Interviewing Allen Stroud
Hellooo!
This weekend I reviewed Resilient by Allen Stroud the sequel to Fearless which is an intriguing action packed space opera set in a future just as humanity starts to take over the stars. As you’ll see below this really expands the storyline, so I was keen to get Allen to answer some questions on the book and what else is to come.
How do you like to Booktempt Resilient?
Die Hard on a Space Station? 😉
What led the choice to move partially away Shann and her crew?
Resilient was always going to be more expansive as a story because you can only leave questions out there for so long. There has to be room for some answers. I felt I had something to say on a few fronts, dealing with some SF tropes and looking at the politics of the near future. Fearless already hinted at the lack of a clear binary, Resilient builds on that.
There was a lot to unpack in the second book, but Shann definitely needed a continuation. The beginning of the book, with our disconnect from her matched the disconnection she felt. In Resilient she hasn’t recovered, but she has started to figure out how to function.
How was the plotting of the various threads. Did you plan the various crossovers of characters or was this more organic?
I paid my dues as a planner prior to my Ph. D. Some of the books I’ve done required external approval and I’ve taught students how to use step outlines, treatments, synopses, etc. In this series, I don’t plan much. I have a list of notes of things I want to cover and then I just launch in. I tend to be a fairly light edit these days as the style for this series has bedded in.
There were a couple of pivot moments between the two main stories that needed a little gymnastics to make sure the timings lined up, but both stories are carefully put together so as to be elastic and provide a little room.
We get to see a lot more about where humanity is in this book and the series feels a potential turning point is this something you hope to explore of more?
Yes, the book is a pivot. The patrol is now done and book 3 is clearly signposted, but there’s other areas I’m working on at the moment. Aristotle defines an epic as a multi-perspective narrative. Resilient sets up a lot of different stories to explore. I hope there are readers who want to find out more about a variety of the things that have happened. Our next step is to go there, so we have six shorter ‘episodes’ which cover different situations. The first will be Europa, then Ceres, then a short called Lagrange Point. Three more will follow after that.
That said, I’m a big SF fan and I’ve read different sets of books where writers have diverted the narrative to tell a different story that felt necessary to them without going back and telling the important story that felt necessary to me. The late Joel Rosenberg was an example of that. I grew up loving the Guardians of the Flame series, but I waited for the big Jason Cullinane story and… it never came! I don’t blame Rosenberg, but I am determined not to put any of my readers through that.
Three words to describe the next book?
Mysterious Alien Spaceship? 😉
What else can we look forward to you in the future and where can we find out more?
Well, the aforementioned six ‘episode’ stories. Then an album of composed Fractal Series music, which I am publishing with Flame Tree as well. You can catch a little of it on the book trailer for Resilient:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AbH1J-rxL8
I’m also working on a new edition of The Historical Dictionary of Fantasy Literature for Rowman and Llittlefield and later this year, there should be an article in Focus for BSFA members on composing Science Fiction music.
What good books have you been reading lately?
The Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson was really good. I’m currently reading Entropy of Loss by Stewart Hotston and looking forward to starting Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
