Meteor Mags: Permanent Crescent and Other Tales follows a space pirate on a mission to save a dying moon that she may have had a part in destroying. What was the inspiration for this collection of stories?

The main idea in Permanent Crescent is Mags’ ongoing evolution from a rogue pirate on the fringes of society into a leader who can advance social change and affect the course of human history. Given her reckless nature and obvious anger-management problems, that’s not something that comes easily to her. So we see how she brings new people into her crew to help her advance her idealistic and seemingly unrealistic goals—and all the challenges that come along with that, especially since some of those people were once her enemies and rivals.

Although I like for every “episode” to feel like a self-contained story with a fast-paced adventure that confronts some new kind of science-fiction madness, mystery, or horrifying monster, I also think of myself as Mags’ biographer and want all the stories to connect in a larger narrative about her unique and interesting life.

And, as you point out, we explore how some of her problems are ones she created or are unintended consequences of her existence. That theme will continue in the next book.

Tell us a little about how you developed the character of Mags. Did it start with an image, a voice, a concept, a dilemma, or something else?

It actually started with a tragedy. A year before I started the series, I lost someone special to me. I wasn’t dealing with it very well, so I created Meteor Mags as a tribute to her, to honor her memory and the creativity we shared. Mags is named after her, shares her love of piracy, and embodies the same kind of hard-edged self-determination I admired so much about her—combined with a softer and more caring side that not everyone got to see, but only those closest to her.

But I’m a huge science-fiction geek, too, so it made sense to take that kind of character and put her in a space-based setting, and send her off on ill-advised adventures with her totally awesome cat. And so, Meteor Mags was born! I’ve discussed this all in much more detail in my book of essays, Virtually Yours: A Meteor Mags Memoir about the origin and creation of the character, and what she means to me.

Who are some of your favorite authors that you feel were influential in your work? What impact have they had on your writing?

The mix of zany humor and absolute seriousness owes a lot to one of my favorite comic-book series: Nexus by Mike Baron and Steve Rude, with Paul Smith. Science-fiction comics such as Alien Legion and Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar also played a huge role in how I approach telling a story with an ensemble cast of rebels and adventurers in space. When I started the series, I envisioned it as just a handful of short comic-book stories, but I can’t draw sequential art to save my life—so I did it in prose, and Mags quickly took on a life of her own.

As for the concept of pirates as not just criminals but a multicultural labor rebellion against capitalist oppression—that was heavily influenced by Marcus Rediker’s brilliant book, Villains of All Nations. The idea that these outlaws would try to build a utopian micro-society comes from the chapter “Of Captain Mission” in A General History of the Pyrates.

The historical research I did on the classical Atlantic pirates really comes through in the story “Hang My Body on the Pier” which concludes the first omnibus and tells how one of Mags’ ancestors rose to power in the early 1700s. It’s a bit of historical fiction in an ostensibly sci-fi series, but it’s one of my favorites. The episode “One Last Night on Death World” in Permanent Crescent is a follow-up to that story—again, with a lot of historical fiction and research going into it.

Do you have more space pirate stories featuring Mags to share with readers, or are you working on a different story?

Oh, there are so many more Meteor Mags adventures to tell! I’ve been posting drafts of new stories on my blog at MarsWillSendNoMore.com, with plans to publish another collection in 2024. If you’re new to the series, everything that happened before Permanent Crescent is collected in Meteor Mags: Omnibus Edition and Meteor Mags: The Second Omnibus. Together, the omnibuses are well over a thousand pages with a total of thirty stories plus illustrations, poems, song lyrics, and even a mini-comic. There’s enough anarchy, asteroids, and excessive ammunition to keep even the most voracious reader busy for quite some time!

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