We all have a role in this world, but largely our role is not to be the hero. Tomas is a guy who grew up on some little hick planet, dreamed of getting off, and did in fact succeed in escaping.

In the Yoruba translation of the Holy Bible, the devil is sometimes called Satani which is just an adjustment of the English word Satan. However, where the English version uses the word “devil” then the Yoruba translation is Éshu.

We’re so used to thinking of exploring other planets as a dream or even a privilege. But if all these wild dreams come true, going into space will become someone’s job. What is our dream for those jobs?

I feel like one of the mistakes we see a lot of historically is “oh, there’s plenty of that, you don’t need to worry about that.” On a space station there isn’t plenty of anything. You have to worry about all of it. But on a planet . . . we make the mistake of thinking that we’re basically different from a space station.

The setting is such a big part of the story, and I really wanted to lead readers into it, to convey the idea that this is a refuge, its own world. Envelop the reader in that sense of calm and magic, to make them feel a part of this community.

I wanted to write about what the Faerie King means to her, why she’s so drawn to him. And by extension, I was writing about the fandom itself, why all these people are so wrapped up in him. This is really a story about the very human need to feel part of a story that’s bigger than oneself.

This story is very much rooted in the aspirational goals behind actual tech. (In fact, the company behind the Hogan Bridges was explicitly named Neuralink in early drafts, until I decided that I didn’t want to get sued by Neuralink.

A couple of winters ago, trudging up an icy hill, I realized I could revisit elements I loved from one of my first trunked novels. I could come at it fresh and make the fundamentals into short stories. That meant I could junk all the characters, setting, and plot—and still feel like the years I spent writing it were good for something beyond skill growth.

What I’d like readers to take away from this is that there’s value to art. That it is in fact an essential service that provides us with something that can improve our lives just by being exposed to it. To give an example from both film and real life, take the story depicted in Sing Sing.

I went with “tome” because it just has a more mysterious image and cadence to it, and also, I liked the idea of poor students lugging around a massive cursed book as opposed to something more mass market-sized.