By Ernest Lilley
Publication: SFRevu March 2019 Issue
Jim Hines is well known (and loved) as a fantasy writer. He’s written about magicians that can pull whatever they need right out of a book (Magic ex Libris), he’s fractured fairy tales (The Princess Series), and he’s given us unlikely heroes (Jig the Goblin), all a little bit different than what you might expect, and leavened with humor, because, as he says, “It’s fun to write.” He’s a past Writers of the Future and Hugo winner, and blogs about a wide range of subjects, including “ topics ranging from sexism and harassment to zombie-themed Christmas carols.”
With his current Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse trilogy, he’s keeping the humor and quirky heroes, but shifting to science fiction. The series is about a starship cleaning crew that wind up the only crewmembers unaffected by a bioweapon that reverts humans into feral savages. Reverts, because a plague had swept through humanity a century before leaving hordes of nearly unkillable but largely braindead humans roaming the globe until an alien race came along with a way to restore some semblance of humanity to them. It’s terrific stuff. Check out our reviews,
Jim took time out from writing the final book in the trilogy to answer a few impertinent questions.
Jim Hines is well known (and loved) as a fantasy writer. He’s written about magicians that can pull whatever they need right out of a book (Magic ex Libris), he’s fractured fairy tales (The Princess Series), and he’s given us unlikely heroes (Jig the Goblin), all a little bit different than what you might expect, and leavened with humor, because, as he says, “It’s fun to write.” He’s a past Writers of the Future and Hugo winner, and blogs about a wide range of subjects, including “ topics ranging from sexism and harassment to zombie-themed Christmas carols.”
With his current Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse trilogy, he’s keeping the humor and quirky heroes, but shifting to science fiction. The series is about a starship cleaning crew that wind up the only crewmembers unaffected by a bioweapon that reverts humans into feral savages. Reverts, because a plague had swept through humanity a century before leaving hordes of nearly unkillable but largely braindead humans roaming the globe until an alien race came along with a way to restore some semblance of humanity to them. It’s terrific stuff. Check out our reviews,
Jim took time out from writing the final book in the trilogy to answer a few impertinent questions.
Jim, thanks for taking some time off to answer some questions. Hopefully not too much time, because I’m really looking forward to the next book in the Terminal series.
Q: You’ve been writing fantasy to great acclaim since the beginning of the century. Wow, that makes it sound like a long time. Why science fiction? Why now? Why…janitors? OK, that’s three questions.
In my mind, my career didn’t really start until Goblin Quest came out from DAW in 2006. Does that make me sound any younger?
When I finished my last series, the four Magic ex Libris books, I’d written a total of twelve fantasy novels in a row. I love fantasy, and I’ll probably be going back to that after I finish the Janitors trilogy, but at the time I felt like challenging myself to write something a little different. But not too different – I’m not ready to write erotic 12th century political thrillers yet.
As for why janitors? Partly because I like unexpected heroes, people who are traditionally ignored or unappreciated or looked down upon. They’re just more interesting to me.
Q: What was the most useful thing you discovered researching the janitorial arts for the series? I gather you’ll never mix ammonia and chlorine accidentally. By the way, I hope Mops doesn’t get gas warfare added to her list of crimes.
I’ve learned twenty-three ways to kill a man with an ordinary toilet plunger.
Q: Grated that you kept Mops and crew pretty busy in the first book, and something is stirring between Kumar and Rubin, though I’m not sure what, but any chance Mops will ever get a personal life?
There’s always a chance. It’s harder for her, being the one in charge and having very little opportunity to socialize or interact with people outside of her crew. She’s got a very close relationship with her second in command Monroe. But with everything she’s had to deal with, there hasn’t been time for much of a personal life. (Authors are so cruel to their protagonists.)
We’ll see where she ends up by the end of book three, though!
Q: Librarians. It had to be librarians. The last remaining humans on Earth happen to be librarians. What were the odds?
Given that I was the one writing the book? The odds were pretty darn good.
Q: Which is harder, writing science fiction or fantasy? It almost seems like the constraints of science fiction make it easier since you don’t have to create a unique brand of magic. That being said, how did you decide on the technology in the Terminal books?
I was at a convention last year, and ended up chatting with John Scalzi about how much more challenging it had been for me to write science fiction after so many years of doing fantasy. He said he’d had the same problem in reverse – after so many years writing SF, he was finding fantasy a lot harder. Any time you try something new, there’s a good chance it’s going to be more difficult. In this case, instead of worldbuilding, I had to develop an entire galaxy. Instead of magic, I needed technology that was at least semi-plausible. A lot of that is just extrapolating from what we have today. The monocles the team wears, and Mops’ personal AI assistant Doc, both seem like things we could easily have within this century. (Though I’m sure it will be called the iMonocle, or something like that.)
Q: As far as I know, your A-Ring FTL is the first time anyone’s done something like that and I think it’s pretty clever. Is it based on anything?
Thanks! And not that I know of. I knew I needed some sort of faster-than-light hand-waving technology for the story I wanted to tell, and I wanted to come up with a technology that wasn’t overly familiar, and had its own built-in restrictions and potential complications.
Q: The first book in this series was Terminal Alliance, and the second, Terminal Uprising. What (and when) is the third going to be, and what’s up with “Terminal” thing anyway?
Book three is tentatively titled Terminal Peace. The “Terminal” part refers mostly to the state of humanity. Our condition as a species is pretty darn terminal. But things could improve by the end of book three. Maybe.
Q: If we can’t wait for the next Terminal book, but really want more books like yours, especially with a combination of strong characters and humor. Who would you recommend? Let’s just pretend we’ve just started reading SF (Wink, wink).
Robert Asprin did a series of humorous military SF books, the first of which is Phule’s Company. Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti stories aren’t humor, but they’re wonderful science fiction with great characters. I love Janet Kagan’s Hellspark – great characters, some fun and humor, and a strong sense of warmth and heart and hope.
Q: Is there anything else I should ask you about?
Oh, probably. You could ask what other projects I have in the works. Then I could say my agent is submitting a middle-grade novel I did last year, but I can’t tell you much about it because we haven’t sold it yet. Or you could ask about the national award-winning bridge I built in Science Olympiad almost thirty years ago. (It held lots of weight. Then it broke. I got a medal. We celebrated by wading in a fountain.) You might ask how my wife and kids survive living with a full-time writer. (Answer: I have no idea. It’s hard.) Or where people can go to find out more about various Jim-stuff. (jimchines.com has my blog and links to my various social media.) Or what’s the best way to keep Legos from falling down the heat vents. (I cut rectangular pieces of window screen and slid them into the vents between the grill and the flaps. We’ve saved so many Legos and other little toys…)
Q: Yeah, I should have thought of those. Thanks!