We’re celebrating the launch of CROOKED V.3 by spotlighting the authors who have contributed stories!
R.M. Olson writes fast-paced, feel-good science fiction featuring diverse casts, found families, and loads of action. R.M. has ridden the Trans Siberian railway, jumped off the highest bungee jump in the world, gone cage-diving with great white sharks, faced down a charging buffalo bull, and knows how to milk a goat. Currently they reside in Alberta, Canada with their four children, three cats, and a dog the size of a small bear. R.M. goes hiking and skiing more often than they probably have time for, eats more chocolate than is probably good for them, and reads more books than is probably prudent.
Website: rmolson.com
Tell us a bit about your story, “Mad Dog”
The world behind this story is one of the most enjoyable I’ve worked in so far—it’s built around a society that’s loosely based off England during the era of the Napoleonic Wars, but set in space, and with the addition of one of my favourite aspects of this world: anyone who’s traveled faster than light, and who’s suffered a sufficiently terrible trauma, can turn ghost when they die. There are pirates, the navy, far-flung resource planets, faster-than-light travel, and, of course, plenty of horrifying and murderous space-ghosts. This particular story begins on Blackrock, the pirate settlement set deep in the caverns of a small moon, where a pirate named Toothpick is tasked to hunt down a woman known as Mad Dog and recruit her onto the crew. But Mad Dog is no fool, and Toothpick may have just stumbled into more danger than he bargained for.
What was the inspiration behind this story?
I’ve always been captivated by naval fiction, and ever since my first time reading Treasure Island as a kid, I was obsessed with pirates—not the good, clean, happy Disney pirates, but pirates who were complicated, morally grey, sometimes vicious, and never entirely predictable. And I’ve loved writing science fiction since my very first published novel four years ago. So space-pirates were a logical next step. Mad Dog, Toothpick, Vee, and the others are part of my latest science fiction series, The Devil and the Dark, which is set about 15-20 years after this story takes place. For this one, I wanted to go back and explore some of their earlier stories, before Mad Dog was a notorious pirate captain.
If you could travel to any science fictional world, where would you go and what would you do?
I’d go join PreservationAux and spend my time hanging out with Ratthi, Gurathin, Dr. Mensah, Pin-Lee, Art, and Murderbot, solving crimes, rescuing stranded humans from the corporates, freeing constructs, and doing science while attempting to avoid alien remnant contamination and hostile fauna.
What are some of your favorite sci-fi crime books or stories?
I would read the Murderbot Diaries over and over for the rest of my life, I think. And I know they’re not books, but I adore Cowboy Bebop and Firefly.
What authors have inspired your writing?
For this series specifically, C.S. Forester and Robert Louis Stevenson are definitely inspirations–I love the excitement and the immediacy of the action in both of their writing. More generally, I’ve always loved the brilliant way Terry Pratchett manages to work both humour and biting social commentary into his work, and ever since I read Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire, I’ve been fascinated by the rich cultural and sensory details she works into her books. In addition, Mo Xiang Tong Xiu is one of my favourite authors and a major source of inspiration—her mastery of story structure, character, and complicated relationships is superb, and it’s something I always aspire to in my writing.
What are you working on next?
I have a few things in the works right now—I’m five books into my The Devil and the Dark series (about Mad Dog et al), and the sixth is coming out soon, with more on the way. In addition, I just launched the first book in a brand new space-horror series, Inhuman, set in the same world as The Devil and the Dark. I’m working on a few novellas that tie into my space-heist/caper series, The Ungovernable, that I wrote back in 2020-2021, and finally, I’m branching out into some paranormal/horror romance with a ghost-hunter trilogy that I plan to launch sometime next year under a new and yet-to-be-determined pen name.
CROOKED V.3
