Tag Archives: Star Trek

Interview: J.R. Handley

Chances are, if you like military science fiction, you might have run into J.R. Handley on Facebook. He has science fiction podcast and serves as an admin on the Galaxy’s Edge fansite.  He’s a hard worker who adds a ton to the MilSF community. And, oh yeah, he’s a good writer as well.

Interview: J.R. Handley

What is your quest?

I strive to tell compelling science fiction stories that are fun escapism from the drudgeries of the modern world. I love space opera and military science fiction, which are the two spaces where I excise my demons and weave them into the tapestry of my futuristic universe. I let my real-world experiences from serving 8.5 years in the Army, with two tours in Iraq, flavor the action and the soldiers I write about. Hopefully I succeed in creating warriors worthy of the genre that I love to read.

Growing up I devoured science fiction from Orson Scott Card and the plethora of books written in the Star Wars Universe. I read those books clear up through the end of high school, only taking a break from reading for fun when I was in college and then in Iraq. When I rediscovered reading, I found authors like Chris Kennedy (The Theogony Universe), Tim C. Taylor (Human Legion Series), Terry Mixon (Empire of Bones Series), Richard Fox (The Ember War Series) and the deadly duo of Anspach and Cole (The Galaxy’s Edge Series). All of those styles effect the story teller I’ve become, which I hope to bring to the Four Horsemen Universe I enjoy reading.

What is your favorite color?

My favorite color? I’m color blind so I don’t really have a favorite. I only see the basic primary colors, but I guess I like blue and green. Okay, my former fire team would skewer me alive if I didn’t say Infantry Blue!

As for what I like in my creations, I strive to balance the details that make the story come alive with the fast pace expected from the genres where I play. I don’t want to tell the readers about the far-flung battlefields, I want them to BE there with my characters. I would love for them to be able to envision the story, like a movie playing in their heads. One of the biggest tricks I use for my battlefields, since you’re looking for advice for other creators… I make a sand table of the space where the action happens. It lets me see the battlefield in 3D and plot realistic strategies for the situation at hand. Plus, it’s fun playing with Legos and calling it “work.” Unless my wife is reading this, then it is TOTALLY work!

What is the average flying speed of an unladen paint brush?

An unladen paint brush flies at the speed of sound, divided by pie and multiplied by the weight of a porcupine on Mars. Oh, and make sure you don’t mix in the metric system or you’ll create a space-time singularity that will destroy the fabric of the universe!

Now, on a more serious note… I swear I can be serious! My biggest challenges revolve around overcoming the traumatic brain injury I suffered in Iraq. Sometimes I get my words mixed up, and my minions have to go back and help me figure out what I really meant. Most of the time it’s pretty easy sometimes involves rewriting entire sections because the gibberish was indecipherable. I can get confused very easily and have a finite number of cognitively viable hours in the day, which cuts into my writing time. Overall, I do it all again and still enjoy telling the stories even if I’m slower than molasses. It just means I have to get creative as I fight through the Amazon churn model that is in vogue.

The hardest part to answer here was regarding some of my failures. Even when I have stories rejected by anthologies, I don’t consider them failures. I write as therapy, as a way to process what happened overseas. I also write to keep exercising my gray matter so I can fend off the inevitable dementia that is often associated with dramatic brain injuries. Every day I write something, I call it a win. Most recent failure, or rejection, was from the previous 4HU anthology. I got so distracted by the shiny idea, that I lost sight of the universe canon and the story was rejected. Again, this wasn’t a failure because I can pull out anything that is proprietary to the universe and still salvage the story. Failure is only a thing if you don’t learn from it, or you have a warped view on things. I try to take everything in stride, avoid dwelling on the negative, and appreciate that I’ve got another day above the dirt. Losing so many friends definitely alters your perspective, and I try to honor their sacrifice by not giving up.

Since we focused on the negative, well on failure anyway, I want to take a second to talk about the good things. I truly feel that the story and the upcoming anthology is one of the best I’ve ever written. I’ve read all of the previous anthologies, and many of the main storyline books, and wanted to bring something a little different to the universe. I tried to honor the warrior, by remembering why they fight with this submission. I really hope that comes across and would love for your feedback once you’ve read it!

What are the powers of your personal Holy Hand Grenade?

The Holy Hand Grenade is all knowing, it comforts us when we are hurting and smites our foes with impunity! Who doesn’t worship the Holy Hand Grenade? Point me at the blasphemous soul and we will smite them together!

It sounds like what you’re really asking for are my tricks of the trade, and the biggest one I use I’ve previously mentioned. I rely heavily on sand tables to block out my action scenes, and I feel like that’s where I do my best work. I can’t really pinpoint one specific success that I’m proud of, other than to say that my latest work is always my favorite and I hope that I’m growing at every step along the way. The two stories I’m most proud of are the one in the upcoming 4HU anthology titled “CASPers Widow” and one written in my Sleeping Legion Series titled “No Marine Left Behind.” I feel like they are some of my best published work, and I hope the readers agree.

Lightning Round

  • Favorite Muppet? Kermit the Frog
  • Crunchy or Creamy? Coffee
  • Favorite Sports Team? Yay sports ball!!  Wait, I don’t have one… I prefer watching the USA Rugby Team or just reading a good book.
  • Cake or Pie? Coffee
  • Lime or Lemon? Coffee
  • Favorite Chip Dip?  French Dip with those ridged chips
  • Wet or Dry? Wet… cause COFFEE
  • Favorite Musical Performer We’ve Never Heard OfJoey and Rory, Dropkick Murphy’s or maybe Dar Williams? I’d guess that these are pretty main stream though.
  • Whisky or Whiskey? Whichever one fills my glass the quickest!
  • Favorite Superhero? GI Joe or Captain America!
  • Steak Temperature? On my plate!
  • Favorite 1970s TV show? Wait, did they have to be back then? Let me run to my local museum and get the historians to answer that one for me!
  • Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall? Yes, as long as no deserts are involved. I’ve had my fill of deserts! For more serious answer though, I prefer spring or fall because the weather is in the Goldilocks zone.
  • Favorite PetOur benevolent leader, Lord Cthulhu.
  • Best Game Ever? Chess, though DnD is pretty fun as well. But that might just be because I haven’t played the 4HU game that is coming out soon!!
  • Coffee or Tea? Hot coffee or sweet iced tea, the ying to my yang! Clearly the secrets of an awesome life
  • Sci-Fi or FantasyD, All of the Above!

What question(s) would you like to ask me?

Well, I can tell you that the secret of the universe is 42, but you didn’t ask me that!  Or that everyone knows the Devil invented pineapple pizzas, but you didn’t ask that either! Oh, and we can all agree in the heathen blasphemous nature of unsweetened iced tea!!  What about the proper temperature one should drink beer?  I swear it should be properly chilled, but heathen Brits like Tim C. Taylor drink it warm.

Rob’s Answer: You are correct. Beer must be *properly* chilled. That temperature is different for various types of beers. Lagers, especially light lagers, are best really cold. Real Ales, especially cask-pulled ales, are usually better at about 55 degrees. If they’re too cold, you lose much of the flavor.

Stouts like Guinness are perfect examples of this. Cold Guinness is rather bland. Let it warm to about 50, and suddenly it’s rich and vibrant. So, yes. Chill your beer properly.

And one last thing. If you like beer and you go across the pond, look up CAMRA to help you find some absolute treasures. I’m sure Tim C. Taylor would agree.

Tell me again where we can find your stuff?

You can find my books on Amazon or hear my insanity over at the Sci-Fi Shenanigans Podcast. My website is an option too, I post a lot of book reviews there! Finally, we can chat on Facebook!

And where can we find you?

I’ll be attending the 20 Books to 50K author conference in Vegas in the first week in November 2018! Not sure about any other scheduled dates, since my life is so crazy at the moment. If any event comes up, I’ll be sure to post it on my website.

Do you have a creator biography?

J.R. Handley is a pseudonym for a husband and wife writing team. He is a veteran infantry sergeant with the 101st Airborne Division and the 28th Infantry Division. She is the kind of crazy that interprets his insanity into cogent English. He writes the sci-fi while she proofreads it.  The sergeant is a two-time combat veteran of the late unpleasantness in Mesopotamia where he was wounded, likely doing something stupid. He started writing military science fiction as part of a therapy program suggested by his doctor and hopes to entertain you while he attempts to excise his demons through these creative endeavors. In addition to being just another dysfunctional veteran, he is a stay at home wife, avid reader and all-around nerd.  Luckily for him, his Queen joins him in his fandom nerdalitry.

Final question for you: What should I have asked but did not? 

Clearly, you need to ask the Religion Question; Star Wars, Star Trek or Firefly!  The right answer is Star Wars, pre-Disney, of course! And then Firefly, though the show was murdered prematurely by the Evil Overlords over at Fox.


Thanks to J.R. for taking the time to answer my questions.

If you have any suggestions or comments about this interview format, let me know so I can keep tweaking it.

Also, thanks to you for reading. If you’re interested in any of the other interviews I’ve done, you can find them all here: https://robhowell.org/blog/?cat=326. If you are a creator, especially an independent creator, and you want to be spotlighted in a future interview, email me at rob@robhowell.org.

Finally, if you want to join my mailing list, where I’ll announce every interview, as well as what’s going on in my life, go to www.robhowell.org and fill out the form (Name and Email Address) or drop me an email and I’ll add you.

Have a great day.

Rob Howell

Interview: Marisa Wolf

Marisa is another person I met at LibertyCon. She is chock full of awesome, as you will see here.

Interview: Marisa Wolf
Marisa Wolf
Marisa Wolf

What is your quest?

To write stories that people can’t put down, to imagine what the future could look like (both in a “yaaay!” and a “yeee-ikes” sort of way), and to write characters people think about after the books let them go…

What is your favorite color?

Characters that feel real – thinking about how they might react in all kinds of situations that never make it to the story so I have a better idea of their life choices. Thinking through the emotional response I’d like to provoke. Sometimes that means reading out loud to make sure what was snarky-funny in my head lands outside of my actual head. Sometimes it’s writing a fight scene to Immigrant Song so I get the mood right. Sometimes it’s brainstorming gut-punch moments with authors who are really, really, really good at such things (coughKaceycough) (Rob’s Note: Kacey Ezell’s interview is here: https://robhowell.org/blog/?p=1470).

What is the average flying speed of an unladen paint brush?

Whewwww the voice in my head is an ASSHOLE. Can we curse here? (Rob’s Note: Don’t hurt my saintly ears)

I feel like you curse when you go hurtling off the bridge, and also that voice is the equivalent of being thrown from the bridge in the middle of your grail-quest. Right, the voice – the one that tells me I’m not good enough, that people are going to notice I don’t belong with all these amazing writers, that I should probably not bother to write because no one’s going to like it…UGH that voice makes setting and keeping a writing routine hard. (Rob’s Note: That voice deserves to get cursed at)

What are the powers of your personal Holy Hand Grenade?

Character development – where they end up is not where they started, even if they deny that growth to themselves (I’m a big fan of characters in denial about something, which maybe says something about me? Unclear). This is for sure a skill I developed through fanfiction, where I had characters I wrote for yearsssss.

Lightning Round

  • Favorite Muppet? Cookie Monster. The right answer.
  • Crunchy or Creamy? Creamy. Except when I want crunchy, and then crunchy.
  • Favorite Sports Team? Bad News Bears. Hufflepuff’s Quidditch team. (for real I was raised on Boston sports and so believe firmly in the underdog and then my teams did all the winning and it’s an identity crisis, I tell you #hardproblemstohave)
  • Cake or Pie? Peanut butter pie, then everything else = yes, please, excellent runner up
  • Lime or Lemon? Someone already made the lime in the coconut joke, didn’t they?
  • Favorite Chip Dip?  Cheese.
  • Wet or Dry? #thatswhatshesaid
  • Favorite Musical Performer We’ve Never Heard Of? #imnotahipster #basicmusicaltaste #idontcareitssogood
  • Whisky or Whiskey? YES, please and thank you.
  • Favorite Superhero? Kitty Pryde #shehadaDRAGON
  • Steak Temperature? Medium rare, I will accept only rare-r temperatures as valid answers.
  • Favorite 1970s TV show? Not gonna lie, all the ones I thought of were 80s. Early 80s, but…yeah.
  • Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall? …all you have to do is call! (dammit now that song is in my head) (Rob’s Note: My job’s done here)
  • Favorite Pet?  I can’t pick a favorite, or I will be haunted by all the good boys and girls who went before. All dogs are the best. All cats are also the best. Even the jerks.
  • Best Game Ever? Either Uno or Apples to Apples with my family (each side has claim to one) – there is always loud arguing, snorting, attempts at cheating that are immediately seen through, and so much laughter I’m honestly sore the next day.
  • Coffee or Tea? Coffee. Unless I want tea, and then tea. But for real: coffee.
  • Sci-Fi or Fantasy? YES. Also you have a typo, ‘or’ should be spelled a-n-d.

What question(s) would you like to ask me?

What was the first book/story that GOT you? The one that made you catch your breath and need to read and re-read and maybe also re-re-re-re-read it?

Rob’s Answer: Well, I would probably have to say the Hardy Boy books. For a while, they were my babysitter when my parents both had classes to teach at the same time. They would buy me one that I didn’t have, which usually took me about 2-3 hours to read. That meant I got a lot of them one semester when I was five.

I’d also like to toss out The Ghost of Dibble Hollow. I read that book like a zillion times in 4th grade. I still have a copy and I might just read it again this weekend.

Tell me again where we can find your stuff?

Coming soon: Hunter (the sequel to Assassin) and a few special projects…

And where can we find you?

Do you have a creator biography?

Marisa Wolf is the author of “Under the Skin” in The Good, the Bad, and the Merc, and the co-author of Assassin, with the fabulous Kacey Ezell. With more to come in the 4HU, she’s also co-authored a short story in another universe with Kacey (“Underneath” in Sha’daa: Toys, from Copper Dog Publishing), and has apparently decided to have five or more projects going at the same time all the time.

She was born in New England, and raised on a healthy diet of Boston sports teams, Star Wars, Star Trek, and the longest books in the library (usually fantasy). Over the years she majored in English (in part to get credits for reading which…partly worked), taught middle school science and history, was headbutted by an alligator, built a career in education, earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and finally decided to finish all those half-started stories in her head.

She currently lives in Texas with three absurd rescue dogs, more books than seems sensible, and one deeply understanding husband.

Final question for you: What should I have asked but did not?

You should have asked what nerd property do you desperately want to see come to some sort of media life in a very high quality way? That way I could have answered Dragonriders of Pern. Now! Please and thank you.

You should have also asked if there will be a sequel to Assassin so I could mention that Hunter is coming soon.


Thanks to Marisa for taking the time to answer my questions.

If you have any suggestions or comments about this interview format, let me know so I can keep tweaking it.

Also, thanks to you for reading. If you’re interested in any of the other interviews I’ve done, you can find them all here: https://robhowell.org/blog/?cat=326. If you are a creator, especially an independent creator, and you want to be spotlighted in a future interview, email me at rob@robhowell.org.

Finally, if you want to join my mailing list, where I’ll announce every interview, as well as what’s going on in my life, go to www.robhowell.org and fill out the form (Name and Email Address) or drop me an email and I’ll add you.

Have a great day.

Rob Howell