Welcome to another author interview for CROOKED V.1!
Kate Sheeran Swed loves hot chocolate, plastic dinosaurs, and airplane tickets. She has trekked along the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu, hiked on the Mýrdalsjökull glacier in Iceland, and climbed the ruins of Masada to watch the sunrise over the Dead Sea. After growing up in New Hampshire, she completed degrees in music at the University of Maine and Ithaca College, then moved to New York City. She currently lives in New York’s capital region with her husband and two kids, plus a pair of cats who were named after movie dogs (Benji and Beethoven).
Her stories have appeared in publications such as Fireside Fiction, the Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide Volume 5, Electric Spec, and Daily Science Fiction. She’s the author of the League of Independent Operatives superhero series and the Toccata System sci-fi novella trilogy.
Learn more about Kate: katesheeranswed.com
Tell us a bit about your story and the world.
The crew in my story, “Highly Irregular,” shows up in my superhero novels, though they’re about to get their own completely separate space opera series. “Highly Irregular” takes place between those two stories, and it stands on its own.
Basically, they’re a misfit crew run by a captain who was roped into the job and has no clue what she’s doing. There’s a lot of humor in it, or at least that’s the goal. An apt analogy might be that they’re the Guardians of the Galaxy to my superhero series’ Avengers types. Only no raccoons 🙂
The main character, Sloane, keeps trying to shed this responsibility and get back to her normal life. The crew pretty much wants to get rid of her, too. So this story finds her taking up her first bounty hunting gig, because she wants to try and earn enough money to start searching for her uncle, who stuck her in this situation.
If you could travel to any science fictional world, where would you go and what would you do?
Oh, I’d head straight for the world of Stargate: SG1. I love the idea of getting to travel to all those other worlds without having to ride a rocket to do it. And yeah, they land in trouble a lot, but they always end up OK. It’s the kind of optimistic, adventurous sci fi I like best, but with plenty of thoughtful ideas thrown in the mix.
Second choice: it’d be cool to live in the world of the Expanse, at least during the early part of the series (no spoilers). It’s pretty awesome to think about humanity expanding into the solar system like that.
What are some of your favorite sci-fi crime books or stories?
Lock In by John Scalzi is incredible. One of my favorites. Leviathan Wakes is the first Expanse book, and I feel like it hedges on space crime. Lindsay Buroker’s Star Kingdom series has a nice thread of criminal activity running through it, too, including an intriguing pirate/mercenary character.
Is it awkward for me to say your Bulari Saga series Jessie? Because those books had me staying up all night. And I’ve got two little kids, so that’s something I try to avoid. It was so worth it though!
Lastly, this one’s technically fantasy, but I feel like sci fi crime readers might also really like Jade War by Fonda Lee. The magic is very scientific, and the characters are fascinating. It kept me guessing for sure.
What authors have inspired your writing?
Oh gosh, so many. Mary Stewart early on, especially her Merlin trilogy. More recently, I very much admire Leigh Bardugo, N.K. Jemisin, Heidi Heilig, Emily St. John Mandel, and Marie Lu.
What are you working on next?
The League of Independent Operatives series wraps up in January 2022, so I’m actually getting started on the Parse Galaxy series, which stars Sloane and her friends from “Highly Irregular.” So that’s exciting!
I’ve also got a YA dystopian space opera story in Amazon’s new serialized fiction platform, Kindle Vella. It’s called the Interstellar Trials, and season 1 runs through the end of September 2021. The second season will probably kick off in November-ish.
CROOKED V.1
