Solaris Books

Interview with JAMES BREAKWELL, Author of THE CHOSEN TWELVE

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BreakwellJ-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is James Breakwell?

Father. Comedy writer. Pig owner. Overall mediocre human being. I write daily jokes on the internet for free and occasional books in print for money.

Your new novel, The Chosen Twelve, is due to be published by Solaris in January. It looks rather intriguing: How would you introduce it to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?

Thousands of years in the future, the last twenty-two humans in existence, all of them children, are charged with settling a new planet under the less-than-benevolent guidance of the self-interested robots who raised them. The kids discover that, contrary to the promises of their digital overlords, the landing craft that will make the one-way trip to the planet only has twelve seats. Those who secure a spot will lead the human race, possibly forever — or until they get killed by the biologically engineered super kangaroos who now hold the planet, whichever comes first. Those who don’t get a seat will be left behind to die on the decaying moon base, aging slowly without the injections from the immortality chamber that have kept them artificially young for decades. The resulting struggle to secure those seats will determine the fate not only of the last twenty-two humans, but also of all sentient life in the universe, both organic and digital. Continue reading →

Interview with TITUS CHALK

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ChalkT-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is Titus Chalk?

A literary chancer with a new book out! Otherwise, a typical Berlin implant; a Brit taking advantage of the city’s cheap rent to work a bit less and write a bit more. I’ve recently left a decade or so of sports writing behind me to spend time in the library learning to write fiction – that’s currently what I am hoping to with my life, having taken Generation Decks from initial idea to a bookshelf near you soon.

Your new book, Generation Decks, will be published by Solaris. It looks interesting: How would you introduce it to a potential reader?

It’s the story of the world-changing fantasy game Magic: The Gathering and a memoir of my time playing it. But more than that, it’s a look at the way business, culture and community changed with the advent of the internet age. It tries to capture that transition in the early 90s where everything was turned on its head as more and more people plugged in their dial-up modems and logged on to this strange thing called the web. Although Generation Decks is ostensibly about a very complex and rich strategy game, it’s absolutely not a specialist book – it’s for non-gamers and gamers alike. And for anyone with an interest in the way pop culture evolved in the digital age. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Living Larger with Animism” by Arianne “Tex” Thompson

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ThompsonAT-AuthorPicYou know, one of the coolest things about SFF is how it invites us to mothball our skepticism and explore just about any metaphysical concept. Avatar Aang lives in a world where reincarnation is inarguably real. So does Rand Al-Thor. Just so, Narnia is a world with a concrete moral order, and the Marvel universe is absolutely lousy with gods. Fate, karma, magic, ghosts – you name it; we’ve got a franchise for it.

But here’s one big idea that I’d like to see getting more air-time: animism. It’s one of the oldest belief systems in the world, and put simply, it’s the idea that non-human creatures and things have souls, and therefore should be treated with awareness. In sci-fi and fantasy, animism usually comes to the fore whenever a creator wants to craft a culture that’s all about living in harmony with nature – your wood-elves, blue cat-people, et al. The problem is usually that they are so dang harmonious that they would never be worth writing about if they didn’t get bulldozed by the plot. (Literally, if we’re talking Ferngully and its like.) Continue reading →

Interview with JAMES LOVEGROVE

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LovegroveJ-AuthorPicWelcome back to CR! Let’s start with an introduction, for new readers: Who is James Lovegrove?

James Lovegrove is, right now, someone struggling to get stuff done during the dog days of the school summer holidays. I’m a writer who likes peace and quiet when working, and my two boys, aged 13 and 10, are very solicitous about that but they’re also just kids and want their dad to play with them whenever possible. It’s tricky, this work/life balance thing. I’m also, incidentally, the author of 50-odd books, a similar number of short stories, and quite a hefty amount of book-related journalism.

Your latest novel, Age of Heroes, will be published by Solaris. How would you introduce the novel and series to a potential reader?

The string of books which has come to be known as the Pantheon series centres around the gods of various ancient religions and their relationship with the mortals who worship them. The novels are largely military SF and each is a standalone tale that can be read independently of the others. The tone differs from one to the next but the core theme is the same: what responsibilities do our deities have towards us, and we towards them, and where do the two dovetail? Age of Heroes continues the trend but this time I’m delving into a slightly lower stratum – demigods. My main characters are the heroes of Ancient Greek myth such as Theseus, Perseus and Heracles. I’ve envisaged them as ageless immortals who continue to walk among us in the twenty-first century, three and a half millennia after their heyday, the proverbial Age of Heroes. Some of them have adapted better to modern life than others, and some are striving to remain heroic in an era that is desperately cynical about such things as self-sacrifice and virtue.  And then they start dying… Continue reading →

Interview with GAIE SEBOLD

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SeboldG-AuthorPicWelcome back to CR! Let’s start with an introduction, for new readers: Who is Gaie Sebold?

I’m a fantasy writer and (very) occasional poet, with a partner (writer David Gullen) a small cat, and a large garden. I run writing workshops – I’m currently running a series of them for my local women’s centre. I occasionally disconcert the neighbours by plotting aloud to myself while weeding.

Your next novel, Sparrow Falling, will be published by Solaris. It’s the second novel in your latest series: How would you introduce the series to a potential reader?

It follows the adventures of a street child and professional con-artist Eveline Sparrow, in a fantasy Victorian era where the Fey and many other mythical beings exist. Eveline gets caught up in events where the politics of our world overlap dangerously with those of the Fey while discovering the truth about her past and trying to protect herself and those she cares about in the present. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “If You Like Servants…” by Paul Kane

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KaneP-SherlockHolmes&ServantsOfHellMy new novel, Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell, is out now. In it, Holmes and Watson are flung headlong into Clive Barker’s Hellraising universe to confront his most famous villains, the Cenobites. It’s the world’s greatest puzzle-solver up against the world’s greatest puzzle, not least in the form of the Lament Configuration puzzle box. Hopefully, it should appeal to fans of both franchises – but I also wanted the book to be a standalone, something that you could dive right into even if you know nothing about either. But I don’t want to spend the whole of this blog just talking about my work; instead I want to point you in the direction of a few publications you might enjoy if you pick up and like Servants. If you haven’t already read them, of course… Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Do Writers Deserve to be Paid for Their Work?” by Tony Ballantyne

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BallantyneT-AuthorPicLet’s be honest, not always.

Most writing is unsolicited. Although a fair proportion of my writing nowadays has been commissioned in one way or another, most of the stuff I’ve done has been on spec. The short story market certainly works that way, and only a minority of authors sell a novel through an outline.

Face it, nobody asked us to write, and the fact that we’ve written a story unasked doesn’t mean that someone has to buy it any more than the fact that your local McDonalds has made too many Big Macs means that you have to eat them to stop them being wasted. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Planet Jacked!” by Weston Ochse

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OchseW-AuthorPicI’d never really encountered the idea about terraforming until I read David Gerrold’s A Matter for Men, and boy did that scare me more than any horror novel I’d ever read. It’s one thing to have space duels with enemy ships or visitations from aliens seeking to see what we’re up to, but it’s another thing altogether when you begin showing aliens who’ve decided that they want your planet and have begun changing the entire ecosystem right out from under you. I mean, what do you do? What technology do we have to stop them?

In Hollywood, there’d be some last second solution overlooked by mainstream scientists, but discovered by the conspiracy theorist picking his nose in the corner. But that’s never going to happen.

In Hollywood, the aliens would find a way to communicate with the President of the United States, because that’s what all aliens do, to give us some sort of ultimatum.

I drop the bullshit flag on that one. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “In Praise of Ordinary Girls” by Lauren Roy

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RoyL-AuthorPicI feel like this post needs a disclaimer from the get-go. I like Chosen One stories, and tales where something sets the main character apart from everyone else, makes her special in some way (often, let’s be honest, at the cost of relationships or her entire way of life, not always for the better). I could wander over to my bookshelves right now and pull out the books where the main character has a rare or unheard of or forgotten ability, where someone is secretly the long-lost heir to the throne, or where they’re the most powerful X of their age. If I stacked ‘em all up, they’d at least reach the ceiling, maybe even the peak of the roof. My own urban fantasy series is filled with asskickers who are pretty amazing at what they do – so much so that I probably could have called it Five Badasses and a Bookseller, instead of Night Owls. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Thinking Like A Monkey” by Gareth L. Powell

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PowellGarethL-AuthorPicOne of the largest challenges I faced while writing my ‘Macaque’ trilogy (Ack-Ack Macaque, Hive Monkey and Macaque Attack – all published by Solaris Books) was in writing chapters and scenes from the point of view of my main character.

Ack-Ack Macaque really is a monkey. He’s not a guy in a rubber suit. So, I felt duty bound to make him act like one. I had to imagine how a monkey (even a monkey whose intelligence has been boosted to human-like levels by artificial implants) would react in given situations and interact with the other characters in the book.

For instance, early in the first book, he warns somebody he’s just met not to smile at him, as, to a monkey, baring one’s teeth can be a challenge, as can sustained eye contact.

“Don’t take it personally,” he says. “It’s a primate thing.” Continue reading →