We chat with author Annalee Newitz about their latest novel The Terraformers, which will take you on a journey spanning thousands of years and exploring the triumphs, strife, and hope that find us wherever we make our home.
Hi, Annalee! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I’ve been a science journalist for over 15 years, and I started writing science fiction about 10 years ago when I was the editor-in-chief of io9. I frequently use the ideas that I’ve learned about in my science journalism for my fiction.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I’ve been writing stories for as long as I can remember. I recently discovered a book that I wrote back in the second grade where I had taken a bunch of concepts from mythology and written little stories about each one, and I was especially obsessed with the idea that the Hydra had one head that was immortal. I guess immorality was a wild concept to a 7 year-old. I also had a whole section about how the dinosaurs died from climate change. So I guess you could say I’ve been thinking about science and science fiction for a long time.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
One of the first books I remember reading on my own was called The Mouse and His Child, by Russell Hoban. It was about two mechanical mice, a father and a child, who were glued together in the factory. They went on a quest to become unglued, and it gets incredibly trippy and scary. I think that was when I first fell in love with the idea of characters who were both robots and animals. Probably the book that made me want to become an author was Howl by Allen Ginsberg, because when I was a teenager and first getting serious about writing, I was mostly writing poetry. I loved that Ginsberg’s work was so beautiful but also extremely dirty and sexual. There are a lot of books that I can’t stop thinking about. I don’t think I can narrow it down to one.
Your latest novel, The Terraformers, is out January 31st ! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Geeky, romantic, anti-capitalist, epic, weird
What can readers expect?
This is a story about a far-future group of first responders and environmental engineers trying to create an Earth-like planet from scratch. The characters include a talking moose, a cyborg cow, and a sentient flying train who falls in love with a cat who is an investigative journalist. Think of it as Beatrix Potter meets The Expanse.
Where did the inspiration for The Terraformers come from?
Like a lot of novels coming out now, this was my pandemic book. I wrote it from a place of loneliness and sadness and loss, which means I filled it with love and community and hope. It’s how I kept myself going. Of course, it also came from the usual nerdy place that all my science fiction comes from, which is some kind of strange thought experiment. In this case, I wanted to know how you would build a planet, and what kind of governments would emerge there.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
Probably my two favorite characters are the moose named Whistle, who is having a difficult romance with another moose, and the sentient train named Scrubjay, who is obsessed with video games.
Can you tell us about how you approach worldbuilding in your novels?
I always start by interviewing experts. It’s probably due to all my years training as a journalist. So I started this book by talking to people who study the geology of early planets, the development of atmosphere, and how you run public transit in a city. I wanted to get all the details right, from the behavior of rivers to the weird city politics around where you put a train station. A lot of the coolest stuff in this book was actually the result of long conversations with scientists who seemed actually pretty psyched to contemplate bizarre futuristic technology that might never exist.
What’s next for you?
I just finished my next non-fiction book, which I’m hoping will be out in early 2024. It’s about psychological warfare in the United States, and how it feeds into culture wars. I’ve also just started on my next novel for Tor, which is going to be about an alien graduate student studying life in an ancient Roman city, about 2,000 years ago.
Lastly, are there any 2023 releases our readers should look out for?
I write a monthly column for New Scientist magazine, so you can always check that out. Plus, I co-host the Hugo award-winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct with Charlie Jane Anders. We post new episodes every week, and if you support us on Patreon, you get an extra mini episode each week too.
