Interview on Jon Armstrong’s “If You’re Just Joining Us” Podcast

July 10, 2008 @ 10:33 am

Jon Armstrong, author of the Philip K. Dick Award-nominated Grey and fellow nominee for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, has interviewed me on his “If You’re Just Joining Us” podcast. Jon’s been interviewing all of this year’s Campbell nominees; he’s already posted his chats with Mary Robinette Kowal and Joe Abercrombie, with chats with David Anthony Durham and Scott Lynch still to come.

Jon’s strategy with these podcasts is to steer away from the typical bland interview questions (“what was your inspiration for [insert book title]?”, “who were your biggest literary influences?”, etc.). So our 20-minute chat covered the coming death of the novel, the MacBook Air, the similarities between Infoquake and Grey, the pantheon of superheroes I created when I was a kid, my editor Lou Anders, how my dad taught me to always be the devil’s advocate, how 9/11 changed Infoquake, and the engineering of foreign toilets and doorknobs.

(Our conversation was actually over an hour long, and we talked about a ton of great stuff. I regret that our talk about David Lee Roth’s vocal track for “Runnin’ with the Devil” didn’t make it in.)

I’m quite pleased with this interview. Go give it a listen.