In a cove of a Greek island, Akis was born a rather peculiar infant and has only grown stranger every year. By day, he’s a researcher of biomedical AI and ethics, hoping there’s something less dystopian to come from this technology. His words have wormed their way into Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, Flame Tree, and Uncharted, among others. Visit his website for updates on his dreadful machinations: https://linktr.ee/akislinardos
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?
Honestly this is a tough question. I am above all an explorer, and if I imagine a different version of myself, I’m likely to go and live it. But something extreme I can imagine an alternative self doing, in a world where things might be unraveling fast … maybe that other self would be an anarchist living off-grid. Harvests his own food, has five cats, lives by the sea, and writes manifestos besides the poetry. Throws occasional pagan parties if they have the wealth to support it.
If you had to choose one of your own fictional worlds to live in, which one would it be, and why?
Look, none of them are nice places. They’re all brutalist, haunted, morally bankrupt, or full of monsters with metaphors. But if I had to pick it would be the Luckbending universe, from my dark fantasy novel, where the magic is based on mathematics. At least there, I could be end up having power just by being studious and start plotting academic coups.
If you were to write a story featuring yourself as the main character, what kind of adventure would you embark on?
Definitely a lot of travel from place to place, definitely a bard. Probably criticizing royalty too much to stay safe in one place for long. Occasionally joining a hopeless resistance, and finally finding a great mentor that has lived 5000 years (I think Frieren) to teach me stoicism. We’d end up killing a Demon King or Dragon Emperor or some such together, and then hit the tavern.
What off-beat location would you like to see host a convention, and why?
My island Crete. There’s plenty of writers in Greece, and a lot of calm to be found in its islands. Meanwhile it’s affordable, brimming with unsullied nature, and hey, I can even host the after-party myself in our family cottage why not. I think writers these days need the peace these places offer.
Name the strangest/weirdest place you’ve ever written. What made it so odd?
I have this concept in my novel called Mental Haven, which is somewhat inspired from Sherlock’s Palace concept, but it’s fantasy so the place actually manifests. It is essentially a manifestation of a character’s psyche and more importantly their traumas. One of the characters has had a brutal life, where he constantly questioned his identity while dealing with abuse. His mental haven is a red garden, flowing with bloodied rivers, and the blossoms have mirrors instead of pedals. That’s the one that comes to mind first, but I feel like I wrote plenty of odd places. They are usually found in either mental manifestations like these, or in outlandish cosmic horror.
- I have new stories and poetry appearing in several venues soon, including Cosmic Horror Monthly, Kaleidotrope, Worlds of Possibility, Flame Tree’s Robots Past & Future, Tales to Terrify–and a backlog of stories and poetry published last year to Apex, Baffling, Gamut, Strange Horizons, Uncharted among many others. I’d love to connect with more readers so anyone who feels they might resonate with my dreamy, dark, and often horrific tales may visit my lair for details:
https://linktr.ee/akislinardos
Steve Davidson is the publisher of Amazing Stories.
Steve has been a passionate fan of science fiction since the mid-60s, before he even knew what it was called.
