The detailed world-building in ‘Down Below Beyond’ is one of its standout features. Can you share your process or techniques for creating such an intricate and immersive setting?

Down Below Beyond was a new playground for me to explore. I wanted to give myself more room to be creative, so instead of staying locked to one planet like in the Song of Kamaria, I conjured up Lodespace, a network of unique planets connected by the Fessenog Fleet’s trade empire. To get ideas for each planet, I looked at a lot of unique geological formations and biomes here on Earth, and amplified what I thought was interesting about them. From there, I thought about what sort of lifeform would live in such a place, and my alien races were all born. So a planet like Dintupp was a high gravity world with sharp peaked mountains. The kind of creatures that would live there would need to be tough and fit into various crag-shaped dwellings, and immediately I thought of crabs. The Dintuppans are crab-like and gorilla like, tough, huge, and perfectly suited for their environment. Just for one example.

Levort Aatra is a compelling character. How did you go about developing his persona and what or who were your influences in crafting his character?

Levort was born out of the needs for the plot at first. I knew I wanted to make a story about two friends who get their hands on a device that can take them anywhere, so Levort became the character who would need that the most. He was a scrap kid used by the Fessenog Fleet to sort through junk picked up on Tayoxe for anything useful. He’s locked to Tayoxe and the Fleet, unable to move through the giant portals that exist there. His parents had sold him to the sorting facility, and I pictured them as sort of mean people. Levort’s name comes from that, his name is a little ugly in it’s full display, but it can be shortened into something sweet like Lev (or uglier, like “Vort”, as Floem teases him often.) The idea of making him a prospector was heavily influenced by Gateway by Frederick Pohl. I had read that book recently and loved it, and the idea of having characters gamble their lives for a good score inspired me, although I took it in a very different direction.

What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?

At the moment, I am focusing entirely on publishing Down Below Beyond, so nothing in the pipeline yet! I have a few ideas for spin-offs or other one-offs in Lodespace. I want to use this playground I built more. I always wait for the right idea to find me before I go full force into it. I need my books to be very different from each other because I don’t like to retread ground. So all I can say is, stay tuned!

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