When author Josh Rountree’s story just wasn’t quite working, he decided to change his perspective. Literally. Travel back in time in the Big Idea for his newest novel, The Unkillable Frank Lightning, and see how switching things up narratively ended up being the solution to his problem.
JOSH ROUNTREE:
Well, I’m knee deep in monsters now, aren’t I?
A lot of my Big Ideas these days seem to involve them. For a while now I’ve been working on a series of monster stories set in long ago Texas. I’ve tackled werewolves and snake-headed harvest gods. Vengeful mermaids and The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Now I’ve worked my way up to one of the greatest monsters of all time.
Frankenstein! (Cue lightning strike.)
Or Frankenstein’s monster, I guess.
My Big Idea for The Unkillable Frank Lightning was to tell a version of the Frankenstein story, set in the Old West. I had plenty I wanted to say about death. How breaking the fundamental laws of nature to bring a person back to life would be a really bad idea, with consequences that would reach far beyond the reanimated corpse and those responsible for his resurrection. Frank Lightning is not the only character in this story who has cheated death, and all carry that around like a weight on their souls. And I wanted to say a lot about the mythology of the Old West. How wild west shows and Hollywood movies have sold us an often sanitized version of the period, that centers the wrong heroes.
But also? I wanted to see my monster go on a rampage. I wanted to see what would happen when an unkillable person found himself in a gunfight. I wanted black magic and secret occult orders and townspeople with torches.
I wanted my monster to tell us his story.
But of course, the Big Idea doesn’t always unfold the way a writer expects it to. And the character you think is going to be at the center of it all isn’t always the voice that comes alive and demands to be heard. I worked several months, trying to tell this story through the monster’s point of view, and eventually realized it just wasn’t working. I tried alternating points of view, trying to tell the story through the eyes of various characters. But one voice, that of Catherine Coldbridge, spoke louder than all the rest. And I realized she was my protagonist. She was the character to tell this story.
Catherine is my “mad scientist” in this tale. My Dr. Frankenstein stand-in. She’s a doctor in the 1870’s, and she’s a member of an occult order called the Three Rose Temple. Catherine is an orphan, and when she loses her husband too, it causes her to make one terrible decision that will haunt her for decades.
Catherine is terribly flawed, and desperate to make amends. She is determined and practical and willing to forgive anyone but herself. She is an exceptionally strong woman who has, for a time, given up on her life and let the world ruin her. But as she beings to tell her story, Catherine is finally beginning to emerge from that sorry state, and planning to take control again. Catherine is endlessly fascinating to me, and as soon as she started telling the tale, it poured out of her, and it poured out of me, and I knew we were in this together.
Catherine Coldbridge is not our typical pulp western hero. But who needs more cowboys in white hats? Who needs another hard man with a thousand-yard stare to ride in and save the day?
I’ve been making more charcuterie boards than usual lately, and I’d like to think practice makes fairly decent, so I’d like to show y’all some of my recent spreads I’ve done for gatherings and parties and whatnot. I usually post them on Instagram and Bluesky, but just in case you missed them, you can get your fix right here and now!
For the 4th of July I was in Texas, and my friend hosted a party, for which I volunteered to supply some snackage for. Here’s the charcuterie board:
For this board, I used prosciutto, salami, Munster, Kerrygold aged cheddar, Brie, chimichurri gouda, fig and honey goat cheese, candied pecans, Castelvetrano olives, Mike’s Hot Honey, Honeycomb, and cherries. Everything on there except the pecans I picked up at H.E.B.
This was the rest of what I served:
While the salsa and guac I bought pre-made from H.E.B., I did assemble the watermelon, feta, and mint salad and drizzled it with honey, and put together the caprese skewers with balsamic glaze. I honestly think this turned out really well! I was very happy with my summery salad and light bites.
Just a few days ago I got my AppyHour Box (which I have regrettably not been doing posts over lately!) and decided to make a little board for my dad and his friend that was visiting from out of town.
This board consisted of a Togarashi cheese, an aged gouda, a smoked goat cheese, dried cherries, coppa, and prosciutto (I think it was a Calabrian Chili prosciutto?). The two jams I forgot to take the lids off of are a caramelized pear and honey spread, and a raspberry hibiscus jam. I thought this was a cute little lunch for my dad and his guest, and I’m glad the enjoyed it.
Finally, this past weekend, I hosted a friend’s baby shower at the church. She said she expected around fifty people to attend, and I can say with confidence I’ve never tried to make a spread for that many people before. I was definitely intimidated, but I was determined to make an approachable spread that would appeal to the masses and not spend hundreds of dollars doing it.
I didn’t capture everything, but here’s the gist of how it turned out:
There was also cucumbers, bell peppers, baby carrots, celery, cherry tomatoes, dill dip, salsa, tortilla chips, garden vegetable entertainment crackers, fig and sesame crisps, honey mustard mini pretzels, rosemary flatbread crackers, coconut macaroons, chocolate covered pretzels, chocolate covered shortbread cookies, and chocolate covered Belgian waffle cookies.
Other than the tortilla chips, whole grain mustard, fig spread, rosemary almonds, and chocolate covered pretzels, I bought everything at Aldi, and despite buying doubles if not three of absolutely everything I listed, my total came out to $220. I was able to make this huge spread and refill it when it got low and feed 50 guests for just over $200. Who knew Aldi was so cool?! I spent about fifty bucks more than that on my spread for the Texas party, and that was only to feed about ten people.
The best thing on the spread from Aldi was the honey mustard mini pretzels, or the chocolate covered waffle cookies. I am definitely going to be stopping at Aldi more often for some surprisingly cheap and yummy treats.
What item looks the best to you? What’s your go-to cheese to serve for entertaining guests? Am I the only one who didn’t realize how neat Aldi was? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
Author Marie Vibbert is back on the blog today with a fresh new novel that’s bigger and badder than ever. Dive into her Hellcats universe once more and see the world from an all new perspective in Andrei and the Hellcats.
MARIE VIBBERT:
Why are all sex robots depicted as miserable? Wouldn’t they just program them to be really horny? Thus, I created the character of Andrei: a sex-positive sex robot who loves his job, and humans. All the humans. When Galactic Hellcats was released in 2021, people responded warmly to this minor character, and when I asked, “What do you want in a sequel?” one of the top responses was, “More Andrei! And let him have sex! Why do you have two sex bots in this book and no one gets past second base?”
Why? Because my dad might read this book! I didn’t say that. I blushed and affirmed I would try harder in the sequel to be as uninhibited as Andrei.
And sequel time has come! My first goal was a book that wouldn’t require reading the previous one, and so Andrei and the Hellcats is from Andrei’s perspective, as a relative outsider. As I drafted, I realized that my little idea about sex robot preferences led into a bigger idea: how do we form our moral preferences? Can robots (or AI) have a conscious choice in their morality? What does that say about morality itself?
I know, that sounds heavy for a book about a sex robot enlisting a space biker gang to rescue his sister from an evil queen, but come drop down this mental rabbit hole with me.
As I fleshed out Andrei’s character to take center stage, I had to confront aspects of his life, personality, and preferences. He likes sex, a lot. Check. So why does he work as a hospitality manager at a space station instead of enjoying an all he can shag buffet at a brothel? Did he have a choice, or was he built for this role? Was he hired or purchased?
All of these questions funnel down into the intersection of consent and capitalism. Andrei cares a lot about consent in sex; he has whole libraries of code for it. He recognizes hesitation, the body language of distress and coercion. “I don’t enjoy inflicting harm,” he laments at one point, “I’m really only comfortable when there are safe words.” Yet he has never examined his own consent to play the role assigned to him, until the evil queen comes along and kidnaps him and his sister. He thinks Queen Jasmine of Ratana is simply roleplaying “Evil Queen and the mindless sexbot” until after their tryst, when she waves her hand and says “deactivate yourself.” Through her words and actions she makes it clear she doesn’t think Andrei is self-aware, and he realizes she felt that way the entire time they were fooling around. This prompts a moral crisis: have other clients of his mistaken play for reality? Does he need to update his most sacred algorithms?
Poor Andrei! What is sapience? What is consent? I wanted to have him follow this rabbit hole to money as a motivation, anti-capitalist gal that I am. To that end, I had this fun idea to have him in conflict with the Hellcats. They are, to put it mildly, uninterested in property rights, especially kleptomaniac Ki. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if, having finally enlisted the gang, he’d interrupt the ensuing caper with, “Excuse me, does that belong to you? Put it back.”
To quote Ki, “Ugh, it’s like taking my social worker on a heist!”
Nothing makes a plot outline happier than juicy, theme-relevant complications! But I found the right opening for my little gag difficult to find, and part of that was, well, I was already forcing Andrei to confront his programming through every step of the plot. First the evil queen, then I put him on his own on a strange planet with nothing but his keen fashion sense and gift of gab. How can he find where they’ve taken her? How can he begin to save her? He has no local currency and has to contemplate breaking his programmed reverence for property rights to even get to a point where he can start searching in earnest. He wonders why he can’t bring himself to steal what he needs, why he was programmed to be a good little capitalist. “Were we designed to desire things to keep us working? Could we learn to do without designer clothes and porn subscriptions?”
By the time he gets to the Hellcats, he’s ready to hear Ki out when she takes it upon herself to turn him to the lawless side of the force. He has already seen that laws can be unjust; the queen’s law declares him and his sister property! When Ki compares hoarding money to hoarding kisses, Andrei accepts that ownership is not as important as good snogs… or the safety of sapient beings.
As I was writing, I found myself a little envious of Andrei. He can consciously edit his moral programming when he discovers a bias in it, while I make the same gaffs nine or ten thousand times before I learn. Well, so do the Hellcats. They have those relationship arcs to get through, all that learning what and who to prioritize. So while he learns from them, Andrei gets to drop some truth bombs in return. “Darling, I get it. When you and your brother left the factory… I mean, when you were born, your settings were the same…. Then you were sent out into the world, and your programs updated.”
Ninety percent of writing a novel is making decisions. Where could I fit in my little anti-theft Andrei gaff? Well, I couldn’t. Then I realized he still cared about the rule of law. Ah ha! The confrontation now comes not from stealing, but from breaking and entering, and I got to use all the snarky lines I had daydreamed.
Andrei sighs, “Humans take so long to make decisions! How did they ever get around to inventing us?”
(… she wrote, thinking about her own plot outlining.)
That accomplished, I was free to make everything worse! Bwah ha ha. Have to push all those moral lessons harder with some external examples, right? So they all get captured in a forced labor camp. It’s dark. I found myself pausing on a scene where an explosive implant takes out a guy’s arm because sometimes they just go off and thinking, “Um, self? Is this still a lighthearted space romp?” And lo, the moral quandary has come home: the choices I make as an author can reflect my own morality (or lack thereof.)
I couldn’t just have them blow up their way out of there, leaving the other slaves behind. Crap. I had to go back and change the entire ending heist to reflect my values of collective action. Andrei, I hope, would be proud.
Andrei gets through the plot, the Hellcats get through the plot, and the author gets through the plot: each a little wiser for it.
The book should be available wherever books are sold. Have your local independent bookstore order it, or your library!
So, if I want to buy a 100 Grand candy bar (or an Almond Joy, or a Heath Bar, or whatever), and I go to the candy aisle in the local gas station, or the one in the IGA, the candy bar will cost about two bucks, give or take. But! If I go to the local dollar store to buy the same brand of candy, packaged as four to six “fun sized” individually wrapped bars, each of these packages are $1.25, or $5 if I buy five. The aggregate amount of candy by weight is pretty much the same as if I bought the full-sized candy bar, but because they are packaged differently, it costs half as much. Does this make sense? No! It does not! I mean yes, I understand that one is positioned as an impulse buy and one is not, I do understand the psychology of the supermarket. I get it, truly I do. But it still boggles my mind.
Likewise if I go to the store to buy a 12-pack of Coke Zero, it will be somewhere between $8 and $10, but if Krissy goes to Kroger on a particular day and shows them her Kroger card (or whatever) then she can get the “buy two, get three free” discount, which again means the actual cost of the 12-pack is 40% of what its usual cost is. It works similarly for lots of other things, including things that are not junk food or drink.
“Congratulations, Scalzi, you’ve discovered coupons,” I hear you say. Look, I’m not saying any of this is new. But it does seem to me the variance in pricing is more significant now than it was before. I’m not exactly what you would call a price-sensitive individual these days, but I still finally broke down and got myself a CVS card because the difference in cost between having that card, and not, was high enough that my brain rebelled against needlessly spending that much more.
(Yes, I’m aware that CVS, Kroger, et al are data farming what I purchase. As a practical matter, I don’t really care if CVS learns I’m buying Doritos; they were tracking the UPC when I went to check out anyway. And as a general matter I’m not purchasing anything in a supermarket or pharmacy that I want to hide from data crunching.)
I know this is a bit of an aimless rant, but I think what I’m really getting at is that the answer to the question “why are things so expensive right now” really is “because fuck you, that’s why.” That candy bar quite evidently doesn’t need to be $2; that 12-pack of soda doesn’t need to be $8, and there are a lot of people who can’t afford the clearly arbitrary high prices that things have, who have to pay them anyway. It’s annoying for me, but for someone else it might mean skipping a meal or two, or more, here and there. It doesn’t seem fair, and it doesn’t seem right.
at Readercon next week as a guest and I'm quite excited about it! I also have no plans whatsoever, beyond programming. Want to hang out? Eat a meal? Let me know!
When you see a possibly terrifying mythical creature, is your first thought, I’m totally gonna pet that? If so, then Sara Omer, author of The Gryphon King, might have something in common with you.
SARA OMER:
At its core, The Gryphon King is about a horse girl on a quest for vengeance versus a man with cat-related PTSD. But before I can get into the infernal horse and lion biology at play, I have to gush about the monster-riding story more generally.
Just as children wish for puppies, children reading fantasy books wish for dragons. The unbreakable bonds between fire-breathing beasts and reluctant heroes populate epic fantasy stories, but if giant flying lizards aren’t your style, there’s any number of mythic monsters that might be mountable (monster romance implications of that statement aside). I love a dragonrider story as much as the next person, probably more than most people, but there’s a whole ecosystem of underutilized fantastic monsters out there that deserve some time in the spotlight. In the empire of Dumakra in The Gryphon King, there is at least one stable full of flying horses that didn’t ask to be ridden into battle or form lifelong bonds with power-hungry morally gray disaster princesses, but we can’t always fight the fate we’re dealt.
Growing up, having my own horse was as much a fantasy as having my own dragon, but I like to think I lived a tangential horse girl experience. I wasn’t yet in kindergarten when I learned to ride horses, taught by the grandfatherly carriage driver Mr. “Grandpa” Clint, who drove his carriage around the town square. After learning how to drive a carriage at an age that was definitely not road legal (to the chagrin of many other children), Grandpa Clint taught me how to ride a horse at his stable. The horse for the job was an ancient old white gelding living a life of comfort in retirement, and who I enthusiastically urged to a flying gallop my first time on the trail. I had a wonderful time as my mom and Mr. Clint raced after, concerned I would be terrified or die, probably. Surprise, I lived. I think everyone should experience that exhilaration, and a few hundred feet off the ground while you’re at it.
I had a formidable collection (army) of Breyer horses, although unlike Nohra in The Gryphon King, I didn’t grow up with an imperial stable. But some family friends had their own horses and boarded them nearby. Sometimes I would get to go ride or hang out at the stable and in the pastures. Rambo, their stubborn paint gelding, was barely tall enough to even be considered a horse rather than a pony, and I vividly remember a time he got kicked, presumably for being an asshole, and the bloody branding of the hoof that slowly healed. For this and other reasons, I’m convinced every horse is a little like a dragon.
There are multiple breeds of mythic horses I added to the bestiary that is The Gryphon King. Because why stop at sky horse when you can have water horse? And when I really got to thinking about the biology of pegasuses, I wanted to explore their avian side. What better way to celebrate the incredible Eurasian horses and the birds of prey in the region than combine them into one omnivorous monster that has an appetite for blood? As if horses weren’t already dangerous enough, now they really, really want to eat your fingers and the barn cats. And—oh, look—the battlefield became good grazing once the fighting’s quieted down. Really, pegasuses are a little terrifying, and they’re not even the most threatening strain of horse in Dumakra.
The moral is that if you make a bird big enough, humans begin to look like the small animals scurrying through the tall grass, evading tooth and talon. And what’s more terrifying than horse-eagle? Lion eagle.
I have utmost respect for anyone who can make a big cat with a massive wingspan seem docile and friendly; I just think, considering the injuries a falconer could incur and compounding those with what might befall your average lion tamer, you should have to sign a few release waivers to approach a gryphon.
Maybe I made all my animals ferocious because nature is ferocious and dangerous, and when people play at power, they don’t come close to the might of beasts. But their actions have often irreparable impacts on nature nonetheless.
Fear and respect can coexist. Add a little human curiosity, and I would never fault anyone who decided to ride a murder horse. The Gryphon King is for the readers who would go out of their way to pet a man-eating monster, who would risk it all to bond with a creature that could kill them a few different ways on purpose or by accident—I’m a little scared for your wellbeing, but I respect the drive and share the dream.
Krissy is off visiting friends for a couple of days, and so it falls to me to take the dog for her daily walk through the local nature preserve. I mean, I could not do it, but then I would disappoint Charlie, and, look, you just do not want to disappoint a dog. She will look at you all mopey and sad for the whole rest of the day. No thank you. A walk is vastly preferable. Plus, you know. I need the exercise too.
It’s 1987 and my friend Tommy Kim has an idea to make his college applications stand out from the crowd: In addition to the usual essays, grades and test scores, he’s going to include a cassette of songs he’s written, performed by a band he put together, and professionally produced in an actual studio. The band he put together included a bunch of friends and schoolmates, including me on drums and my pal Kevin Stampfl on bass. Our name: Dead Rats Don’t Fly, or “DRDF” for short. Why did we call ourselves that? Look, pal, it was the 80s, okay. Lots of things didn’t make sense. The four-song EP we cranked out in two days of studio time was called 327, named after Tommy’s room number in the Holt dormitory at Webb.
So, how was 327 as musical statement? Well, it is exactly the music that you’d expect from a bunch of rock-loving 80s teenage dudes of varying musical abilities hastily tossed together into a band with only two days of studio time at their disposal. Are the songs… good? With all love: No. In the performances, can you sense primordial musical talent waiting for its moment to arrive? Also no. Could the drummer keep a beat without speeding up? I mean, sometimes? Tommy did get into college at least one place, so it did what it was supposed to do. Otherwise, it’s a kind of a mess.
But I think it’s an endearing mess, and at the time, waaaaay back in 1987, when we got our band copies of the EP (on cassette! It was the 80s!), we thought it was pretty damn cool. Kevin and I drove around in his Mustang, listening to the thing, kind of dazed that we had actually been in a studio, and that music we made had been committed to a permanent medium. 327 isn’t exactly good, but 17-year-old me was still proud of it, and I had a blast playing songs with my friends. And that was a good thing.
(It also allowed me to play a great prank: when Steve Shenbaum, one of the singers — yes, we had two — arrived at Northwestern for his freshman orientation and met his dorm’s resident assistant, the RA said “Steve Shenbaum? Of DRDF? Dude, that’s my favorite band!” and all the upperclassmen in the dorm were able to recite the EP’s lyrics to him. He was amazed, as he recounted to me a couple days later when I called him to see how his college experience was shaping up, and eventually it was my giggling into the phone as he told me about it that revealed that I had called his RA a day before he showed up to set the bait for him. It was delightful. I believe Steve has forgiven me. Probably.)
I misplaced my 327 tape years ago, and of course these days I don’t have a cassette player anyway, and for years the EP passed into myth, and then into legend (for, like, the extremely limited number of people who know the band members and/or ever heard the cassette or heard DRDF play live at our single concert). Then a few years ago Steve sent me an MP3 rip of his cassette of 327 (see? I told you he’s forgiven me!) and I had it again. I listened to it! It was still terrible! Nevertheless I took one of the songs from it, called “It’s a New Reality” (I wrote the lyrics for it, you see), cleaned it up slightly with Logic Pro, and put it up on YouTube. A fun, or at least nostalgic, time was had by the 1.6k people who listened to it since I posted it.
But what of the rest of 327? Well, it’s a few years later now, I’m somewhat more proficient at musical production, and music recovery tools are better these days, so you know what? Fuck it, I’ve gone back and rehabbed the entire EP now. I went in, stemmed out the vocals, drums and other instruments, cleaned and brightened them, moved around some of the bum notes to get them (mostly) on key, sonically painted over the clicks where I hit my drumsticks together, and in one place patched a place in the recording where a tape head clearly jammed up, leaving a blank space in a song, pasting in the keyboards and adding a bridge vocal.
The cleanup has reveal 327 as a minor classi — no, actually it hasn’t, it’s still a bunch of 80s kids bashing together tunes on a tight schedule with more enthusiasm than actual talent (well, the guitarist, a ringer Tommy brought in named George Huang, was actually talented; he was our age but had clearly been playing for years. The rest of us? Hey, we tried!). Also, it wouldn’t have done to try to erase every artifact of its 80s amateurishness, and I’m not that good an engineer anyway, so there’s still tape hiss (and lossy MP3 simmerwarble), compressed dynamics, variable tempos and other evidence that what you’re hearing was hauled up from the subterranean depths of four decades ago. Don’t kid yourself. If you’re listening to this, it’s out of curiosity more than anything else.
Which is fine! And better than fine! 327 (now named 327/38 to note that it’s been 38 years since we got together to make this — actually maybe 39, since I’m a little fuzzy on the exact dates, but it hardly matters now, so I’m sticking with 38) is an artifact of another time and place, when hair bands ruled the earth and teenagers made their music fast and dirty in studios rather than on their laptops. It wasn’t a better time (I like making music on my laptop, thank you!), but it was a different time, and it shows. We had fun, and that was its own excuse. Plus Tommy got into college!
Enough with the liner notes, here are tunes. Note that on the original 327 some of these songs may have had different titles, but I can’t remember what they were. It’s been a while, okay?
One Hit (To the Body): If memory serves correctly, this is a song Tommy wrote about being nostalgic for a bunch of friends at… summer camp, I think? There’s a tape warble in the middle of the song that I left in because I don’t how to fix it, and also it adds a sort of verisimilitude to the 80s experience, that horrifying moment when you wonder if your tape player is going to eat your cassette. 80s kids know this pain.
It’s a New Reality: Our hit single! I wrote the lyrics imagining David Lee Roth singing it (the arrangement in my brain was different than it is here). Tommy wrote the bridge about rock and roll being in our blood, because we needed a bridge. There are some very 80s guitar solos in here. Thank you George, wherever you are! You’re probably a doctor now or something. But you could rock back in the day.
Tears Go Rolling: The album’s “epic,” with two lead singers, different parts in entirely different tempos and soaring guitar solos designed to wrench the lighters out your pocket to wave in the air. Yeah, the 80s were all about the epic. This is the song where there was blank spot in file and I had to patch it. I nailed the instrumental patch but you’ll probably be able to tell where I dubbed in my voice. Which is okay! It doesn’t have to be seamless! I do enjoy the idea that 56-year-old me is collaborating with 17-year-old me. Hello, 17-year-old me! Enjoy your hair!
Pauline: The opening guitar riff feels kind of Red Hot Chili Peppers (in contemplative mode), and then the middle the guitars go a little Johnny Marr. However, don’t actually expect either RHCP or Smiths! The guitar is leading down you a path! The song itself is going somewhere else entirely!
There, I hope this musical experience has been everything you’ve hoped for and more. Also, surprise! 327/38 is also available on streaming. The long-lost EP absolutely no one was asking for is now everywhere! So now you never have to be without it. Ever. And thank goodness for that.
Now, for the sake of completeness: Credits!
327/38 Originally produced by Tommy Kim, additional engineering by John Scalzi All songs Tommy Kim except “It’s a New Reality” by Tommy Kim and John Scalzi
Chris Godfrey: Keyboards John Herpel: Guitar George Huang: Guitar Scott Moore: Vocals John Scalzi: Drums Steve Shenbaum: Vocals Kevin Stampfl: Bass
You may ask: Will we ever get the band back together? Well, if Spinal Tap can do it after 41 years, it’s not out of the question. Maybe Tommy needs tenure.
It’s a short and sweet oldy but a goody this time out, from Buddy Holly. Why this one? Why not? It’s been covered by just about everyone, from James Taylor to Erasure, and I really like the song, and I had free time this weekend, so here we are. If you like it, fabulous, if you don’t, well, it’s two minutes long, it’ll be over quickly enough.
And for those of you who have somehow never heard the original, here you go:
We do so love the big blue marble we call home, don’t we? But what if humans had another home, and what if it was our red and dusty space neighbor? Author E.L. Starling poses this question in the Big Idea for newest novel, Bound By Stars, thinking up possibilities about the future that are certainly dystopian, but also realistic. Follow along on a journey through the stars, and try to keep afloat as the (space)ship goes down.
E. L. STARLING:
My family rewatches Interstellar together every year, which sometimes (read: always) devolves into a heated debate about complex theories, space time, and whether “they” really were aliens or just an unfathomable combination of future human technology and a natural anomaly splicing through the multiverse. (Probably the aliens, right?)
In spring of 2022, as the credits rolled, my oldest veered off our usual set of topics and brought up a certain billionaire’s desire to terraform Mars. We all responded with eye rolls and a version of the same sentiment, “How about putting that effort into combating climate change on this planet where we already have oxygen, water, and atmosphere?”
Plus, if I’m being completely honest, even if Mars was a viable option for everyone, you can still leave me here. Reading in a car going 25 mph flips my stomach inside out. And, the vastness of the unknown is a fear I would rather not face.
But, what would that be like? What if the wealthy abandoned Earth to create a utopia 140 million miles away and left the rest of the world’s population behind? Would they really leave Earth for good? Terraforming is a long game. They would still need resources. Would they use Earth like their new planet’s remote farm and factory? There was so much to consider.
This discussion sparked an idea. Two worlds. Separated by space and socioeconomic classes.
As my family members scattered, I was building the dystopia in my mind: After the Earth is ravaged by climate change, the population decimated, and society reshaped, the wealthy still control the resources, but they’ve drilled for water, built infrastructure, and established a safe haven in luxurious habitat cities on Mars.
The dynamics of the world set up the perfect main characters: two people from different classes and different planets. And what if they were teenagers in this world— still required to manage school, bullies, love, homework, and their impending futures? What if I upped the stakes further and put them on a doomed starliner between their two worlds? There was The Big Idea: YA Titanic-in-space.
Enter Jupiter Dalloway and Weslie Fleet. Jupiter is from Mars. Born at the top of society. The heir to a multi-trillion-dollar company. Unsatisfied with his predetermined future. Weslie’s from Earth. Hardened by a life of struggle and injustice. Full of confidence and armed with the attitude to call out Jupiter’s alarming privilege. Both of them seventeen, on the tailend of adolescence. Two people who learn to appreciate and celebrate each other’s differences despite the backdrop of a complex and oppressive world.
Choosing to write Bound by Stars as a YA novel was a conscious endeavor for me. At that age, you’re near adulthood, but still not fully in control of your own life. There are people who dictate the basics of your day to day, but you’re the one expected to make decisions about your future. High school graduation, college, the rest of your life is just around the bend in the road ahead. You’re shaped by every heartbreak, moment of triumph, cruel word, and act of kindness. And all the emotions inside you are bigger, stronger, more passionate. The future feels open. Possible. Big. Scary.
I love celebrating this multitude for joy, hope, injustice, and even sadness. In my opinion, this is great insight into why we often throw teenager characters into dystopian stories. While sometimes labeled as “overly emotional” or “out of control,” that “too much-ness” of adolescence is human emotion at its absolute fullest capacity. I can’t help but respect someone who can experience heartbreak like a life-ending blow and still care about their friends, show up for band practice, sing their heart out in a theater production, and write that 5-page essay due at the end of the week.
And on top of it all—today’s youth are growing up with a true fear of climate change and developing an understanding of the dangers of unfettered capitalism in real time, while being asked “What do you want to do with your life after high school?”
Of course, the compelling lightbulb of “Titanic-in-space” was fun and romantic: a chance to create parallels to an epic love story in a high-stake situation. But there was a level deeper. Underneath the outrageous opulence of the ship headed for Mars, sharp banter between characters from different worlds, slow-burn romance, and an action-packed, “there aren’t enough lifeboats (or escape pods in this case)” climax, Bound by Stars is a story about relatable, young characters navigating life in bleak future landscape. After all, dystopian novels can reflect the complexities of existing in this stage of life, while—hopefully—offering a bit of hope and inspiration.
Whilst I was perusing the produce section at Kroger last week, I came across a watermelon. Not just any watermelon, though. Private Selection’s “Black Diamond” watermelons. I figured since y’all seemed to enjoy my orange review, you might want the skinny on this here watermelon, as well:
Unlike the Sugar Gem oranges, this watermelon was sweeter than a regular ol’ watermelon. Not only that, but the label boasts a rich, red flesh. I thought it may have been all talk, but lo and behold it was indeed very red! I bought this one for six dollars, which is pretty much the exact same cost as a regular watermelon, and it’s roughly the same size, so I’d say you should go ahead and buy this one over the regular ones if you are someone who prefers a juicier, sweeter watermelon.
I served this watermelon to my parents, both of whom do not particularly care for watermelon, and they made a point of telling me how good this particular watermelon was and ended up eating a good bit of it when normally they probably wouldn’t have opted for any watermelon at all.
With the 4th approaching this weekend, I assume many of y’all will want to pick up a watermelon, and I think if your Kroger has these ones lying around you should give it a try! I’ve been meaning to buy another one because it’s the perfect refreshing snack during this recent heat wave.
It’s nice to try something new and actually have a good experience with it. Those Sugar Gem oranges may have been a bust, but this Black Diamond Watermelon is definitely a winner in my book.
Do you like watermelon? If you don’t, would you be willing to give this one a try based on my parents’ reaction to it? Do you have fun plans for the 4th? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
Spent the weekend peddling books at TC Pride and it was a....LOT. Hot, sporadic rainstorms (with a big one overnight that trashed some folk's tents) and other wackiness. Full writeup here. Short version: terrible location, lower sales than last year, a state funeral next door with all that goes with that, primo people watching, good chats, nice folks and TC Pride in all its gigantic glory. Also, vendor pals gave me a piece of really tasty homemade coffeecake and Alexa (my assistant) is a champ.
The other cool thing that happened was that the Queen of Swords Press reissue of the classic gay fantasy, Point of Hopes (Astreiant #1) by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett, won the Midwest Book Award from the Midwest Independent Publisher's Association! Very pleased about this. Hopes was our third title to be a finalist for these awards and is now our second award-winning title after The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper by A.J. Fitzwater, winner of a Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Collection. :-D
2 days left on the Pride StoryBundle! Melissa and I got a really great lineup this year and we've raised $770 for Rainbow Railroad so far. I might add that the proceeds from this will also be a nice help to the participating publishers and authors, including my own press, and that, seeing as I will be unemployed by Thursday, my half of the curator's fee will help cover my travel expenses for Readercon which would be super helpful. If you're in a position to get one and it looks appealing, maybe pick one up?
The Summer/Winter Smashwords Sale has also kicked off today and you can get a great deal on Queen of Swords Press titles, including my own books. This is traditionally a solid sale for us and it means that I can pay myself more this month if it goes well. Also, speaking of sales, the audiobook for my second Wolves of Wolf's Point novel, Blood Moon, is on sale right now through 7/15. The narrator that Tantor hired is really good - I've been enjoying listening to her reading my books while I get regrounded for/in Book 3.
What am I going to do for the next couple of weeks? Honestly, rest. Write. Read. Get caught up on projects like the developmental editing class I paid to take online...last year. Clear some stuff out of the house. Put some things up for sale. Spend time with people who I've wanted to see for quite a while. Spend some time with my kitties (I don't think Shu will be around a whole lot longer). Can I afford to retire? Alas, no. But I have got to unglue from the ceiling and the last 8 months of this job have been toxic with a cherry on top. I will need to start job hunting soon after I get back from Readercon though and possibly exploring other areas of endeavor if IT has dried up for me so lots of uncertainty ahead. In the meantime, if you are in a position to support me recovering for a bit, consider pledging the Patreon and buying a book or two. I also have a Ko-fi and will be more active out there soon. Stay tuned! More updates ahead. And hugs to everyone who needs them.
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I’ve been making more charcuterie boards than usual lately, and I’d like to think practice makes fairly decent, so I’d like to show y’all some of my recent spreads I’ve done for gatherings and parties and whatnot. I usually post them on Instagram and Bluesky, but just in case you missed them, you can get your fix right here and now!
