In fiction, it’s easy to portray the future as a utopia or a dystopia.
But in Liza Monroy’s science fiction novel The Distractions (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), she presents a society that is both at the same time. And it’s a balance she employs in other aspects of the story as well.
In the following email interview, Monroy discusses what inspired and influenced this sci-fi story.
More than 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water. And yet, when it comes to planet-based science fiction stories, most take place on dry land, either here on Earth or on some other world.
But in the new short story anthology Depth Charge (paperback, Kindle), iconic science fiction writers including Arthur C. Clarke, James Blish, and Fritz Leiber give us tales that are all set underwater, at least in part.
In the following email interview, co-editors Hank Davis and Jamie Ibson talk about how this collection came together, how the stories were chosen, and which they think could work really well in theaters alongside Avatar, Aquaman, and other movies that are all wet.
Not every moral question has a right answer. Or no wrong one.
Take the question that inspired author Brad C. Anderson to write his new novel, Ashme’s Song (paperback, Kindle): “Is a hero someone who dies for their country or someone who gathers their family and gets them someplace safe?”
In the following email interview, Anderson talks about how that question inspired this story, which combines elements of science fiction, cyberpunk, political thrillers, and space opera into what he calls “spacethrillerpunk.”
We all know the story of Aladdin. Well, the Disney version, anyway.
But while author Samit Basu knows that version, too, his love of Aladdin goes back further than Disney’s 1992 animated movie. Which is partially why he wrote The Jinn-Bot Of Shantiport, a humorous science fiction space opera / science fantasy / adventure story inspired by the original Middle-Eastern folk tale character from One Thousand And One Nights.
With The Jinn-Bot Of Shantiport now available in paperback — a year after originally being released in hardcover and for Kindle — I spoke to Basu via email to discuss what else inspired and influenced this sci-fi story, his plans for possible sequels, and why he made one of the central characters a monkey-bot.
It may be a cliché, but it’s still sometimes true: great minds think alike.
Consider this: In Cary Groner’s post-apocalyptic speculative fiction novel The Way (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), a man has to transport the cure to a deadly illness through a post-apocalyptic America, and he’s joined by a teenage girl. Which sounds a lot like the plot of the post-apocalyptic action / adventure game The Last Of Us and the HBO show it inspired.
But as Groner explains in the following email interview, any connections between his novel and Us are purely superficial. Though it did prompt a name change.
When we think of the best things to come out of Canada, we all think of maple syrup, moose, health care, Rush, and all the best Ryans (sorry, Seacrest).
But those looking for the best science fiction and fantasy stories now have two options: last year’s Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy And Science Fiction: Volume One and the new sequel, Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy And Science Fiction: Volume Two (paperback, Kindle).
In the following email interview, Volume Two (and Volume One) editor Stephen Kotowych talks about what went into assembling this new anthology.
Over the last fifteen years, author Seb Doubinsky has written ten stand-alone novels in his dystopian noir and more series, the City-States Cycle, including the newest, the sci-fi and espionage-infused The Sum Of All Things (paperback, Kindle).
But while he went into writing The Sum thinking it would also be the end of the story, it seems this series has different ideas.
In the following email interview, Doubinsky talks about why The Sum was going to be the end of the City-States Cycle, why it’s not, and how thinking it would be influenced how he wrote it.
Given what’s going on with the Israel-Hamas War, and how some people have reacted to it, it would be understandable if the editor of a short story anthology by Palestinian writers said something about how their collection shows that Palestinians are people, too.
But in the following email interview about Thyme Travellers: An Anthology Of Palestinian Speculative Fiction (paperback, Kindle), editor Sonia Sulaiman says that while it features “…writers who identify as Palestinian in the diaspora,” she notes that, “…none of these stories are meant to ‘humanize’ us. We’re already human.”
For her sixth and latest collection of short stories, A Place Between Waking And Forgetting (paperback), author Eugen Bacon has assembled a collection that — as she explains in the following email interview — “largely comprises black people stories exploring affection, dread, anguish, or hope.”