Part 1
One Second after by William R. Forstchen, forward by Newt Gingrich – Forge (2009) – Hardback – 352 pages – ISBN 0765317583
Today’s show features a pair of interviews we did earlier with authors. First we talk with Dr. William Forstchen, whose novel One Second After, is not out in paperback. It tells the story of what happens in a small North Carolina town after an enemy attack.
There’s no germ warfare and no troops storming the beaches. Instead, three atomic bombs are detonated high in the atmosphere above the U.S., triggering a massive electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, across the whole country. The EMP fries every computer in the country, every modern car engine, every modern airplane, the computers that control the power grid, every cell phone, broadcasting station and every industry dependent on computers. It’s a sobering scenario in which some people resort to savagery. The hardbound version came out in 2009 and has been a New York Times bestseller. It’s just been released in paperback, and we talked with the author recently by phone. We asked DR. Forstchen about an incident that supposedly took place when a Russianpilot defected in a MiG fighter. When experts looked over the plane, there were shocked to see much of the electronics were baed on old-fashioned vacuum tubes instead of modern computer chips. They jeered until one person pointed out that a fighter so equipped would be immune to an EMP that would fry computerized components in a western counterpart.
Part 2
Honeyed Words by J.A. Pitts. Tor, publishing date July 5
Part 2 of our show today features author JA Pitts, who writes what’s called urban fantasy. That is, elements of classic fantasy which show up in modern settings. We talked with Pitts on this program last December about the first book in his Black Blade urban fantasy series, Black Blade Blues. His second book in the series, Honeyed Words, is due out July 5. The book centers around blacksmith Sarah Beauhall, who has a night job as a props manager for a low-budget movie, and spends her free time fighting in a medieval re-enactment group. As Honeyed Words open, she is still processing the revelation that dragons are real and live among us as shapeshifters; in fact, it is they who have been the secret masters of our world from time immemorial. And she helped kill one of them in the first book. As Sarah tries to make her way in this new world, she discovers just how little she knows of reality. Fairies and dwarves and giants abound, the fault line of the Pacific Northwest is rife with ancient Norse magic. Now she discovers she is being spied on by mysterious siblings Skella and Gletts, who prove to be the sympathetic pawns of ambitious but foolishly greedy dwarves, and once again Sarah finds herself compelled to protect an unsuspecting world while allied with those who should by all rights be her enemies.
We talked with JA Pitts recently at a birthday celebration for Portland science fiction author Jay Lake.
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