Interview: Tom Black

[Gary Oswald]

Today is the 7th year anniversary of the founding of SLP. To celebrate I have started a series of interviews with the staff and writers of this small press company. First up is, of course, @Meadow.

Discuss this interview with him, here.

 

[Geordie]

Television? How exciting!

 

[Alex Richards]

Television? How exciting!

Seconded on that thought.

 

[Meadow]

Thanks for the write-up, Gary. Can’t believe it’s been 7 years - 7 years before the day we launched, I was finishing school.

 

[Charles EP M.]

SLP's open-to-all submissions policy is one of the best things about the company, which obviously I say with massive bias but the amount of variety in writers, themes, settings, and approaches really stands out from a lot of other publishers

Television? How exciting!

Surprise Doctor Who companion confirmed!

 

[Thande]

Nice idea for the anniversary!

 

[Jared]

From the article:

We’ve got books about every continent now (except Antarctica).

Sounds like a good excuse for a vignette challenge as a basis for a future anthology.

 

[Meadow]

From the article:

Sounds like a good excuse for a vignette challenge as a basis for a future anthology.

Altarctica: Hot and Cold Stories

 

[Coiler]

Sounds like a good excuse for a vignette challenge as a basis for a future anthology.

What if the Mount Erebus New Zealand Air Disaster never happened?

 

[Gary Oswald]

I couldn't place which SLP book was set in South America, I must admit. 'Twilight's Last Gleaming', kind of fits I guess?

 

[Meadow]

I couldn't place which SLP book was set in South America, I must admit. 'Twilight's Last Gleaming', kind of fits I guess?

LTTW is sort of cheating, but because major plot elements are about South America, that was what I had in mind.

 

[Coiler]

But there is so much more to alternate history than working out different logistics operations during the drive to Kiev for the hundred and ninth time. To the majority of readers in the general public, that might be news.

Small nitpick: I'd say less "readers in the general public" and more "readers in the online alternate history community". Most mass-market AH (and ficiton in general) does not go into extreme detail on small divergences.

 

[Thande]

Small nitpick: I'd say less "readers in the general public" and more "readers in the online alternate history community". Most mass-market AH (and ficiton in general) does not go into extreme detail on small divergences.

I don't know when Gary did the interview, but I did wonder if it was before the recent war - there's an obvious black humour observation like "Having exhausted all AH possibilities of the logistics operations on the drive to Kiev in the 1940s, OTL has obligingly provided us with a remake".

 

[Meadow]

Small nitpick: I'd say less "readers in the general public" and more "readers in the online alternate history community". Most mass-market AH (and ficiton in general) does not go into extreme detail on small divergences.

True, but I wanted to use a fresh synonym for 'wwii innit'.

 

[Meadow]

I don't know when Gary did the interview, but I did wonder if it was before the recent war - there's an obvious black humour observation like "Having exhausted all AH possibilities of the logistics operations on the drive to Kiev in the 1940s, OTL has obligingly provided us with a remake".

It was recently, and that's actually why I spelled it the Wrong way - the drive to Kiev is very different to the drive to Kyiv.

 

[Lemon flavoured]

Very interesting interview, and i second the Antarctica vignette idea.

 

[Walpurgisnacht]

Altarctica: Hot and Cold Stories

"Surely there must be a better way to turn Irish people into zoo animals", High Chief Urkarsh thought to himself, walking past the ten-thousand-foot high statue of a Tsalal warrior eating a baby on his way to finish the Aristocrats sketch.

 

[David Flin]

i second the Antarctica vignette idea.

I've an unfair advantage, what with having been there.

 

[Kimkatya]

is this that guy who wrote that kaiserreich thing