John Andrew Karr (also John A. Karr) writes of the strange and spectacular. He is the author of a handful of independent and small press novels and novellas, a stream of short stories including Next Level Tina for Amazing Stories, and has adapted select works into screenplays. Notable among his novels are the
Mars Wars science fiction series and the Lars Kelsen spectral thrillers.
If you were to create a superhero that had a weakness for something totally unexpected, like pickles or bubble wrap, what would it be and why?
Live Rock shows … superhero BatSoop is half Batman and half Superman and can’t fly by a live rock music show without head banging to a song or two.
Nevermind some puppy down a sewer drain in need of rescue … it has to wait until the vibrations from the guitar chords have adequately reverberated in his ribcage and
stimulated BatSoop’s brain.
It’s a real problem because bat ears are verrrry sensitive to sound and can detect a performance from many miles away.
BatSoop even appeared outside some teenager’s second floor window when the teen was learning the chords to Metallica’s Sandman.
He blames his mother for jamming too much during her pregnacy with him.
BatSoop suffered through a joke butt phase with Covid and the whole ‘bat soup via wet market’ thing, but he’s over it now.
If you could have any magical power, but it came with a ridiculous side effect, what would the power be and what would the side effect be?
Invisibility, but the side effect is discomforting gas from the digestive tract that must be, shall we say, released.
So while it would be cool to walk about unseen, lingering in one locale would present difficulties, as people would suspect I was there by use of their olfactory senses.
And unless there is a breeze or strong ventilation, a discernable trail is left behind (ho!) that could conceivable be followed to discover one’s whereabouts.
That’s a long way to go for a fart joke but life is short, and until farting in public becomes socially acceptable, a certain amount of mirth is baked in (ho!).
Caveat: this may be gender specific. Haven’t seen a scientific study, but my impression is dudes appreciate fart jokes far more than chicks do.
If you were transported into one of your books as a character, what kind of character would you be and what kind of adventures would you have?
Ry Devans is a crusty retired military pilot who flew combat missions in WW III. Afterward he became a planetary shuttle pilot on the Mars Orbiter station — before Earth
countries went crazy and, among other nasty things like banning freedom, also banned space endeavors. At the time I wrote Detonation Event – Mars Wars Book One, Ry and I were
roughly the same age, although I’ve not served in the military, nor am I a pilot. It would be an adventure to fly in space and on Mars, and be able to handle both dogfights
in spacecraft and battles on the surfaces of Mars and Earth.
In reality, just to walk the surface of Mars would be huge — it’s another planet! And if it could somehow become terraformed, as is attempted in the Mars Wars series, even better.
If you could time travel to any point in history, which era would you choose, and why?
One of my favorite speculative short stories is A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury. Time travel to the dinosaur days. As much as I like archaelogy and anthropology, paleontology tops both of them. Veritable monsters roaming the Earth — this would be incredible to see! Not fossiles or reconstructed skeletons, but as living creatures! If it only were possible.
… but it’s not. As much as I like time travel, I do believe it will ever remain impossible. Time is not tangible. It cannot be manipulated. I don’t care how many light-years
your star ship can leap. You’re not going to go back in time, and you’re not going to go into the future. There is only the time/space you occupy at the moment.
It’s not a case of finding the right technology, either.
Unfortunately. It would be quite an adventure.
Not part of the original question, so who asked me, but a close second travel in history would be 5,300 or so years back to see a living Otzi, the Iceman, discovered on the
Austria – Italy mountain border. I find it more than a casual bummer that humans were warring / murdering so long ago, even if it was a major factor in our evolutionary brain development.
I’d like to see why he showed signs of combat. Was he a good guy or a bad guy, or just in wrong place and wrong time?
If you had to choose between fighting 100 duck-sized robots or one robot-sized duck, which would you pick and why?
Velociraptors were not the six foot beasts depicted in Jurassic Park. They were more like the size of turkeys. Yet they could bring down much larger prey by hunting in packs.
Same for duck-sized robots. You’d have a hard time keeping them off your ass, literally. So give me the one big ‘bull goose’ as McMurphy says in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
At least I can keep it in sight at all times while we slug it out.
What’s the silliest misconception you’ve had about something scientific, what was it and how did you learn you had misapprehended?
Not going to admit how old I was, but I thought our sun was actively on fire for a while there. Flames and everything. Science fact came along at some point.
If you had to choose between being a time traveler or a space explorer, which would you pick and why?
See previous remarks on time travel, or lack thereof. Space travel, however, is a possibility. Will humans ever find true evidence of alien life? That’s the burning mystery.
Numerically, there should be billions of planets out there that could support life. All we need is evidence of ONE other life form that we can recognize as such.
And yet we are not capable of finding any.
Space is a perpetual mind blower.
***
John is currently close to completing the rough draft of an urban fantasy tale of witches.
The publishing rights to two of the Mars Wars novels, Books One and Two (Detonation Even and Rogue Planet), have reverted back to me so I’ve been marketing the series lately.
Also, the Lars Kelsen spectral thrillers Ghostly Summons and Octo Sapiens are also among my advertising efforts.
Other novels and stories are linked via my website: https://johnandrewkarr.com/
I was never all that comfortable with social media and have bailed on it. If someone would like to make contact without spamming, I’m at johnandrewkarr@gmail.com
Share this:
Please take a moment to support Amazing Stories with a one-time or recurring donation via Patreon. We rely on donations to keep the site going, and we need your financial support to continue quality coverage of the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres as well as supply free stories weekly for your reading pleasure.
https://www.patreon.com/amazingstoriesmag
