FLY SOUP

Interview: Thoraiya Dyer By Chris Large Australian author Thoraiya Dyer spoke with me about her award-winning short story Wine, Women and Stars , her recent three book deal with Tor, the purpose of writing awards, and her no-holes-barred determination to put words to page. This interview first appeared in Aurealis #84. Welcome back to Aurealis Thoraiya, and a huge congratulations on winning your third Aurealis Award at the 2015 ceremony. You now have two awards for fantasy and a third for science fiction. In your own words you were ‘a bit weepy’ when you accepted the 2015 gong. What does it mean to you to win awards for your writing? I guess it depends on how confident you’re feeling in your skills at the time. I’ve been writing short  fiction for a while now but also, in the background, I’ve been writing novels. The reason I was so weepy about that particular award was because last year my husband lost his job and the bank took our house, so we were fo...

  Interview: John Scalzi Part 2 By Chris Large Interview first appeared in Aurealis #82. Welcome back John. At the moment your new book Lock In, [discussed in the last issue] is a standalone novel. Are you considering writing more in this world? Or is this it? No! I’d be happy to write more in this world if there was a desire from my publisher and from my audience. I don’t ever write anything but standalone novels. Old Man’s War was a standalone novel. I wrote that one book, right? And then it took off and my editor said, “You need to write another one,” and gave me some money. I said “Okay. I see how this works.” That’s how Old Man’s War became a series. Android’s Dream was supposed to be a series. I’d signed a contract for a second book but when I started writing it, it was terrible so I stopped doing that and wrote something else. So Lock In is currently a standalone book but if my publisher comes to me and says, “Yeah, I want you to write the second ...

Interview: John Scalzi Part 1.5   By Chris Large WARNING – CONTAINS SPOILERS OF EPIC PROPORTIONS John, in your latest book, Lock In , remotely controlled robotic bodies called threeps are developed to give those suffering the ‘locked in’ form of Haden’s Syndrome a greater degree of freedom. It basically allows sufferers who are trapped in their own bodies to interact with the world, but the long game of the corporations is for the technology to be used to give older people more freedom of mobility. Do you see this as humanity simply trying to avoid getting old? Or are you suggesting this type of technology could be the next step in our evolution? I don’t want to use the phrase “next step in our evolution”. I think that’s a loaded phrase. But say if you were 75 years old and your mobility had been compromised simply by being 75. Your knees are shot, you might be overweight, or you might have a bad back or anything that makes it more difficult for you to do the th...

John was the second fly to fall in my soup. He's probably my all-time second-fave sci-fi writer after Douglas Adams, and since I can't talk to him anymore, chatting with Mr Scalzi was a big deal for me. Aurealis split the interview into 3 parts, the second of which was published on SoundCloud, but I'll load a transcript here as Part 2. Interview: John Scalzi Part 1   By Chris Large   (Love this Picture) Hugo award winning author, president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (2010-2013), feminist and all-round super-powered good-guy John Scalzi spoke with me in this three-part interview in early 2015. Check out Part 1 below, originally published in Aurealis #81. John’s latest book, Lock In, is a near-future murder-mystery set against a backdrop of a world ravaged by a disease known as Haden’s Syndrome. Haden’s victims suffering from ‘lock in’ find themselves unable to move or communicate with those around them and must instead util...

Hi All, I'm back! With interviews! I've decided that rather than letting my interviews languish on my hard drive once they're out of contract, I'll put them up here. So you can expect to see a few of them popping up here from time to time. I've mostly interviewed Aussies, but there's a healthy sprinkling of others in the mix as well. So without further ado, feast your eyes upon my first ever interview with Aussie writer and filmmaker, Shane Abbess, which first appeared last year in Aurealis #79. Interview: Shane Abbess By Chris Large It’s no secret that Australian films struggle to gain traction internationally – particularly in with respect to fantasy and science fiction – but that seems likely to change sooner rather than later.  Australian writer and director, Shane Abbess, has spoken frankly on what is being done to improve both the appeal of Aussie film and its global reputation. Shane is best known to audienc...