Glynn is currently writing the sequel to Nemesis of Mars, the next book in Starship’s Mage. Here are seven more questions he recently answered about his work in progress. Click here for Part 1.
Q: In a fight, what is your MC’s weapon of choice?
First choice: long-range missile with antimatter warheads.
In a personal fight? Chambers will probably go for her magic first, second and last. She’s occasionally used the Protectorate standard-issue less-than-lethal stungun, but she’s pretty reliable at achieving the same effect with magic.
So, yeah. Magic.
Q: When was the last time your MC got into a fight? Why?
The most significant fight Roslyn Chambers got into recently was the boarding and retaking of the explorer cruiser Thorn.
It had been captured by fanatic members of a conspiracy trying to manipulate the Protectorate “for its own good.”
Along the way, she arrested her ex-boyfriend and shot her now-executive officer.
It was a busy day.
Q: Does your MC support the status quo in her world?
Basically. While the Protectorate of the Mage-Queen of Mars isn’t a utopia, it is a functional interstellar state with a working democracy. It is also a self-reflective state, currently in the latter stages of major structural reform after a civil war.
Roslyn sees improvements to be made, yes, but she trusts her current leaders to make them. And she’s a naval officer, so protecting the status quo is kinda her JOB.
Q: Secondary character POV: What’s the biggest sacrifice you’re ready to make for the MC?
Commander Matthias Beck: she SHOT ME.
Well yes, I was mind controlled and shooting at her and it was a stun dart, but still!
Q: What is your MC’s drink of choice?
Roslyn Chambers is a Tau Ceti native and Tau Ceti cuisine is described as “an English mother and Indian father fighting over what to feed the children.” Tau Ceti coffee, on the other hand, is what the children of said marriage create when left alone with dad’s spices and mom’s coffee. (It’s basically masala chai with coffee instead of black tea)
And that Tau Cetan spiced coffee is Roslyn’s drink of choice.
Q: Does your MC cause drama or resolve it within their friend group?
This answer varies. I mean, at one point Roslyn has an affair that is technically a crime for both serving military officers involved. (And successfully buries it long enough for nobody to care—helped, sadly, by the gent in question now being dead).
She is, despite her war experience and hard-won medals, young for her rank and makes the mistakes of inexperience and youth.
However. Roslyn’s friends have definitely managed to bring the drama on their own—from the old crime-gang-buddy who helped her crack the kidnapping of the Mage-Queen to, well, the assorted Shenanigans the Mage-Queen herself gets up to.And as both the Queen’s closest-in-age friend and a naval officer, fixing Kiera Alexander’s drama does tend to fall on Roslyn…(Being 200+ LY away helps sometimes)
Q: What’s a common occurrence in your story that would be odd here?
A Mage wandering down the street. The power company employing Mages.
Relatively casual in-system space travel (in the sense that airplane travel is casual—it’s really, really not by any objective standard, but everyone is very used to it).
Magical interstellar travel.
Chimera’s Star, the next book in Starship’s Mage is due out in January 2024
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