THERE WAS AN ANOMALY IN THE DATA...
As they looked into it, its importance and mystery grew.
NASA used the Talbot Bridge Device - a wormhole generator - to send probes out to survey potential human colony planets.
Results from one planet were strange. The more they looked into it, the weirder it was. Ultimately, someone was going to have to go out and look.
Michael Talbot, his brother Matthew, and their wives were the natural choice. What they found when they got there wasn't what anybody was expecting.
And supervising the whole thing is Arnie, the AI Michael Talbot fought a dozen years before.
.
INTERVIEW WITH RICH WEYAND
At the end of Talbot, we had an interstellar drive of sorts. What happens in Fortuna?
Well, the two big questions associated with interstellar travel are always going to be ‘Where do you go?’ and ‘What will you find out there?’ Fortuna takes on both of those questions directly.
As for ‘Where do you go?’, the issue is first ‘Where can you go?’ Most exoplanets are unsuitable for human habitation. The range of parameters like surface temperature, atmospheric makeup, axial tilt, period of rotation, and period of orbit are much wider than the range humans would find healthy or survivable. So most planets are way out of range. The first job is to find out which ones humans can even visit, much less live on.
As for ‘What will you find out there?’, any planet suitable for us is probably suitable for others as well. Others who may have come before. And, depending on what you find, there’s no substitute for having someone go and look.
Just looking at the cover, there must be aliens involved, right?
Yes. I’ll stop there. It’s much more interesting to travel the path.
Aliens is new for you. You didn’t have any aliens in your first twenty-five books or so, and then there was Sam in Agency. Have you changed your mind about aliens?
About including them in my fiction, perhaps. I never found aliens in fiction convincing. They just weren’t alien enough, and there was no good back story about who they are and how they came about. It’s just ‘Well, of course, there are aliens.’ With Sam, in the Agency series, I postulated an alien who was truly, unutterably alien. Different in just about every way. In Talbot, I’m taking a different tack. More of a ‘Well, yes, I can see how that would happen.’ sort of alien.
You’ve called it the Talbot series. Is the Talbot family still involved?
Oh, yes. Frank and Sally Talbot are back, as are Jeff and Cindy Talbot. Coop Hartley, as well. But the focus now is on the next generation, Michael and Sue Talbot, and Matthew and Denise Talbot, and those couples’ kids, Mary, Mark, Luke, Greta, and Derek.
How is this series writing?
These books have been very hard to see the way forward at times. I normally write an 80,000-word novel in about five weeks. That’s thirty-five days, because I write seven days a week when I’m in the middle of a book. I’ve written one in as little as 16 days and as many as 47. But these are taking 50 to 55 days apiece. There’s a lot of technology involved, and the story is proving slower to reveal itself to me.
We talked about the cover already, but that’s an interesting one.
Another great cover from Luca Oleastri and Paola Giari of Rotwang Studio. I’m really happy with it.
What’s next in Talbot?
I don’t know. I have a couple of ideas, but not enough to start writing yet. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Genre: Science Fiction
As they looked into it, its importance and mystery grew.
NASA used the Talbot Bridge Device - a wormhole generator - to send probes out to survey potential human colony planets.
Results from one planet were strange. The more they looked into it, the weirder it was. Ultimately, someone was going to have to go out and look.
Michael Talbot, his brother Matthew, and their wives were the natural choice. What they found when they got there wasn't what anybody was expecting.
And supervising the whole thing is Arnie, the AI Michael Talbot fought a dozen years before.
.
INTERVIEW WITH RICH WEYAND
At the end of Talbot, we had an interstellar drive of sorts. What happens in Fortuna?
Well, the two big questions associated with interstellar travel are always going to be ‘Where do you go?’ and ‘What will you find out there?’ Fortuna takes on both of those questions directly.
As for ‘Where do you go?’, the issue is first ‘Where can you go?’ Most exoplanets are unsuitable for human habitation. The range of parameters like surface temperature, atmospheric makeup, axial tilt, period of rotation, and period of orbit are much wider than the range humans would find healthy or survivable. So most planets are way out of range. The first job is to find out which ones humans can even visit, much less live on.
As for ‘What will you find out there?’, any planet suitable for us is probably suitable for others as well. Others who may have come before. And, depending on what you find, there’s no substitute for having someone go and look.
Just looking at the cover, there must be aliens involved, right?
Yes. I’ll stop there. It’s much more interesting to travel the path.
Aliens is new for you. You didn’t have any aliens in your first twenty-five books or so, and then there was Sam in Agency. Have you changed your mind about aliens?
About including them in my fiction, perhaps. I never found aliens in fiction convincing. They just weren’t alien enough, and there was no good back story about who they are and how they came about. It’s just ‘Well, of course, there are aliens.’ With Sam, in the Agency series, I postulated an alien who was truly, unutterably alien. Different in just about every way. In Talbot, I’m taking a different tack. More of a ‘Well, yes, I can see how that would happen.’ sort of alien.
You’ve called it the Talbot series. Is the Talbot family still involved?
Oh, yes. Frank and Sally Talbot are back, as are Jeff and Cindy Talbot. Coop Hartley, as well. But the focus now is on the next generation, Michael and Sue Talbot, and Matthew and Denise Talbot, and those couples’ kids, Mary, Mark, Luke, Greta, and Derek.
How is this series writing?
These books have been very hard to see the way forward at times. I normally write an 80,000-word novel in about five weeks. That’s thirty-five days, because I write seven days a week when I’m in the middle of a book. I’ve written one in as little as 16 days and as many as 47. But these are taking 50 to 55 days apiece. There’s a lot of technology involved, and the story is proving slower to reveal itself to me.
We talked about the cover already, but that’s an interesting one.
Another great cover from Luca Oleastri and Paola Giari of Rotwang Studio. I’m really happy with it.
What’s next in Talbot?
I don’t know. I have a couple of ideas, but not enough to start writing yet. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Genre: Science Fiction
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