{"id":4858,"date":"2019-02-27T16:33:52","date_gmt":"2019-02-27T21:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.e357.net\/beingernest\/?p=4858"},"modified":"2019-03-01T07:57:25","modified_gmt":"2019-03-01T12:57:25","slug":"jim-hines-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/jim-hines-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Hines Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Ernest Lilley
\nPublication: SFRevu March 2019 Issue<\/p>\n

Jim Hines is well known (and loved) as a fantasy writer. He\u2019s written about magicians that can pull whatever they need right out of a book (Magic ex Libris), he\u2019s fractured fairy tales (The Princess Series), \u00a0and he\u2019s 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, \u201cIt\u2019s fun to write.\u201d He\u2019s a past Writers of the Future and Hugo winner, and blogs about a wide range of subjects, including \u201c\u00a0topics ranging from sexism and harassment to zombie-themed Christmas carols.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

With his current Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse trilogy, he\u2019s 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\u2019s terrific stuff. \u00a0Check out our reviews,<\/em><\/p>\n

Jim took time out from writing the final book in the trilogy to answer a few impertinent questions.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jim Hines is well known (and loved) as a fantasy writer. He\u2019s written about magicians that can pull whatever they need right out of a book (Magic ex Libris<\/em>), he\u2019s fractured fairy tales (The Princess Series<\/em>), \u00a0and he\u2019s 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, \u201cIt\u2019s fun to write.\u201d He\u2019s a past Writers of the Future and Hugo winner, and blogs about a wide range of subjects, including \u201c\u00a0topics ranging from sexism and harassment to zombie-themed Christmas carols.\u201d<\/p>\n

With his current Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse trilogy, he\u2019s 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\u2019s terrific stuff. \u00a0Check out our reviews,<\/p>\n

Jim took time out from writing the final book in the trilogy to answer a few impertinent questions.<\/p>\n

Jim, thanks for taking some time off to answer some questions. Hopefully not too much time, because I\u2019m really looking forward to the next book in the Terminal series.<\/p>\n

Q: You\u2019ve 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\u2026janitors? OK, that\u2019s three questions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In my mind, my career didn\u2019t really<\/u> start until Goblin Quest<\/em> came out from DAW in 2006. Does that make me sound any younger?<\/p>\n

When I finished my last series, the four Magic ex Libris books, I\u2019d written a total of twelve fantasy novels in a row. I love fantasy, and I\u2019ll 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<\/em> different \u2013 I\u2019m not ready to write erotic 12th<\/sup> century political thrillers yet.<\/p>\n

As for why janitors? Partly because I like unexpected heroes, people who are traditionally ignored or unappreciated or looked down upon. They\u2019re just more interesting to me.<\/p>\n

Q: What was the most useful thing you discovered researching the janitorial arts for the series? I gather you\u2019ll never mix ammonia and chlorine accidentally. By the way, I hope Mops doesn\u2019t get gas warfare added to her list of crimes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve learned twenty-three ways to kill a man with an ordinary toilet plunger.<\/p>\n

Q: Grated that you kept Mops and crew pretty busy in the first book, and something is stirring between Kumar and Rubin, though I\u2019m not sure what, but any chance Mops will ever get a personal life?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s always a chance. It\u2019s harder for her, being the one in charge and having very little opportunity to socialize or interact with people outside of her crew. She\u2019s got a very close relationship with her second in command Monroe. But with everything she\u2019s had to deal with, there hasn\u2019t been time<\/em> for much of a personal life. (Authors are so cruel to their protagonists.)<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll see where she ends up by the end of book three, though!<\/p>\n

Q: Librarians. It had to be librarians. The last remaining humans on Earth happen to be librarians. What were the odds?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Given that I was the one writing the book? The odds were pretty darn good.<\/p>\n

Q: Which is harder, writing science fiction or fantasy? It almost seems like the constraints of science fiction make it easier since you don\u2019t have to create a unique brand of magic. That being said, how did you decide on the technology in the Terminal books?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2019d had the same problem in reverse \u2013 after so many years writing SF, he was finding fantasy a lot harder. Any time you try something new, there\u2019s a good chance it\u2019s 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\u2019 personal AI assistant Doc, both seem like things we could easily have within this century. (Though I\u2019m sure it will be called the iMonocle, or something like that.)<\/p>\n

Q: As far as I know, your A-Ring FTL is the first time anyone\u2019s done something like that and I think it\u2019s pretty clever. Is it based on anything?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2019t overly familiar, and had its own built-in restrictions and potential complications.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s up with \u201cTerminal\u201d thing anyway? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Book three is tentatively titled Terminal Peace<\/em>. The \u201cTerminal\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Q: If we can\u2019t 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\u2019s just pretend we\u2019ve just started reading SF (Wink, wink).<\/strong><\/p>\n

Robert Asprin did a series of humorous military SF books, the first of which is Phule\u2019s Company<\/em>. Nnedi Okorafor\u2019s Binti<\/em> stories aren\u2019t humor, but they\u2019re wonderful science fiction with great characters. I love Janet Kagan\u2019s Hellspark<\/em> \u2013 great characters, some fun and humor, and a strong sense of warmth and heart and hope.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0 Is there anything else I should ask you about?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2019t tell you much about it because we haven\u2019t 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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019ve saved so many Legos and other little toys\u2026)<\/p>\n

Q: Yeah, I should have thought of those. Thanks!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ernest Lilley Publication: SFRevu March 2019 Issue Jim Hines is well known (and loved) as a fantasy writer. He\u2019s written about magicians that can pull whatever they need right out of a book (Magic ex Libris), he\u2019s fractured fairy tales (The Princess Series), \u00a0and he\u2019s given us unlikely heroes (Jig the Goblin), all a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,33,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-science-fiction","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4858"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4878,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858\/revisions\/4878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}