Usually when I interview the author of a science fiction novel for this site, and get to the questions about influences, they’ll cite other sci-fi novels or movies or TV shows, even occasionally some games. But in the following email interview with D.J. Butler about his situationally-humorous sci-fi mystery thriller Abbott In Darkness (paperback, Kindle), he instead cited such decidedly not-science fiction-y stuff like Horatio Hornblower, Rudyard Kipling, and the East India Company.
While the third game is just a rumor at this point, fans of the shooters The Division and The Division 2 still have a lot to look forward to. Not only will there soon be a spin-off game called Heartland, but there’s also a movie in the works, with Jessica Chastain [Zero Dark Thirty] and Jake Gyllenhaal [Spider-Man: Far From Home] slated to take direction from Rawson Marshall Thurber [Skyscraper]. But first, fans can enjoy a suburban vacation (of sorts) with Tom Clancy’s The Division: Recruited (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), a new novel from writer Thomas Parrott. In the following email interview, Parrot discusses how he came to write this survival thriller, what inspired it, and why he balked when I referred to the games as “post-apocalyptic sci-fi shooters.”
Having recently set her novel The Last House On Needless Street in the lush greenery that is the Pacific Northwest, writer Catriona Ward is going somewhere very different for her new thriller Sundial (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook). In the following email interview, Ward discusses what inspired and influenced this somewhat fuzzy tale.
Clearly a believer that you should, “write what you know,” foreign correspondent and Pentagon press corps member Al Pessin is once again using his years of journalistic experience for fiction with Blowback (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), the second book in his Task Force Epsilon series. In the following email interview, Pessin discusses what inspired and influenced this military spy thriller, how it connects to the previous novel, Sandblast, and his plans for future installments.
In his new post-apocalyptic thriller Crimson Phoenix (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), writer John Gilstrap is not only making a departure from the real world thrillers he’s known for, but — as he explains in the following email interview — he’s also making a departure from what we usually see in post-apocalyptic movies, books, TV shows, and games.
While tattoos are forever, they do fade. But what if a rather meaningful tattoo faded away, and your memories of why you got it went with it. Such is the premise of Jonathan Maberry’s horror-ific suspenseful thriller Ink (paperback, Kindle, audiobook). In the following email interview about it, the tat-less Maberry discusses what inspired and influenced this story, as well as how this stand-alone novel connects to some of his other books, including his recently released zombie novel, Lost Roads (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook).
Everything comes with a price. Which is what Malachi learns when someone offers to graft him a new tongue, thus restoring his ability to speak, in T.C. Farren’s new speculative fiction horror thriller novel The Book Of Malachi (paperback, Kindle, audiobook). In the following email interview, Farren discusses what inspired and influenced this story, as well as why she didn’t write it as a movie.
Many of us have gone on job interviews that were odd. But the one that Séverine goes on in Damian Murphy’s occult-themed psychological thriller The Acephalic Imperial (paperback) goes beyond asking what kind of a tree someone would be if they were a tree. In the following email interview about it, Murphy discusses what inspired and influenced this Hitchcockian novella.
One of the questions I ask every writer is whether their new novel was influenced by any movies, TV shows, or video games. But in the following email interview with journalist turned author Al Pessin about his international military spy thriller Sandblast (paperback, Kindle), he becomes the first interviewee to say while his book does have some non-literary influences, they actually influenced him to not do something.