Decision Points is a new anthology edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt. Bryan sat down to interview his authors about their contributions. Here are the first three interviews featuring: Kevin J. Anderson, Alethea Kontis, and Jonathan Maberry.
This week, Hugo-nominated editor’s first Young Adult anthology, Decision Points debuted from WordFire Press. A collection of 20 stories mixing science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories in which character’s decisions determine each story’s outcome, the anthology has been praised by luminaries such as YA superstar, Tamora Pierce, the New York Times Bestselling author of Circle Of Magic and The Song Of The Lioness, who said: “A strong, well-written, fascinating selection—this was the most solid-in-quality anthology I’ve ever read!” The anthology contains 6 originals and 14 reprints, several of which have never appeared in anthologies before.
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Kevin J. Anderson is the author of more than 125 books, 54 of which have appeared on national or international bestseller lists; he has over 23 million copies in print in thirty languages. He has won or been nominated for the Nebula Award, Hugo Award, Bram Stoker Award, Shamus Award, the SFX Reader’s Choice Award, and New York Times Notable Book. He and his wife Rebecca Moesta are the publishers of WordFire Press.
BTS: What is the name of your Decision Points story and what’s it about?
Kevin J. Anderson: “Newts” is about a rebellious, extremist space colony that neuters a percentage of its young men, and the “newt” who has to decide whether to continue the policy.
BTS: What gave you the idea for your story?
KJA: Without hormones and emotions and passions, do you promote peace…or inhumanity?
BTS: Tell us a bit about your main character(s) please.
KJA: A young man who feels isolated and struggling to deal with the extreme emotions of his family, his home…and it’s because of the cruel thing they did to him.
BTS: Does your story tie in to other works or worlds you’ve written? How?
KJA: No, this was a standalone idea.
BTS: What are other projects you’re working on that might interest us?
KJA: In September I have the grand finale of my Saga of Shadows trilogy, Eternity’s Mind, which ends nearly fifteen years of me working in the Seven Suns universe…and also Brian Herbert and I will release Navigators Of Dune, the finale of the Schools of Dune trilogy and the last Dune novel we currently have planned (about 17 years working in that universe). So, it’s like the end of the universes for me.
BTS: How does your approach to writing short stories differ from your long form process, if it does?
KJA: I don’t often write original short stories, but this idea was really compelling to me, but it wasn’t something that would work at novel length. My brain usually works on much greater lengths, so a new short story is pretty unusual for me.
BTS: Tell us about a Decision Point of yours that changed your life.
KJA: When I decided to write a letter out of the blue to a stranger named Brian Herbert, to tell him how much I loved his father’s novels…and that resulted in a very long-standing friendship and 18 coauthored books together. It was certainly worth the price of a stamp!
New York Times bestselling author Alethea Kontis is a princess, a fairy godmother, and a geek. She’s known for screwing up the alphabet, scolding vampire hunters, turning garden gnomes into mad scientists, and making sense out of fairy tales. Alethea is the co-author of Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter Companion, and penned the AlphaOops series of picture books. Her short fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in a myriad of anthologies and magazines. She has done multiple collaborations with Eisner winning artist J.K. Lee, including The Wonderland Alphabet and Diary of a Mad Scientist Garden Gnome. Her YA fairy tale novel, Enchanted, won the Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award in 2012, was nominated for the Audie Award in 2013, and was selected for World Book Night in 2014. Both Enchanted and its sequel, Hero, were nominated for the Andre Norton Award. Tales of Arilland, a short story collection set in the same fairy tale world, won a second Gelett Burgess Award in 2015. Born in Burlington, Vermont, Alethea currently lives and writes on the Space Coast of Florida. She makes the best baklava you’ve ever tasted and sleeps with a teddy bear named Charlie. You can find Princess Alethea online at: aletheakontis.com.
BTS: What is the name of your Decision Points story and what’s it about?
Alethea Kontis: “Like a Thief in the Light” is set on Shadow Street, a magical nocturnal place where supernatural races thrive in the darkness. Sun, the apprentice street sweeper, is a rare breed of Shadow Thief who remains awake in the daylight. His master, the gargoyle Pierre, is dying. Sun faces his greatest foes trying to discover a way to heal Pierre, and in doing so he learns a little about life…and a lot about himself.
BTS: What gave you the idea for your story?
AK: “Like a Thief in the Light” was actually inspired by an idea I gave someone else. My Codex Writers group was playing a game: We had to give a “story seed” to another author, and then write our story based on the seed given to us. The story seed I passed down was “Gargoyles in French Guiana.” As soon as I wrote the words, I wanted to write that story. I loathed giving that idea away. But the girl I gave the seed to dropped out of the contest…so I took it back, happily!
Shortly after that contest, I stumbled across one of those lists on the internet of the Strangest Animals on the Planet. I became enraptured by the aye-aye from Madagascar. And thus, Fuzz was born.
BTS: Tell us a bit about your main character(s) please.
AK: Sun (yes, it’s no coincidence that sun = son) is the son of a Shadow Thief, one of the blind denizens of Shadow Street that lurks in shadows, waiting for a body to cross their path so they can steal its soul. His mother’s origin, and the strange birthmarks she left him, are mysteries Sun must solve for himself.
BTS: Does your story tie in to other works or worlds you’ve written? How?
AK: It does not. But I wouldn’t mind revisiting the world of Shadow Street sometime. I think it has a lot of paranormal potential!
BTS: What are other projects you’re working on that might interest us?
AK:My short story collection Wild & Wishful, Dark & Dreaming is about to be released. My YA horror novel Haven, Kansas will be releasing this October. And in the meantime I’m working on Thieftess, the fourth in the Woodcutter Sisters series of fairytale novels.
BTS: How does your approach to writing short stories differ from your long form process, if it does?
AK: I don’t think it does, actually. I started out (at a very young age) writing poetry, and graduated to short stories as I got older. I published my first novel (Enchanted) six years after my first short story sale. Now that I’m older and wiser and more accustomed to long form, I understand why many novelists write so few short stories. Regardless of the medium, you have to create a whole entire world, and invent characters from scratch. Once you do that, it’s tough to only tell just one story. Sort of like potato chips!
BTS: Tell us about a Decision Point of yours that changed your life.
AK: When I was 33 – Frodo’s age – I quit my job with no notice and ran away from home. Literally ran away: I sent in an email late Sunday night, and by Monday evening me and my $75 overweight suitcase were in an airport halfway between There and Back.
I’ve always been a Goody Two Shoes. I was that kid who made straight-As and never did anything wrong and got a job at 16 and worked 50 hours a week and had a college degree by the time she was 20. But everybody gets broken sometime. Everybody finds themselves in a situation so horrible that the only way to solve it is to run away. Only then do we truly learn how strong and resilient we can be.
Most normal people do this when they are 5 or 10 or 20. It just took me a little while longer.
Jonathan Maberry is a NY Times bestselling novelist, five-time Bram Stoker Award winner, and comic book writer. He writes the Joe Ledger thrillers, the Rot & Ruin series, the Nightsiders series, the Dead of Night series, as well as standalone novels in multiple genres. His comic books include Captain America, Bad Blood, Rot & Ruin, V-Wars, and others. He is the editor of many anthologies including The X-Files, Scary Out There, Out of Tune, and V-Wars. His books Extinction Machine and V-Wars are in development for TV, and Rot & Ruin is in development as a series of feature films. He was a featured expert on the History Channel documentary, Zombies: A Living History and a regular expert on the TV series, True Monsters. Jonathan lives in Del Mar, California with his wife, Sara Jo. www.jonathanmaberry.com
BTS: What is the name of your Decision Points story and what’s it about?
JONATHAN MABERRY: “Sisters” is a sad and violent little story set in the world of my Rot & Ruin novels. The story takes place several years after the zombie apocalypse, but zombies aren’t the villains here. The girls, Lilah and Annie, have been taken away from the good-hearted man who had been protecting them for years and have been made to fight for their lives in fighting pits for the amusement of very corrupt people. The story deals with their attempts to escape.
BTS: What gave you the idea for your story?
JM: Lilah the Lost Girl was introduced in the first of the Rot & Ruin novels and has become a fan favorite. When we meet her in that novel, which is set five years after the events of “Sisters”, she is a feral loner. Her troubled and tragic past is alluded to in the novels, but her story is never fully told. I’ve had thousands of fan letters asking for that story, and that’s what “Sisters” is.
BTS: Tell us a bit about your main character(s) please.
JM: Lilah, the older girl, is very tough but fear for what’s likely to happen to her sister is driving her over the edge. She was taught how to fight zombies but the man who protected Lilah and Annie thought that all other humans had been killed. They believed they were the only people left. Lilah is naturally suspicious when humans appear, but she learns that ‘monsters’ come in all kinds. Zombies are mindless, and therefore the damage they inflict is not based on evil or maliciousness. No more so than, say, a virus or a tornado. Humans, on the other hand, are capable of both great nobility and great evil. It’s a harsh lesson for the girls to learn.
BTS: Does your story tie in to other works or worlds you’ve written? How?
JM: Lilah is an important part of the Rot & Ruin novels (including Rot & Ruin, Dust & Decay, Flesh & Bone and Fire & Ash), of which there are four out as well as a collection of short stories (Bits & Pieces), and a graphic novel (Rot & Ruin: Warrior Smart). The character is the most frequently cosplayed one from the books.
BTS: What are other projects you’re working on that might interest us?
JM: I’m in the busiest year of my career. I have several novels coming out this year, including Kill Switch (8th in my series of ‘Joe Ledger’ adult weird-science thrillers), Vault of Shadows (2nd in my middle-grade ‘Nightsiders’ series), and Dark of Night (a novella that ties my Dead of Night, Joe Ledger and Rot & Ruin series together); as well as several anthologies I’ve edited, including X-Files: The Truth is Out There and X-Files: Secret Agendas, Out of Tune vol II, Alternate Sherlocks, V-Wars: Shock Waves, and Scary Out There (horror for teens). And tenth anniversary editions of my first three novels, Ghost Road Blues, Dead Man’s Song and Bad Moon Rising will debut this year. And Marvel Comics just re-released my Marvel Universe vs The Punisher miniseries as part of its Punisher Vs the Marvel Universe mega-collection. Also, IDW Games just released a tabletop board game, V-Wars: A Game of Blood and Betrayal, based on my V-Wars anthologies and comics. The V-Wars series and the Joe Ledger books are in development for, respectively, TV and film. And I will be writing five novels this year, including the 9th Joe Ledger novel (Dogs of War), a standalone space travel novel for teens (Mars One), a standalone horror novel (Glimpse), a mystery-thriller for teens (Watch Over Me), and a novel about Dana Scully as a teen (X-Files Origins: Devil’s Advocate). I do not plan to sleep anytime soon.
BTS: How does your approach to writing short stories differ from your long form process, if it does?
JM: For short fiction I tend to write in bursts, finishing a story in a day or two. And I always write the ending first, then back up and aim at it. With novels, I’m currently writing one about every three months, and I do a tremendous amount of research for those books. For example, I’m currently researching nanotechnology, robotics and military drones for the 9th Joe Ledger novel, while doing preliminary research on addiction from crack addiction for another novel.
BTS: Tell us about a Decision Point of yours that changed your life.
JM: I grew up in a very violent household. The neighborhood was violent, too. Lots of drugs, racism, domestic abuse and other problems. When I was little I knew I needed two things to get me out of that world. I needed to get smart and I needed to get tough. For the former, I read everything I could and made sure I knew more than what I was learning in school. I wanted to think my way out of that place. And for the latter I began taking martial arts lessons on the sly, and then later added boxing, wrestling, and fencing to the mix. I got tough enough to keep myself safe. Those were conscious survival decisions. I believe that those decisions saved my life.
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Bryan Thomas Schmidt is an author and Hugo-nominated editor of adult and children’s speculative fiction. His debut novel, The Worker Prince received Honorable Mention on Barnes & Noble Book Club’s Year’s Best Science Fiction Releases. His short stories have appeared in magazines, anthologies and online and include entries in The X-Files and Decipher’s WARS, amongst others. His anthologies as editor include Shattered Shields with co-editor Jennifer Brozek, Mission: Tomorrow, Galactic Games, and Little Green Men—Attack! with Robin Wayne Bailey (forthcoming) all for Baen, Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6, Beyond The Sun, and Raygun Chronicles: Space Opera for a New Age. He can be found online at bryanthomasschmidt.net.
