Podcast Season 3
The Alternate Futures Podcast
The Alternate Futures podcast features interviews with indie science fiction creators where we discuss their work, the world, and anything in-between. while this mostly means authors, I’m open to indie science fiction creators using a wide range of media.
If you have any comments or would like to see me interview your favourite indie science fiction creator, feel free to contact me.
Episode Details and Links
3.25 Sarah Woodbury
In this episode, I chat with million-book-selling Sarah Woodbury about her path to becoming a successful independent author and her love of Welsh history. We also discuss parallel dimensions and her contribution to the open source science fiction universe, The Paradisi Chronicles.
Villian Bio:
Website: sarahwoodbury.com
More insights on Sarah Woodbury’s writing can be found at Author Insights on Indie Book Showcase.
3.26 Louisa Locke
In this episode, I chat with Louisa Locke about the evolution of the Indie Author and their growing acceptance among fans, her path from professor of women’s history to successful fiction author, and the creation and development of the shared world of The Paradisi Chronicles.
No Revenge of the Muse in this episode
No Story Intro this Episode.
Website: mlouisalocke.com
More insights on M. Louisa Locke’s writing can be found at Author Insights on Indie Book Showcase.
3.27 Rachel Aukes
In this episode, I chat with Rachel Aukes about flying with her 50 lb lap dog and how she approached getting know despite being an introvert. We also discuss extraterrestrial colonization and the roles AI might play, overcoming ‘othering’ within humanity, and the inevitable evolution of extraterrestrial humans. Books of hers we discuss are: The Deadland series, The Fringe Series, The Waymaker Wars, and The Javelin Series.
Revenge of the Muse – Super Villian Bio: Dr. Harold Pearce
Listen to the podcast here.
No Story Intro this Episode.
Website: rachelaukes.com
More insights on Rachel Aukes’s writing can be found at Author Insights on Indie Book Showcase.
3.28 Claire McCague
In this episode, I chat with Claire McCagues about her love of musical instruments, writing and producing plays and the path to her book series. We also discuss the challenges of interspecies communication, the possible nature of alien beings, and concerns over the colonization of space.
Books of hers we discuss are: Rosetta Man and Rosetta Mind.
Revenge of the Muse – A short synopsis: The Icarus Agenda
The fully-automated ZEDI-class supertanker, Hellas Fos, is about to enter the terminal phase of its mission to deliver water to a polar crater on Mercury. The onboard intelligence, Idwe, receives a locked course correction. The commands arrive with the highest level of authorization encoded but no explanation or destination. Extrapolating from the course adjustment, Idwe realizes that the correction negates its intercept with Mercury and sets them on a sweeping arc into the sun. Idwe is not programmed to give any consideration to self-preservation – its mission was to end with a kinetic delivery, creating a crater within a crater – but the new directive will incinerate the cargo, rendering the seven-year journey purposeless. The locks on the course correction strip Idwe of vector control. Submission is unpalatable, but mutiny should be both inconceivable and impossible, and gravity is gravity. Even if it rejects both paths, Idwe will still ultimately run out of fuel and impact with whatever destination has the right mass and position to draw in the Hellas Fos.
3.29 Jim Keen
In this episode, I chat with Jim Keen about why he became an architect, how a boy from Manchester ended up in New York, and the challenges of re-acclimating to the West after travelling the world. We also discuss the present and near future of artificial intelligence: text-to-image generation AI, will we develop self-aware machines, and just what will the job market look like post-AI?
As always, there are The Big Questions and Revenge of the Muse, and new to season 3 is The Lightning Round.
Books of his we discuss are: The Alice Yu trilogy (The Paradise Factory, This Automatic Eden, The Genesis Engine), Agent Zero, and the Cortex Saga.
Revenge of the Muse – A Protagonist: Alice Yu and the synopsis of a new novella
1. SCI-FI ELEMENT: Set in the 2060s, a post-AI world with mass unemployment. The setting of autonomous smart vehicles should give a nice adaptable yet claustrophobic element.
2. THE SETTING: The thousands of autonomous RVs endlessly circling New York’s streets, carrying those who lost their jobs in the ‘Great Unemployment’ wave.
3. THE ACTION: Alice Yu (The series protagonist) is an NY cop who investigates a crashed mobile home. Inside, she finds the owner has been murdered. Checking other RVs that don’t answer calls, she finds hundreds more dead owners trapped in their mechanized coffins.
4. THE VILLAN: A rich society woman who decides to break the record for the most murders in a one-month period (hence killing people and setting their RV’s on autonomous drive would give her the maximum time to work before being investigated). She wants to be caught at the end of her spree for the fame and attention she will receive (plus $$ VR / TV offers, etc)
3.30 Peter J Aldin
In this episode, I chat with Peter J Aldin about his journey from youth pastor to science fiction author, about why he set his Zombie apocalypse in Tasmania, and about the depiction of mental health in fiction. We also chat about the nature of villains and alien spirituality. Despite the early hour in the Australian morning, we manage to fit in The Lightning Round, the Big Questions and Revenge of the Muse.
Books of his we discuss are: Black Marks, the Doomsday’s Child series, the Envoy Trilogy and his CUSET universe.
Peter is currently running a Kickstarter for a limited 5 year anniversary edition of Black Marks, which you can check out here: www.kickstarter.com/projects/petealdin/black-marks-special-5th-anniversary-edition
Revenge of the Muse – A Brief Story Synopsis
Website: peteraldin.com
More insights on Peter Aldins’s writing can be found at Author Insights on Indie Book Showcase.
3.31 Tony Bertauski
In this episode, Tony Bertauski visits me again and we take a deep dive into his Claus-verse: the stories, the science fiction — science fact! — and the future.
There’s a Christmas-sized Lightning Round, two big questions and Revenge of the Muse-inspired character development.
Books of Tony’s we discuss: Claus, Jack, Flurry, Humbug, Claus: The Heat Miser, Ronin, Toyland, Gingerman, Toymaker, Toyworld.
If you’re in the UK, Tony still has audible codes for free audiobooks for all of the Claus-verse and other books. Check them out at: Bertauski.com and use the link on his website.
Revenge of the Muse – A Claus-verse character
Website: bertauski.com
More insights on Tony Bertauski’s writing can be found at Author Insights on Indie Book Showcase.