: Outlands: Implacable (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), science fiction writer Jack Campbell is not only concluding the Outlands trilogy, but possibly the entire Lost Fleet series as well. In the following email interview, he discusses both this military sci-fi space opera novel, as well as this epic saga.
I have long said that short stories are a good way to get to know a fiction writer’s style. Which means it’s time we got to know Dare Segun Falowo, who recently published their first collection of short stories, Caged Ocean Dub: Glints & Stories (paperback, Kindle, audiobook). In the following email interview, Dare discusses what inspired and influenced these stories, as well as a way you might want to read them.