Tell
us a little about your most recent book - what is it called and what is it
about? Give us your elevator pitch to make us fall in love with it!
The new book is titled Amazing
Grace and it is about the trials and tribulations aboard a medical space
station called the Nelson Mandela. It follows the adventures of Dr.
Grace Lord, combat surgeon, who has come to the Nelson Mandela to train
under the galaxy-renowned Dr. Hiro Al-Fadi, a specialist in operating on
genetically modified, animal-adapted space marines. In this third book of the
series, a ship called the Inferno docks with the station, containing six
patients in cryopods. It is requesting these patients be treated for a new
disease. What transpires is an all-out attack on the Nelson Mandela with
the goal of wiping out the human race.
Elevator pitch: ‘It’s high-octane M*A*S*H in Space with
Aliens’
What inspired the story?
I like to write about today’s
world issues. I cloak the issues in science fiction as it allows me to
extrapolate ideas or expand on them without pointing specific fingers or
stepping on specific toes. Amazing Grace deals with issues of
intolerance: intolerance of others, religious intolerance, hatred, and prejudice.
Today’s political atmosphere is ripe with intolerance and racism and I felt it
needed to be addressed.
Without spoilers, what was your favourite
moment of the story to write? What was it that made you enjoy that section so
much?
I have to say that I adore Plant
Thing . . . my alien. Plant Thing is the sweetest being and so much fun to
write because it is discovering everything like a naive innocent child but
Plant Thing is so misunderstood because it looks horrifying. Plant Thing
symbolizes ‘The Other’, as well as ‘Nature’ in all of its glory. Everyone falls
in love with Plant Thing.
As a writer, have you ever had a character
grow to be a much bigger part of the story than you expected? Who was the
character and what was it about them that made them emerge from the sidelights?
Yes. Dr. Jeffery Charlton Nestor.
He was just going to be this gorgeous doctor that my main character developed a
crush on. Then he morphed into this terrible psychopath who tries to kill her,
then kill Dr. Al-Fadi, then destroy Bud, then destroy the medical station. I
tried to kill him off in the first book, and he got away. I tried to kill him
off in the second book but it didn’t go quite as I had planned. He is a genius
arch villain. I definitely decided he had to die in the third book. You have to
read Amazing Grace to see if I succeed.
What are your favourite genres to read - and
what is it about those genres that draw you in?
Well I have always read science
fiction from Grade Two on. My Grade Two homeroom teacher was also the librarian
and he handed me A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle and told me to
read that. The concept of ‘The closest distance between two points is NOT a
line but a wrinkle’ just blew me away. I was hooked. Then I had to get my hands
on every SF book I could at the bookmobile, at the library, and finally at the
bookstore when I could buy my own books. Now I am buried in SF books at home
and a To Be Read pile that I will never finish. :P
I also like Mysteries because I
like puzzles and I like to figure mysteries out. I read some Fantasy, some
Horror, some Contemporary fiction, as well as Nonfiction.
Can I confess I've never yet read A Wrinkle In Time? It seemed to be standard reading on the western side of the Atlantic, but never really mentioned back in the UK where I grew up! What were some of your favourite books to
read as a child? Which were the first books you remember falling in love with?
As a child I loved reading about
mythology and I read the Greek myths and the Norse myths. A Wrinkle in Time by
Madeleine L’Engle was my first SF book, read in Grade Two, and I loved it.
After that, there was Podkayne of Mars by Robert Heinlein and Rite of
Passage by Alexei Panshin. I read Dune by Frank Herbert in Grade
Five and I was in awe. I had the Litany of Fear memorized! I read The Lord of
the Rings in Grade Six and I must have read those three paperback books until
they almost fell apart! I still love all those books.
Who are your favourite authors to read?
Whose writing do you feel has inspired your own work the most?
Favourite Authors are easy but
there are a lot of them! These are authors who I tended to buy whenever they
put a new book out, sight unseen. Many are no longer with us, unfortunately.
Roger Zelazny, Gene Wolfe, Terry
Pratchett, Lois McMaster Bujold, Connie Willis, Sherri Tepper, Ursula Le Guin,
Richard K. Morgan, Joe Abercrombie, Ian McDonald, Dan Simmons, Steven Brust,
Robert Sawyer, Patricia McKillop, Neal Stephenson, Neal Asher and probably a
lot more I can’t think up right now…
I write comedy mixed with
suspense/thriller. Bujold and Willis have comedy in their books. One reader
described my books as a mashup of Game of Thrones meets Monty Python. Another
reader (Shane!) said it was Doctor House meets Doctor Moreau. I like Terry
Pratchett and I hope I capture some of the lightness of his Discworld books.
Are there any particular themes you address
in your story? What issues do you explore, overtly or otherwise?
The Evil of Intolerance in all of
its aspects - religious, genre-based, technologically-based, race-based - is a
predominant theme. Prejudice of ‘lesser beings’ - in this case represented or
symbolized by the androids and robots - would also be included in that. ‘Man
versus Nature’ is an underlying theme, represented by Plant Thing. ‘Love
conquers All’ or ‘Good overcomes Evil’ is probably the main plot theme. There
are different types of love in Amazing Grace: love between friends, love
between a father and a daughter, love between an android and human, love
between an alien and a human, and unrequited love. LOVE, of course, wins out
over Intolerance.
What do you do when you are not writing?
Tell us about yourself.
I am a family physician who now
spends all of her working hours in the operating room assisting in surgery,
both elective and emergency. I spend a lot of nights, weekends, holidays, and
early morning hours in the operating room when I am on call. That is partly why
I write about operative medicine. It is a large part of my life. When I’m not
writing or assisting in the OR, I am sleeping or trying to catch up on my
sleep! Other hobbies include painting and creating collages, walking, downhill
skiing, canoeing, kayaking, playing tennis, scuba diving, swimming, travelling,
and at the moment, my husband and I are attempting salsa dancing lessons. It’s
not going so well, but we are determined! Motion is Lotion.
Where can readers catch up with your work?
Website: http://www.sesasaki.com
Twitter: @se_sasaki
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sesasakiauthor/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14156938.S_E_Sasaki
Thanks for calling by, Sharon - though we missed our traditional last question of what you're reading at the moment and what the best book you've read in the past year has been! I swear I'll lure you back in the comments section... ;)
Good luck with the launch of Amazing Grace, and I look forward to reading the series!
Thanks for calling by, Sharon - though we missed our traditional last question of what you're reading at the moment and what the best book you've read in the past year has been! I swear I'll lure you back in the comments section... ;)
Good luck with the launch of Amazing Grace, and I look forward to reading the series!
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