Editor’s Note: Aaron Rosenberg is a name you know if you’re into great science fiction writing. It’s also a name you know if you happen to know very great people. He’s written in a number of your favorite universes, including Star Trek, WarCraft, and Stargate. He also has a story in Apollo’s Daughters, which I’m editing for Silence in the Library publishing (there’s still time left on the Kickstarter for that project). He has a new novel out, The Honor of the Dread Remora, and I asked him to do a guest post explaining the book and why you should check it out.
So, without further ado:
Why space pirates?
That’s a question I get a lot about the Dread Remora books—why write them, and specifically, why make them about space pirates? After all, space pirates are bad guys—unscrupulous, greedy, selfish, evil dudes—right?
Well, not necessarily.
Here’s the thing—when David Niall Wilson, Steven Savile, and I first started talking about doing a collective space-opera, we agreed that we’d all set our stories in the same universe, use the same cosmic events, the same overarching storyline, etc. But each of us would be writing our own series within that framework, as would other people we invited to participate over time. That meant that each of us had the freedom to create the characters and tell the stories we were most interested in.
And my first thought, since it was going to be space-opera, was “space pirates.”
Hey, I still remember Ice Pirates, which was ridiculously cheesy but a lot of fun. And of course Han Solo is a space pirate himself. So is Mal Reynolds, though he would doubtless prefer the term “enterprising independent ship captain” or some such. Not all space pirates are awful, horrible people. Some of them are just trying to get by any way they can.
But while my first thought was “space pirates,” my second was “who aren’t what they appear.”
That’s always fun, after all, to turn conventions on their metaphoric ear a bit, shake things up by making the good guy less than pure and the bad guy noble and the princess seriously tough and so on. Don’t ignore the stereotypes and clichés but don’t give in to them, either—use them, twist them, make them serve you instead of the other way around, and you’ll wind up with a more exciting, more original story for your readers to enjoy.
The very next thing I thought was “they’re not really space pirates. They’re just pretending.” And that made me think of cops and special agents and spies going undercover, deep cover where everyone but their handler thinks they’ve really turned, gone rogue, sold out, and so on. But here it would have to be the entire ship, all together. They’ve decided to pose as space pirates in order to survive, but in their hearts and minds they’re still the same as they ever were. And what kind of ship would have the hardest time posing as space pirates? A space naval vessel!
And that’s how the Dread Remora was born.
In the first Dread Remora novel, aptly named Birth of the Dread Remora, I covered how the ship left its home, the first ever to do so, and discovered that space was nothing like they’d thought. The ship and its crew had to adapt in order to survive a whole series of unexpected incidents, some benign and some far less so. And by the end, they’d realized what they needed to do—which was to become, at least outwardly, space pirates. (Don’t worry, I’m not spoiling anything—the book blurb tells you almost that much, and the title’s a bit of a giveaway. There’s still plenty in there to discover if you haven’t read it yet.)
This second novel, Honor of the Dread Remora, picks up where the first one left off. They’re at least overtly space pirates now, and have to behave as such. But really they’re still naval officers, and the charade is eating away at them. Couple that with battling their way through a region of space that’s heavily protected by its own space navy—people a lot like they were but who’ve stayed true to their commission—and you’ve got a lot of conflict, a lot of tension, a lot of soul-searching, and a really fun story.
At least, I think so. I hope you do, too. If it sounds at all interesting, check it out, and let me know what you think.
A little about myself:
I’ve been writing professionally for twenty years now, and doing novels for the past thirteen. I started out doing roleplaying games, working for White Wolf and Wizards of the Coast and Pinnacle and many others, and segued from that to doing tie-in novels for properties like Star Trek, WarCraft, Stargate:Atlantis, and Eureka. I’ve written children’s books and young adult novels as well, some of them licensed books and others original. I’ve also written over a dozen educational books as well. My first original novel was the space opera Birth of the Dread Remora, which I released in 2011. I’ve done five more original novels since then, with short stories and other projects sprinkled in between. I’m still a big gamer, and of course a complete book nut. Oh, and I live in New York.
You can follow Aaron on Twitter or visit his website here. You can pick up copies of his latest book on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Or through the publisher, Mystique Press.