FanLit Asks: July 10, 2012

Some of your favorite authors take some time to answer our questions:

What are you working on these days?

Mark Lawrence: When not using MS Paint to draw mice and not at work pushing back the frontiers of science (sometimes in the right direction), and not looking after my youngest daughter… I’m writing a book called Gunlaw that’s a strange fusion of gunslinger fantasy and sci-fi.

Anne Ursu: I’m in the middle of a new book. It’s my first high fantasy, and I’m both intimidated and thrilled by the challenges that poses. Right now, mostly intimidated.

Read any good books lately?

James Barclay: Well, leaving aside anything I’ve read on the BFS shortlists, then yes, there are one or two. For Robert Scott’s polar expedition 100th anniversary, I read Race to the Pole by Sir Ranulph Fiennes. It’s an awe inspiring read, highly recommended. Think you’ve been cold? Try getting into your reindeer sleeping bag and having to use your body warmth to unfreeze it first before you can even think of sleeping in its chill dampness while the wind howls at -40 and the rest outside. Just extraordinary. And in fiction, Sarah Pinborough’s novella The Language of Dying is wonderful.

Pip Ballantine: I have really been reading steampunk lately. I love, love LOVE The Native Star by M.K. Hobson. It’s a delicious mix of steampunk, magic, romance, and American history. I highly recommend it.

Laura Bickle / Alayna Williams: I just finished Fever by Lauren DeStefano. Her voice is so incredibly powerful — I can’t wait for the third book in the CHEMICAL GARDEN trilogy. Both Wither and Fever were books that lingered with me for a long time after I finished — I love it when a story takes up real estate in my head and haunts me like that.

Authors, thanks for spending time with us!

July 10th, 2012. Posted by Kat Hooper | FanLit Asks | no comments |
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KAT HOOPER is a professor at the University of North Florida where she teaches neuroscience, psychology, and research methods courses. She occasionally gets paid to review scientific textbooks, but reviewing speculative fiction is much more fun. Kat lives with her husband and their children in Jacksonville Florida.

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