Welcome to the third and final installment of this year’s visits from the current fresh crop of Campbell Award nominees (I say “fresh” because, as noted two weeks ago, two of the five nominees were on last year’s ballots and had their most memorable meals featured here back then). Today we hear from Max Gladstone, who is a bit more traveled than most, as evidenced by the time he spent in Anhui (that’s in China) teaching English after graduating from Yale. Since then, he’s hit the fantasy circuit hard, beginning with his first novel Three Parts Dead (which was a “Massachusetts Must Read” book for 2013). The sequel, Two Serpents Rise comes out in October, and Max has at least two more books already written in this series, awaiting their turn in the publishing queue.

Continue Reading »

As some of you know, I grew up in Culver City, CA, a small, independent city in the middle of Los Angeles. So it was that at the age of twelve I followed up on a flier I’d seen at my local library and convinced my father to drive me to the public library in nearby Palms where Ray Bradbury was speaking. That was the night I met my first author and also the night I found out about LASFS, the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, which at that time held its weekly, Thursday night meetings in a recreation building belonging to the park that was right behind the Palms library. And so it was that the following Thursday I again prevailed upon my father to drive me to Palms and I attended my first LASFS meeting and met many wonderful people. Early that evening, some of the local teens who had earlier been shooting hoops on the nearby basketball courts began some hijinks that involved running up one side of the rec building’s slanted roof and down the other, stomping as loudly as they could. Several of the people in the meeting went out to deal with them, but I remember one person in particular, making him the second author I would ever meet, who strode out and engaged the punks with a ringing voice and the wisdom of Solomon. The tomfoolery stopped, nor at any point did he tell those damn kids to get off of his lawn roof. That man was Larry Niven. It was a magical experience, at least to me. And though I have no reason to expect Larry to remember that particular Thursday of more than forty years ago, I’d be remiss if I didn’t share the story by way of welcoming here to EATING AUTHORS.

I like to think there are two Larry Nivens, one who turns out amazing SF, both in novel-length and short stories, and another who is the quintessential collaborator in our field. That first Niven gave us Ringworld (a cornerstone of the field, possessing both one of the best hard SF concepts, the eponymnous artifact in space, and one of the best social science SF concepts, that luck is a trait that can be bred for), its sequels, and his Known Space series. The other Niven, working with various collaboraters has given us gems like The Mote’s in God’s Eye (with Jerry Pournelle), the Dream Park series (with Steven Barnes), and the Ringworld companion series (with Edward M. Lerner). Earlier this year, he and Gregory Benford (who you may recall dropping by a few weeks back) published Bowl of Heaven, and tomorrow will see the release of Larry’s latest collaboration, The Goliath Stone, with Matthew Joseph Harrington.

Continue Reading »

Our guest this week on EATING AUTHORS broke in to the field with his first story sale in 1980 at the tender age of 45. Two years later, his first novel won the Philip K. Dick Award. I’m talking about Jack McDevitt. He has been nominated for fifteen Nebula Awards, five Campbell Awards, and two Hugo Awards. He’s took home one of the Nebulas and one of the Campbells. And there’s no indication that he’s slowing down.

Jack’s probably best known for two series of novels, the Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins series (begining with The Engines of God), which in addition to boasting seven novels also has another half dozen short stories set in the same universe, and the Alex Benedict series (a mere six books, beginning with A Talent for War). He also has several stand alone novels and a vast and uncountable number of short stories.

Continue Reading »