A polyamorous reader (always reading 10+ books at the same time), Peter J. Aldin is addicted to xBox soccer games, wears XL shirts, and is definitely GenX. (See a theme there?)
Don’t ask him to help you out with any woodwork, painting, or to play tennis with you –anything requiring hand-eye coordination is beyond him. But he can touchtype (not looking at the keyboard means no hand-eye coordination, right?). He’ll stay up till 2a.m. Australia-time to watch Chelsea or Brentford play in the EPL, he’ll perform well in a trivia quiz, and he can keep the beat on the drums if you need him to. Formerly, he wrote and ran training for people with social barriers, and edited high level documents for a multi-national. These days, he writes. He likes writing. He loves writing. At his age, it’s pretty much the only thing he does anymore.
Except for watching the EPL at midnight … and playing soccer on xBox … and reading those 10 books at once.
If you could have any sci-fi gadget in real life, what would it be and what practical uses would you have for it?
TARDIS.
Freedom, baby. Freedom.
Plus a lot of closet space.
If you were to write a book about a group of superheroes with completely useless powers, what would their powers be?
Ooo, this reminds me of the tryouts scene in Mystery Men. Let’s go with a quartet (like Fantastic Four etc).
Their leader Ken Kriton is Belly Button Fluff Man—the Fuzz is strong with him. Janie Janicky is The Glarer—do the crime and you’ll feel the full force of her stink-eye. Rajesh Ranjani is The Buff—what they lack in muscle, they more than make up for in general knowledge. And Bob Gusset is Mansplainer—the font of all expertise … whether you wanna hear it or not.
Hm, I think I feel a superhero novel coming on.
If you had to choose one of your own fictional worlds to live in, which one would it be, and why?
A few years back, I wrote a post-apocalyptic series set in Tasmania. I reckon it’d be the greatest place to ride out the end of the world. I mean, I’d live there now but my wife won’t go. (Pete makes a sad face and stares wistfully into the mists of What Might Be).
If you could have any magical power, but the catch was you had to perform a ridiculous dance every time you used it, what power would you choose and what would your dance look like?
Hey, I’d happily do the Hokey Pokey every time I magically healed someone or healed myself. No worries.
If you had to choose one of your books to be turned into a cheesy made-for-TV movie, which one would it be and who would you want to play the lead roles?
Well if it’s gotta be cheesy… Let’s go with my werewolf thriller Black Marks. It’s gotta be Channing Tatum in the main role as brooding werewolf hero Jake. Rebel Wilson as the love interest Gwen. And definitely David Hasselhoff playing as the older and villainous werewolf Eddie.
I feel quite sick just picturing this.
Mash together two of your favorite SF properties. What’s the new work about?
A Sith apprentice enters a cave to investigate a disturbance in the Force, falls off a waterfall and emerges in a pre-historic world where she is attacked by dinosaurs, worshipped by ape-men and uses her light-saber against hostile lizard-people. All while attempting to access the mysterious Pylons to open a portal back to her galaxy far far away.
If you could transport yourself to any fictional universe you’ve seen in a television show or movie, which universe would you go to?
Would you be surprised if I said either Land of the Lost, or Star Wars (non-Disney version pre-Episode 4)?
Which trope of science fiction would you like to see put into our reality? And how would you use it in a mundane way?
Teleporters for home delivery of fast food. So that the food actually arrives hot and fresh.
If you could have any fictional pet as a companion, what would it be and why?
Okay. I wrote a kind-of crime drama (which was kind-of a Young Adult novella). SCRAPPER is set in a space warehouse (I know, right?) and the main character has as her ‘companion’ a gen-modded, lab-created animal she rescued from indentured slavery. He’s a chimpanzat, a blend of chimpanzee and alien hive rat. Intelligent as a 13-year-old human, he’s snarky, addicted to piloting simulators, and loyal, with a great work ethic. Because my main character loves 19 th Century sci-fi and crime novels, she calls him Watson (as in she considers him her sidekick, something he’s increasingly displeased about). Throughout the story, Watson shows he’s his own person. And I would love to hang out with him even for one day. He’d be very capable of board games, have some funny jokes to lay on me, and he’d have a fascinating outsider perspective on the human species he’d be only too happy to share.
If you had to survive in a fantasy world with only the contents of your fridge, what would be your game plan?
Sell the packaging as magic containers or magic material for a big sack of gold. Plant the raspberries somewhere safe to grow my own stash. Show an inn cook the frozen chicken satay patties from my freezer and ask them to make something similar for me once or twice a week. Use the juice bottle as a water canteen (once I’d boiled the local water). And probably use the fig-and-walnut paste someone gifted me to poison my worst enemy there.
What’s the silliest misconception you’ve had about something scientific, what was it and how did you learn you had misapprehended?
Oh, way to embarrass me, thanks very much! Okay. Confession is good for the soul. Up until my 30s, I thought almost all left-handers were women. I found out when I was wrong when someone said I’m an idiot, causing me to google it and discover that male southpaws are far more prevalent. Also, until my 40s, (I have no idea why but) I believed there was a relationship between men going bald early and them playing a lot of sport (I think I figured it had something to do with overworking their bodies or something equally stupid). The moment someone said “Really?” when I voiced that belief, I gave it a moment’s actual thought…and hung my head in shame.
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ICONIC is set a far future where the Milky Way is recovering from a wide-reaching civil war. Along the galaxy’s Outer Reaches, frontier factions and vicious gangs nip at the Martianist Imperium’s heels and jostle for dominance. In the midst of this turmoil, a band of escaped slaves cross paths (and cross swords) with a team of ancient warriors when they meet on a ship that should no longer exist.
#1 Action & Adventure fiction writer, Peter J. Aldin writes action-based space opera and has an epic fantasy novel coming out in 2025. Besides co-creating the Outer Reaches series, he’s the creator of the Envoys trilogy, the Four Horsemen novel Chasing Hell, and he’s a contributing author to multiple anthologies. His short story “D is for Death” was shortlisted for a 2017 Australian Shadows Award. Connect with Pete and his socials via https://tinyurl.com/2p8nsd2b to be notified about new book releases.
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