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Lovestruck Maggot
In Lovestruck Maggot, we follow Mona Ripple, scarred, middle-aged, fiercely competent, and disastrously in love—as she tries to claw a future out of the brutal colony world of Kalderra, where “Maggots” harvest volatile alien carcasses under the shadow of corporate greed, native mystery, and lethal beauty. What begins as a break-for-freedom story, with Mona dreaming of buying out her and Darien’s contracts, quickly widens into something stranger and more dangerous: a planet-scale power struggle wrapped around devotion, exploitation, and the mad hope that love might still mean escape.
What I liked most is that the novel never treats love as a softening agent. It treats it as an accelerant. Mona’s voice has grit under the fingernails: funny, vulgar, wounded, possessive, tender, and a little frightening all at once. I didn’t read her as a neat heroine; I read her as a person whose longing has warped around survival until the two are nearly indistinguishable. That gives the book a welcome asymmetry. The romance is not dainty or idealized. It’s hungry, bruised, delusional in places, and therefore weirdly moving. The author understands that desire can make people luminous and ridiculous in the same breath, and he gets a lot of charge out of that contradiction.
I was also taken by the texture of the worldbuilding. Kalderra doesn’t feel like wallpaper pasted behind the plot; it feels mined, lit from below, and faintly toxic. The opening planetary report gives the book a sly, cold-blooded frame, and then the novel drops into a much hotter register: banter, violence, class resentment, strange ecologies, and the eerie glamour of the subarashi forests. I especially admired the tonal audacity here: the book can pivot from gallows humor to menace to aching sincerity without losing its footing.
I’d hand this to readers who like space opera, science fiction, romance, survival adventure, body horror, dystopian fiction, and weird western-inflected SF with a sharp voice and a taste for the baroque. It should land especially well for people who want character heat inside a dangerous speculative setting rather than clean hard-scfi sterility. It feels closer to Kameron Hurley than to sleek blockbuster space adventure; there’s also a bit of Gideon the Ninth’s irreverent bite in the way it lets sentiment and savagery share the same room. Lovestruck Maggot is proof that even in the harshest world, love can still be the most explosive substance on the page.
Pages: 365 | ASIN : B0GPRPR53S
A Universal Truth
Children of Madness follows five children from an outcast town who are promised a better life if they fulfill a dangerous quest from the realm’s king. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
My six-year-old daughter Alex Beam. Every day she proves how much of a better person she is than me. She is positive and outgoing, dumbly brave, and non-judgmental. Down for anything and always expecting the best out of people. Loyal to a fault.
My previous sci-fi trilogy (The Station Trilogy) focused on true anti-heroes, damaged characters who did as much bad as good. It was dark and brooding and lacked hope. With Children of Madness, I wanted to write about true heroes with pure hearts. I wanted to showcase the power of children, who maintain wonderful qualities that most adults lose somewhere along the way.
Light shines brightest amidst darkness, so I needed to place this group of child friends in a world of war, sickness, greed, and perversion. But unlike adults, who would fold under such evil pressures, the children would persevere, powered by duty, loyalty, love, and friendship.
Finally, I wanted to show that, despite best intentions, well-laid plans, and strong support systems, bad things happen… horrible things. The world can be ugly, but there is always beauty to be found. Unfortunately, oftentimes only young eyes can see it.
All of your characters are well-developed and bring the story to life, drawing readers into their lives. What character did you enjoy writing for? Was there one that was more challenging to write for?
Potty-mouthed Fincher Bugg was great fun to write for. I’d like to say that I based him on myself, but this would be a lie. Fincher was who I wanted to be—brash, outspoken, and confident which is why I really connected with the Ditto character. Ditto was quiet, fiercely loyal, and unsure of himself. Take away Ditto’s size, strength, and maturity, and you probably come close to me as a kid.
None of the characters were particularly challenging, but Ash changed quite a bit from my initial plans. Ash was going to be the fearless one, the first to throw a punch or leap into danger. However, given her past trauma and great physical loss, it made more sense that she would be the careful, practical member of the group. We all think we’re immortal until we glimpse death, and that permanently changes how we view the world and our fragile place within it. Ash Bugg was no different.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Above all, friendship, loyalty, and duty, particularly regarding those that you choose to call family. I also wanted to touch on elements of oppression and discrimination, believing that many of the most wondrous individuals are products of such environmental factors—pressure creates diamonds, you know. Finally, I wanted to tell a story that showcased a universal truth that we all are guilty of forgetting or discounting—adults can learn more from children than they can from us.
Is this the first book In the series? If so, when Is the next book coming out, and what can your fans expect in the next story?
Coming on the heels of a trilogy that took a lot out of me (and tired of all the series that flood the fantasy market), I was determined to write a standalone novel. In my opinion, the story has been completed… at least for now. But I admittedly love these characters. If the perfect continuation or prequel idea came to me (well down the road), I would be open to revisiting the world. I mean, who doesn’t want to see old friends again?
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
FOR A WORLD GONE CRAZY, ONLY THOSE RAISED AMONG MADNESS CAN HELPThe Imperator of Quaan restlessly awaits the centennial arrival of the Snail-Gods to cure the Gloomtide, a shadow of melancholy blanketing the Titian Empire. But when the Supreme Helices finally make landfall, they do so just out of reach of the distressed monarch, beyond a poisonous grove that separates man from messiah.
Fincher Bugg leads the Sour Flower Gang, the preeminent child harvesters of the Stenches, a town of outcasts condemned to diminished lives toiling away in toxic conditions. As Fincher and his four friends endure external abuse from outsiders, internally they also suffer, watching as their parents slowly succumb to the Maddening. Despite the solace of unbreakable friendship, life is unrelenting.
When a desperate king makes a seemingly magnanimous offer to a hopeless population, the Sour Flower Gang sets out on a harrowing expedition to find God for the very people who cast them aside.
During a journey in which the children encounter the unimaginable—both beautiful and nightmarish—a terrifying question takes shape. Are the Snail-Gods here to once more save mankind, or is the Gloomtide that has enveloped Quaan a precursor to humanity’s deserved end?
