Science fiction

In this Skype interview, author and engineer Christine Taylor-Butler talks about the first two novels of her Lost Tribes series. She discusses the young characters in the books, and their relationships with each other and the adults in the story. She also talks about her experience writing dozens of non-fiction books for children on a wide range of subjects.

Episode #296 of Fast Forward: Contemporary Science Fiction

This episode features a never released interview with best selling author Keith R. A. DeCandido, who talks about his extensive work writing media tie-in books, stories, and comics. He discusses some special concerns and deadline problems that are part of the tie-in field. Keith also talks about his own Precinct series of novels.

Also in this episode:

In episode #295 of Fast Forward: Contemporary Science Fiction, we feature an interview recorded at Capclave in 2016. Our guest is author Jon Skovron.

NOTE: Online video only contains the interview portion of the show.

Episode #294 of Fast Forward features an interview with award winning author Tim Powers. Mr Powers talks about his approach to conducting research and creating storylines for his novels of secret histories and the supernatural, and reveals the inspiration for some of the elements in his book, Medusa’s Web.

He also discusses his early childhood in Buffalo, NY, the creation of the character William Ashbless, and his long friendship with fellow writers James Blaylock and Philip K. Dick.

Episode #293 of Fast Forward: Contemporary Science Fiction features an interview with author Sarah Beth Durst! Ms. Durst talks about her book, The Queen of Blood.

Also in this episode:

Book reviewer Steve Cordle reviews two works by Mary Robinette Kowal - Forest of Memory and Ghost Talkers

Anime reviewer Marianne Petrino gives the anime film The Boy and The Beas her highest rating - 5 chans.

NOTE: The online version only contains the interview.

Episode #292 of Fast Forward: Contemporary Science Fiction

The episode features a new interview with author Alan Smale, who talks about his novel Eagle and Empire, the last volume in his Clash of Eagles trilogy. He discusses his approach to updating the society of the Roman legion, while staying true to its basic premise. He also talks about the challenges of handling multiple different military cultures, creating realistic battle scenes, and the potential for future stories within this world.

SFWA Grand Master author Joe Haldeman talks about his illustrious career as a science fiction writer! Mr. Haldeman talks about his experiences at various writing workshops, his work as a writing teacher, and the pros and cons of long-term writing contracts.

Also in this episode:

Steve Cordle reviews Fire Touched, a Mercy Thompson novel by Patricia Briggs.

Marianne Petrino gives a rating of 3 chans to Red Data Girl, an anime series distributed by Funimation.

In episode #290 of Fast Forward: Contemporary Science Fiction we interview award winning author Jo Walton. Ms. Walton talks about her latest series of books, the Thessaly trilogy, describing the special challenges of creating a world that has classical gods and magic, as well as sentient robots. She also talks about the opportunities the books gave her to explore issues of morality, equality and responsibility, using the story of the creation and development of a version of Plato's Republic.