Far Beyond Reality: Thank you for taking the time to do this interview! First of all, I enjoyed Strata tremendously. Reading it, I was curious about the origins of the novella. How and when did you come up with the concept, and how did it end up being a collaboration rather than a solo project?
Bradley Beaulieu: Hi Stefan. Thanks for having the two of us by to talk a bit about the story.
When I came up with the initial spark for the story—pod racing on the sun—I was in a place where I wanted to try a collaboration. I’d been writing for a while, and I felt pretty comfortable in my own skin, but I’d always wondered what it would be like to write with another author. It seemed like a pretty cool thing to do, if you could get along and push one another farther than you could get on your own (while also avoiding strangling one another). Continue reading
You know that saying “For want of a nail”? Well, in Easie Damasco’s case, it was for want of a piece of bread, a chunk of fish and some cabbage that the fate of the entire land of Castoval was changed. When Easie is caught pilfering food from the baggage train of the invading warlord Moaradrid’s army, he is summarily pressed into service and assigned to a unit that’s ominously referred to as the “disposables.” Easie has no interest in becoming cannon fodder, and he sort of likes his home land the way it is, sans invading warlords, so he immediately plans to escape.
His ticket out of this predicament proves to be Saltlick, one of the terrifying giants in Moaradrid’s army. The thing is, Easie doesn’t just steal the giant — he also steals a money bag that, without his knowledge, contains the item that allows Moaradrid to control his contingent of giants. This unwitting theft sets off a long chase that will change the face of the Castoval forever…
Angry Robot is one of those publishers you just have to keep an eye on, because they come out with some unique, surprising fiction. Their books tend to defy genre conventions and often are impossible to classify. To mess with our heads even more, they then stick weird little filing instructions on them, such as “File Under: Fantasy [ Aztec Mystery | Locked Room | Human Sacrifice | The Dead Walk!]” for Aliette de Bodard’s Servant of the Underworld, or “[The Mob & Magic | Ancient Secrets | Zombie Wizardry | Bet Your Life]” for Matt Forbeck’s Vegas Knights.
So when Angry Robot announced Adam Christopher’s Empire State and mentioned a Prohibition-era parallel universe in the book description, deftly combining two topics I dearly love, I couldn’t wait to get my copy. (And if you’re wondering, this one says: File Under: Science Fiction [ Pocket Universe | Heroes or Villains | Speak Easy | Loyalties Divided ]). Unfortunately, Empire State didn’t entirely live up to my expectations, but there’s still a lot to love about this intriguing debut novel.
Stephen R. Donaldson will probably always be best known for his novels: the epic fantasy series The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the wonderful fantasy diptych Mordant’s Need, and — my personal favorite — the dark science fiction Gap Cycle. However, Donaldson has also produced a number of great short stories and novellas throughout his career. So far, these could mainly be found in his two collections, Daughter of Regals and Other Tales (1984) and Reave the Just and Other Tales (1999), but those books can be hard to find now. Thanks to the nice folks at Subterranean Press, you can get a solid selection of the author’s shorter works in The Best of Stephen R. Donaldson, a generous slab of fiction that includes the two title novellas from his previous collections and nine other stories.
The name of this blog was inspired by the Beyond Reality discussion group, which has been around for almost two decades and which I’ve been managing for more than half of that time. The group is currently housed at GoodReads (a site I love) and has over 850 members. Each month, our members may nominate one SF and/or one fantasy novel. We put all those nominations in polls, so everyone can vote and decide which books they’d like to discuss. In addition, we usually also have a series discussion running, in which we discuss an entire SF or fantasy series, one novel per month. I’ve been blessed with one of the most intelligent and unique groups of readers I’ve ever encountered in online discussion groups (and I’ve been a member of many of them over the years). As a result, the discussions at Beyond Reality are often entertaining, insightful and surprising. We also frequently have the authors of our Books of the Month joining us for the discussions.
Because this site’s name took its inspiration from the group (truth be told, I actually would have named it Beyond Reality if that domain had been available!) I’ve decided to post monthly updates about the group here, including our Books of the Month, our series discussions, and any other special events like giveaways or author visits. Please consider this an invitation to join us, if you’re interested in SF&F book discussion. And if book discussions aren’t your thing, maybe you’ll find some additional book recommendations in this monthly feature!
Will McIntosh’s debut Soft Apocalypse, which I reviewed here, was a brilliant novel about normal people trying to survive while society gradually collapses around them. It was easily one of my favorite novels of 2011. His catalog of strong short stories includes “Bridesicles,” which won the Hugo and was a Nebula finalist. It’s one of those rare stories where emotion and technology merge to form a perfect little SF universe. I can’t be the only reader who was eagerly awaiting this very exciting author’s second novel.
Well, it’s finally here, and it’s called Hitchers. People who are familiar with Will McIntosh’s debut will immediately notice that this is a completely different animal: a contemporary supernatural/horror novel rather than dystopian science fiction. Keep an open mind, because different as it is, it’s definitely worth your time.
Far Beyond Reality 