Unexpected Questions with Tom Easton

Tom Easton has been publishing science fiction and fantasy since the 1970s and spent 30 years as Analog’s book columnist. He has appeared four times in Amazing Stories magazine, in 1979, 1981, 2014, and 2017.

He is also a retired college science professor. His latest nonfiction book is Destinies: Issues to Shape Our Future (B Cubed Press, 2020).

If you had to choose between being a mermaid or a dragon, which would you pick and why?

I would definitely prefer to be a dragon. I wouldn’t be able to fly, of course. Fantasy dragons are far too big for that, and there really is no such thing as a six-limbed reptile. But it would be cool to be the designated charcoal-lighter at BBQ parties.

If you had to survive in a fantasy world with only the contents of your fridge, what would be your game plan?

The first thing to consider is that the food contents of the fridge would quickly spoil. There’s no electric power in a fantasy world! But the metal shelf grids would serve nicely as grills over a campfire and the wiring could be used to make snares for cookable wildlife.

If you could travel to any alternate universe where a different version of yourself exists, what do you think your other self would be like?

Once upon a time, I thought I was being called to the ministry. So if he’s a minister, we would tell each other very different sorts of stories.

If you had to choose between fighting 100 duck-sized robots or one robot-sized duck, which would you pick and why?

Well, duck-sized robots do define the size of a robot, for present purposes. So I’ll take one robot-sized duck, please.

If you were to write a story featuring yourself as the main character, what kind of adventure would you embark on?

I have always thought it would be cool to hitchhike on a UFO. Therefore…

If you had to survive on a deserted planet with only three items from your own house, what would they be and how would you use them to survive?

First things first: Food! The three items would be a spading fork, a hoe, and a bag of potatoes from the fridge. Using those, I would immediately start a garden. While waiting for the potatoes to grow, I would use the spading fork as a weapon to obtain meat and fish.

If you had to choose between being a cyborg or a hologram, which would you pick and why?

Because holograms are only images and cannot experience, I would definitely choose cyborg.

Tom Easton’s latest nonfiction book is Destinies: Issues to Shape Our Future (B Cubed Press, 2020). Among other things, it deals with some of the problems posed by Artificial Intelligence and by global warming.