Interview posted at MILSCIFI.COM

May 2nd 2009 at 6:51 am

I didn’t set out for these books to be about war, at least not when I wrote The Silver Ship and the Sea.  Current events, however, have a way of coloring artistic work, even science fiction that’s being written about a far future.  The Iraq War and The Silver Ship and the Sea started at about the same time.  So the series ends up being driven by a battle that happened on the colony planet Fremont and driven to a bigger battle that will happen in space between splintered factions of the the Five Worlds.  While space war is not the throughline story for any of the books except the last one (not written yet), war turned out to be the throughline for the series as whole.  Which surprised me when I started to think about it, but also makes sense in the larger context of our society.

While I still wouldn’t classify the series as military science fiction, I hope it might interest milsf readers.  So when a call for people to interview went out, I decided to volunteer.  Thanks to author Mike McPhail for the interview.  You might also just drop by www.milscifi.com while you’re out and about the nets as well.  The site has interviews with people like Bud Sparhawk, Jack McDevitt, and Lawrence M. Schoen, as well a number of newer authors.

Filed in News, Reading the Wind, Silver Ship and the Sea. You can subscribe to the RSS feed for this entry to keep track of comments. You can also use this URL to trackback.

2 Responses so far

  1. 1. Jeremiah Tolbert on May 2nd, 2009 at 8:42 am

    Great interview, Brenda. I saw that it was a MilSF site and I was like “wait a second…” but right out of the gate, you had it covered.

  2. 2. Brenda Cooper on May 3rd, 2009 at 6:34 pm

    Thanks Jeremy! If I get to write the fourth book, it will be pretty squarely there, even though the series itself still won’t be straight mil sf (nor do I want it to be, although I like Honor Harrington and ripped through about ten of them in a week once).

Leave a comment

Books

Wings of Creation by Brenda Cooper

Reading the Wind cover image

Available November 10th, 2009 from Tor Books.

Reading the Wind by Brenda Cooper

Reading the Wind cover image

Audio promo:

"Brenda Cooper's newest novel is a feast of character and concept. She depicts the devastation of war on microcosmic and macrocosmic levels, and even more so, the driving motives of young men and women caught in deadly conflict. Cooper is a master explorer of the interaction of society and individuals. She probes the psychology of her genetically enhanced characters with both rare depth and fidelity to scientific plausibility. Moral conundrums drive the plot in this unforgettable narrative. Don't miss this compelling work by a major new talent." - Mary A. Turzillo, An Old-Fashioned Martian Girl.

"Brenda Cooper tells a tale of a powerful brother and sister in a fight for their lives, offering insights along the way into the nature of courage and the hunger for community that burns in every human being. This is a lively book, full of colorful images and a memorable cast of human and animal characters, a worthy successor to The Silver Ship and the Sea." - Louise Marley

Available in July, 2008, from Tor Books.

The Silver Ship and the Sea by Brenda Cooper

Silver Ship and the Sea cover image

Audio promo:

"The first solo novel by Larry Niven's Building Harlequin's Moon (2005) coauthor portrays the thoroughly convincing human colonial society on Fremont, a dangerous planet rife with vicious predators, frequent earthquakes, and falling meteors....Distinctive characterizations, well-limned interrelationships, and the vividly realized Fremont contribute to an exciting coming-of-age story with a strong message about the evils of prejudice." - Sally Estes, Copyright American Library Association.

Mass Market Paperback, July 2008.
Included by Booklist as a "Best Adult Book for Young Adults."

Building Harlequin's Moon by Brenda Cooper and Larry Niven

Building Harlequin's Moon cover image

"Fans of both hard and softer, psychological SF will welcome veteran Niven and newcome Cooper's well-written tale of a 60,000 year layover in space, in which physical challenges of world building are matched by the social challenges of collaboration among disparate groups." - Publisher's Weekly

/