Jo Harkin, author of Tell Me an Ending

Goodreads: Summarize your new book in a couple of sentences.

Jo Harkin: What would you do if you found out you had a traumatic memory removed; you have no idea what it is…and now you have to choose if you want it back? The novel follows several characters across the world wrestling with this question, as well as a psychologist who begins to suspect that there’s something unethical going on at the memory-removal clinic itself. 

GR: What sparked the idea for this book?

JH: A walk home during which I said to my partner, “You know, I reckon I could write a speculative fiction novel.” Behind the scenes, I think my subconscious had been ruminating on the way memory was explored by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Black Mirror, both of which had made a huge impression on me and at the same time left me with more questions than answers. I like to think that Tell Me an Ending is my contribution to an ongoing, collaborative “memory deletion” thought experiment. And in this tradition, I’ve taken care not to offer answers to questions readers can consider for themselves. 

GR: What was the most challenging part of writing your novel?

JH: Juggling the perspectives of five different characters in the past and present was a headache at times! Also: the cuts. The novel needed to lose about a third of its weight after the first draft. I’d like to say I’ve learned from this experience not to write too much, but my work in progress is going the same way. 

GR: Who are some of your all-time-favorite speculative fiction writers?

JH: Margaret Atwood, Michel Faber, Marcel Theroux, Emily St. John Mandel, George Orwell. 

GR: What are some new speculative fiction books you've been enjoying and recommending to friends? 

JH: I’ve been emphatically recommending The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan, The Shimmering State by Meredith Westgate, and The Candy House by Jennifer Egan. I also fell in love recently with Klara and the Sun, a book by a little-known author named Kazuo Ishiguro. It’s a real undiscovered gem, and I’m hoping to spread the word. 

GR: For someone who hasn't read speculative fiction in a while, what's a good book to lure them back to the genre? 

JH: I would recommend Marcel Theroux’s Strange Bodies. It’s atmospheric, richly allusive, and incredibly moving. A Victorian gothic in a modern-day body. You’ll be thinking about it for a long time afterward. 

GR: If you could have one superpower (or supernatural talent), what would it be?

JH: The power to know where anything is. Buried treasure, DB Cooper, the Amber Room, the two missing “princes in the tower,” Earhart’s airplane. And my house keys, obviously. 
 

John Scalzi, author of The Kaiju Preservation Society

Goodreads: Summarize your new book in a couple of sentences.

John Scalzi: The Kaiju Preservation Society is about friendships, science, and whether or not it’s a smart idea to use a helicopter to taunt a very, very, very large creature. Also: snark. 

GR: What sparked the idea for this book?

JS: The complete and utter collapse of an entirely different novel I was writing and the panic that came from knowing I was going to miss a publication date unless I came up with a new idea, fast. To which my brain said, OK, well, how about big monsters? And I said, YES BIG MONSTERS YES, and then my brain dropped the whole plot into my head.

GR: What was the most challenging part of writing your novel?

JS:  Honestly, nothing was challenging about writing this novel. It was a complete and liberating joy from start to finish, and I completed it quickly and easily. I want my next 60 novels at least to be just like this experience. I may be willing to do some unspeakable live sacrifices to achieve this. 

GR: Who are some of your all-time-favorite speculative fiction writers?

JS: Some in the running at the moment: Heinlein and Bradbury and Le Guin and Jemisin and Mieville and Simmons and Susan Cooper and Sheri Tepper and Steven Brust. I could name many more, BUT instead I will say that what I sincerely hope is that some of my all-time favorites are still out there, not yet read by me, and perhaps not even having yet written the book that will make me fall in love with their writing. I hate to think I’ve already met all the authors whose work I will cherish. 

GR: What are some new mysteries you've been enjoying and recommending to friends? 

JS: In 2021, the two speculative fiction books I enjoyed reading the most were The Actual Star by Monica Byrne and Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki. 

GR: For someone who hasn't read speculative fiction in a while, what's a good book to lure them back to the genre? 

JS: I’d hand them Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Calculating Stars, which I think is a very good intro to where the genre is right now and what it can do. If they like it, there are more books in the series.

GR: If you could have one superpower (or supernatural talent), what would it be?

JS: I already have the superpower of putting entire new worlds into other people’s heads, just by having them look at words on a page. It’s a pretty cool superpower! Asking for another one just seems greedy.
 

Sequoia Nagamatsu, author of How High We Go in the Dark

Goodreads: Summarize your debut novel in a couple of sentences.

Sequoia Nagamatsu: How High We Go in the Dark is a multigenerational journey across generations, continents, and even celestial bodies in the aftermath of a climate plague. Human resiliency, grief, and the threads that tie us together throughout the universe are explored through intricately linked chapters.

GR: What sparked the idea for this book?

SN: The book was, in part, inspired by my explorations of nontraditional funerary practices and forms of grieving (particularly in Japan) following the loss of my grandfather. The plague thread was introduced years later, in 2014, after reading an article in The Atlantic about ancient viruses being discovered in arctic ice melt. Any other cosmic and science-fictional concepts were largely the result of a lifelong love of Star Trek (the humanity just as much as the adventure and tech) and fascination with space exploration. 

GR: What was the most challenging part of writing your novel?

SN: Finding subtle points of connection between sections, dropping hints that would culminate toward a big reveal at the end of the novel, as well as evolving the world through generations. While there was a lot of research regarding climate change, space exploration (particularly exoplanets), and alternative funerary practices, it’s always difficult predicting a world yet to be in that I want my future communities and narrative arcs to seem believable while also making sure that what I write won’t be immediately dated or disproven (at least within my lifetime). With regard to technology and science, I often embrace research that is theoretically possible but will likely exist beyond the bounds of our capabilities for many centuries. 

GR: Who are some of your all-time-favorite speculative fiction writers?

SN: Italo Calvino (particularly Cosmicomics), Stanislaw Lem (Solaris), Kevin Brockmeier (Brief Histories of the Dead), J.G. Ballard (The Drowned World and his collected stories), Kelly Link (all of her short stories), Ted Chiang (both collections), Charlie Jane Anders (All the Birds in the Sky), and Haruki Murakami (especially Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World).
 

GR: What are some new speculative fiction books you've been enjoying and recommending to friends? 

SN: I really loved Seep by Chana Porter, The Book of M by Peng Shepherd, Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki, and No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull.

GR: For someone who hasn't read speculative fiction in a while, what's a good book to lure them back to the genre? 

SN: I suppose I won’t get into the complexities of the term speculative (you’ll likely get a different answer depending on who you ask). But if someone doesn’t have a lot of experience reading or watching sci-fi/fantasy at all, I’d probably lure someone with work that breaks down genre barriers. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel of course has become such a phenomenon in this vein, but I’ll also suggest The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler, Companions by Katie Flynn, and A Beginning at the End by Mike Chen.

GR: If you could have one superpower (or supernatural talent), what would it be?

SN: Probably the power to absorb other powers (like Sylar from Heroes), although I would like to think I would be much nicer about it.
    

Sue Lynn Tan, author of Daughter of the Moon Goddess

Goodreads: Summarize your debut novel in a couple of sentences.

Sue Lynn Tan: Daughter of the Moon Goddess is inspired by the legend of Chang’e, the Chinese moon goddess. It is a fantasy of immortals, magic, and love, in which a young woman’s quest to free her mother pits her against the most powerful immortal in the realm.

GR: What sparked the idea for this book?

SLT: For as long as I can remember, I have loved the legend of Chang’e. She was married to Houyi, the mortal archer who shot the suns destroying the world. He was gifted the elixir of immortality but did not take it, because he was unwilling to leave his wife. Yet it was Chang’e who consumed it instead, flying to the moon.
 
Her heartrending separation from Houyi saddened me, and though there are many variations of the tale, as to why Chang’e took the elixir—they all left me a little unfulfilled. I wondered if there might be another reason for her doing so: What if she was protecting someone else? Someone whom she loved as much as her husband? I imagined a child of courage and passion, who would fight for her mother as her father did for the realm. And from this idea, Daughter of the Moon Goddess was born.

GR: What was the most challenging part of writing your novel?

SLT: I find writing the first draft the most challenging part—trying to figure out the world, the story and characters, and how everything evolves. There is a lot of going back and forth, yet while it can get frustrating, it is also ultimately the most rewarding.

GR: Who are some of your all-time-favorite speculative fiction writers?

SLT: Some of my favorite writers include Madeline Miller, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and Holly Black. I also love the works of Stephanie Garber, Andrea Stewart, Shelley Parker-Chan, and Tasha Suri.
 

GR: What are some new speculative fiction books you've been enjoying and recommending to friends?

SLT: Some favorites from last year include She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan, The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid, The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec, and Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber.

GR: For someone who hasn't read speculative fiction in a while, what's a good book to lure them back to the genre?

SLT: I believe everyone has different preferences for the stories they enjoy. I think mythological retellings can be a good starting place, as they are often inspired by stories that are known to us. There is a sense of familiarity already established, and perhaps the new world one is stepping into might be a little less daunting for it. A book like Circe could be a compelling choice—a beautifully written character-driven story, interwoven with gods and legends.

GR: If you could have one superpower (or supernatural talent), what would it be?

SLT: This was hard to narrow down! If I had to choose one, I would love to manipulate time. Assuming the rules or constraints are flexible, there is so much possibility in this—to be able to make the best moments last longer, to spend time with those lost to us. To go back into the past and relive momentous events or seek second chances, or to step into the unknown of the future.
 
   

Olivie Blake, author of The Atlas Six

Goodreads: Summarize your new book in a couple of sentences.

Olivie Blake: The Alexandrian Society are the caretakers of lost knowledge from the Library of Alexandria and on throughout history, where prestige, power, and knowledge are virtually limitless for those invited to join. Six extraordinary magicians will spend the next year of their lives exploring concepts like time, space, thought, and fate, risking betrayal from their allies and growing closer to their enemies, all for the chance to make it to initiatio—which most of them will. Most of them.

GR: What sparked the idea for this book?

OB: I had originally written a portal fantasy with a similar magic system, where each of the characters had a specialty in an academic setting. But I struggled at the time with what was essentially boredom, knowing intuitively that the manuscript wasn’t quite right—it needed a more dynamic cast, higher stakes, a more compelling problem. Something less boilerplate save-the-world and more aligned with my personal interests in complex interpersonal dynamics and moral ambiguity. While a lot of what the book turned out to be is a matter of quieter choices—like the mechanics of how the character perspectives are juxtaposed to create the tension that drives the plot—the book’s main twist hit me while I was driving up the 5 from L.A. to San Francisco. Which, for those who are familiar with that particular drive, is nothing but cows and hillsides.

I believe it was Neil Gaiman who stressed the importance of daydreaming to the creative process, and I agree—tedium (or more accurately, the freedom to let my mind wander, although don’t tell my passengers) works wonders for the imagination.

GR: What was the most challenging part of writing your novel?

OB: The book was originally self-published and later picked up by my incredible team at Tor for a revised and expanded edition (shouts to Molly McGhee, my beloved editrix), so I could really go on forever about the differences in craft from “I’m going to write a book that nobody would ever publish because it’s what I, specifically, want to read” to “let’s preserve the soul of what I created while appealing to a wider audience than the one I initially intended to reach” (which was, to reiterate, myself).

Ultimately, though, I think both versions had the same challenge of using the unreliability of each narrator’s perspective to be deliberate with narrative sleight of hand. Because of the nature of the book’s gray morality, portraying a character’s true (or evolving) motives meant curating not only the plot itself, but what was left to linger on the audience’s periphery. Painting both the sunspots and the object in focus was a challenge that hopefully allows for a certain degree of delayed gratification. Will the characters kill each other or kiss each other in the end? Who can say.

GR: Who are some of your all-time-favorite speculative fiction writers?

OB: I cut my teeth on Diana Wynne Jones, Patricia C. Wrede, and Tamora Pierce, so thank you to them for making me. I’m also a big fan of V.E. Schwab, Maggie Stiefvater, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Margaret Atwood, Carmen Maria Machado, R.F. Kuang, Tasha Suri. Though, for the record, my TBR is incredibly long—I really think that as demand grows for diversity in storytelling, we dive deeper into a golden age of speculative fiction. I’m confident this list of favorites will grow by the week.

GR: What are some new speculative fiction books you've been enjoying and recommending to friends?  

OB:  I’m playing catch-up from the side effects of the last few years being, uh, complicated. (I reread the same cozy historical romance three times in a row during the week/decade that was the 2020 election—prayer hands to Cat Sebastian.)

For the character-driven dark academia crowd, I’m a big fan of Elisabeth Thomas’ Catherine House. It’s like if an Ottessa Moshfegh narrator joined a vaguely fantastical cult. I recently got an early read of The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean, which is basically a vampire thriller meets gothic family drama—a real page-turner. I’m loving T.L. Huchu’s Edinburgh Nights series, which features one of my favorite voicey narrators. For fairy tale lovers, the Greenhollow Duology by Emily Tesh, and in a similarly captivating but also completely different way, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. Tracy Deonn’s Legendborn Cycle is doing incredible things in the YA space. Last but not least, I am impatiently awaiting the next installment of The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir.

GR: For someone who hasn't read speculative fiction in a while, what's a good book to lure them back to the genre? 

OB: I’m very late to this, but I only recently read All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders. It’s weird and singular and excellent—and it seems like my timing works out, since it probably reads differently post-lockdown. (The thing about people turning to madrigals in dystopia was eerily like the sea shanty episode of the pandemic season one.) I would also recommend the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire, because there’s something for everyone in there.
 
GR: If you could have one superpower (or supernatural talent), what would it be?

OB: Telepathy, for sure. My favorite books are the nosy kind, all family dramas and sexual tension and existential meltdowns. I’d take people-watching to a whole new level.