Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Elizabeth Bear?

Elizabeth Bear is totally not Spartacus, or the Batman. Unequivocally.

I am, however, a third-generation science fiction reader, a pretty decent cook, and a Hugo-award-winning writer.

Your latest novel, Ancestral Night, is due to be published by Gollancz in March. It looks really cool: How would you introduce it to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?

Ancestral Night is the story of Haimey Dz, a hardscrabble salvage operator who uncovers evidence of a tremendous crime and a powerful ancient technology. In so doing, she becomes a target for all sorts of interested parties with uses for this information, or the desire to suppress it.

It is indeed part of a series — first in the series, in fact–but each of the books is meant to stand alone. I’m currently at work on the second book, Machine. Continue reading →