Galacticide follows a man who thought he had stopped an alien race only to discover the Brood Mother survived and now wants to erase reality. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

Through most of history, women had to deal with the effects of war on the home-front, many times seeing their normalcy destroyed just as much as the fighting men. Striving to expand the scope and up the stakes one last time for the final book of the series, I wanted to start out with a classic revenge story. But I needed an antagonist who was so deeply wounded that this character’s wrath would know no limits. This character should not shy away from even the most drastic of measures, pledging to commit fundamental acts of destruction: tearing spacetime itself. I choose an alien mother as the chief antagonist, someone who lost their children to a war that wasn’t hers. The alien species in my novels has few females, but their offsprings count in the billions. What would the level of grief be for someone who lost 10 billion children on a single day?

What is one pivotal moment in the story that you think best defines Kel Chaada?

A direct answer here would contain heavy spoilers. Let me say that the pivotal moment makes clear why Kel Chaada, a man with many flaws, someone who is controversial even in his own fictional universe, is the hero of this story. I believe classic heroes exist, including in our present day. I also believe that those heroes are not heroic at every moment of their lives, and neither is Kel Chaada. But, unlike so many other characters, he is the only one who genuinely cares about the galaxy, its inhabitants and saving the sapient species, including humans. While he starts out doing things out of questionable motives, his character develops to doing the right thing for the sake of it being right. The pivotal moment in Galacticide will give his character the opportunity to tie many loose ends together.

Were you able to achieve everything you wanted with the characters in this series?

I believe so. While Kel Chaada’s adventures are the thread tying the narratives together, the trilogy can be split into ‘the Father’ (Kel Chaada in book 1), ‘the Mother’ (Sya Omga in book 2) and ‘the Child’ in book 3. Each of these characters has major developments in their arc in the respective books/chapters of the trilogy. The story is told from many points of view, including different alien species and intelligent machines, but the three main human characters keep even the more esoteric concepts relatable.

Where do you see your characters after the book ends?

The universe keeps evolving after the story ends, and this is true for the real thing as much as for fictional ones. There is much armed conflict in the story, and not everybody makes it, but the survivors will continue on. Some might follow interesting paths, warranting a sequel trilogy. Oh, who am I kidding? I am working on a sequel trilogy right now!

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