Genre Bending

 I noted Navigating ‘Dark Space’: How Rob Hart and Alex Segura Mashed Up Spy and Speculative Fiction (CrimeReads) in another post I wrote today, but I think there are several points that deserve calling out.

Q: You do quite a bit of world-building here, both in passing (melted glaciers on Earth, off-world colonies not doing too well, lack of wood, China/U.S. tensions in space) and overt (how the ship can communicate quickly with people back in our home solar system). How did you approach designing your universe? Did you create a “story Bible” or similar document filled with details the reader doesn’t even see?

AS: A lot of the time, early on, for us was spent world-building. I think the main Google doc we worked from was close to 100 pages long, and none of that had “story” per se—it was characters, text on the government structure, how space travel works, the infrastructure of society… once we had all that firmed up, we felt ready to think about what the most interesting story would be to tell in that world, but I don’t think we could’ve written the book if we hadn’t spent so much time crafting the world and having it feel wondrous but also realistic.

RH: That Google doc is humongous and I’m glad we had it. I think Alex and I had complimentary skillsets. I focused on a lot of the science stuff, while he did a lot more of the political stuff. I feel like this book, if either of us had tackled it solo, would have taken twice as long. But in a lot of ways we were able to divide and conquer and build a really strong roadmap.  

I have never thought of a "Bible" - it was hard enough typing everything in prison, or in writing longhand. There was also the necessity of having enough paper. But now that I have a computer (and I use Google Docs), this sounds like a very good idea for more than speculative fiction. Maybe a different way of doing an outline?

Q: Flipping to the speculative-fiction side of things: there’s a ton of space/planet settlement fiction out there, much of it trying to pay homage to the classics of the genre. As you started the book, how did you consciously work to differentiate it from anything else out there? It definitely feels different from a lot of space fiction I’ve read and seen lately. 

RH: I’m a science nerd, and whenever I see some weird scientific theory or discovery I always wonder how I can work it into a story. So, for me it’s about accumulating those things and figuring out how to make them work. But at the same time, I want them to be fun and understandable and work in the context of the story. 

AS: This is a testament to Rob’s obsession with scientific accuracy, but I think we really wanted to have everything feel more grounded but also not lose the wonder of, say, warp travel or things like that. We did our share of hand-waving and techno-speak, but I think we also did a decent job of grounding the science fiction in some fact. The same goes for the world building—we tried to make the reality of “Dark Space” feel rooted to the reality we are experiencing now, in the hopes that it would feel more relatable and concrete to the reader. Hopefully we succeeded! 

I would think this will apply to magic realism as much as speculative fiction. Definitely gives me a target to shoot for with "Chasing Ashes" - or it may be self-justification for what I have done.

sch 11/5