Who better to interview a living legend than another living legend? “Talking with Tom” is the third installment of a Tor.com series in which Tor publisher Tom Doherty chats with one of the many authors and industry icons whose careers he influenced. Previous installments covered conversations with L.E. Modesitt Jr.and Harriet McDougal.

Please enjoy this fascinating and wide-ranging conversation between Tom Doherty and award-winning science fiction author Gregory Benford.

[The sound of time’s sure falling]

We’ve arrived at the end of our brief focus on Martha Wells. I shall be disappointed if she needs further introduction (aside from those books of hers I’ve covered in this space, you should all go read City of Bones and The Death of the Necromancer right now, I mean right away people, what are you waiting for, they’re right there—ahem), so without further ado, let me present Martha Wells: the author of thirteen novels, mostly recently the Books of the Raksura (The Cloud Roads, The Serpent Sea, and The Siren Depths, Night Shade Books) and Emilie and the Hollow World (Angry Robot Books).

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Welcome back to The Pop Quiz at the End of the Universe, a recurring series here on Tor.com featuring some of our favorite science fiction and fantasy authors, artist, and others!

Today we’re joined by Raymond Feist, author of The Riftwar Cycle. His upcoming novel, Magician’s End, is out from Harper Voyager Tuesday, May 14.

Join us as we cover subjects ranging from desert island iPads to sieging castles, and more.

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Welcome back to The Pop Quiz at the End of the Universe, a recurring series here on Tor.com featuring some of our favorite science fiction and fantasy authors, artist, and others!

Today we’re joined by Benjamin Percy, winner of the Whiting Writers’ Award and author of the upcoming novel Red Moon, out from Grand Central Tuesday, May 7.

Join us as we cover subjects ranging from a spiderwebby dungeon to a romantic picnic with Galadriel, and more.

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Some years ago, Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, F. Paul Wilson, and many more had a very special dream.

You see, there was this science fiction/fantasy writer named Henry Kuttner—he was a secret superstar. He wrote so many popular and successful stories . . . every reader of fantasy and science fiction knew who Henry Kuttner was. In this dream, five of Henry Kuttner’s most admired stories will be yours, collected, together, all in one place for the first time. This collection is called The Hogben Chronicles and it is being funded right now via Kickstarter.

Below, Wilson and Gaiman talk about Kuttner's influence on their work and why a new generation of science fiction/fantasy writers should experience the strange worlds of Henry Kuttner.

[Hogbens and Such: A Conversation Between Neil Gaiman and F. Paul Wilson]

The paperback of Railsea was published earlier this month and tomorrow (watch this space) we’ll be offering a discount on the ebook. Written with China’s usual indomitable style, perfect prose and with a rip-roaring, exciting storyline, Railsea appeals to the young, the young at heart and basically anyone who enjoys a darn good book. And if all that sounds like hyperbole—have you read a China Miéville novel?

We caught up with the author recently to quiz him about the book.

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I was barely 20 and when I first met Harlan Ellison in the too brightly lit cafeteria of South Mountain Community College in Phoenix, Arizona. I had driven with a posse of fellow booksellers to see the infamous SF legend speak at the college, and after what can only be described as Ellison doing stand-up comedy, I made him sign my copy of Troublemakers, got my picture taken with him and then arrogantly told him to remember me. He responded, “Sure kid.”

And more than a decade later, I’m happy to report Harlan Ellison still calls me “kid,” and is just as charmingly outrageous as ever.

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Today we’re joined by Karen Healey, acclaimed New Zealand author of Guardian of the Dead, The Shattering, and When We Wake—two of which I’ve reviewed right here on Tor.com, so it should come as no surprise that I think she’s an excellent writer. She’s agreed to answer a few questions, so without further ado:

[Let’s have some answers...]

Welcome back to The Pop Quiz at the End of the Universe, a recurring series here on Tor.com featuring some of our favorite science fiction and fantasy authors, artist, and others!

Today we’re joined by Guy Gavriel Kay, World Fantasy Award winner and author of the upcoming novel River of Stars, out from Roc Tuesday, April 2.

Join us as we cover topics ranging from the Temple of Saturn to Shakespeare/Shatner slashfic, and more!

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Today we’re joined by Marie Brennan, who’s kindly agreed to answer some of my importunate questions. Some of you, no doubt, are already familiar with her work: her first two novels, Warrior and Witch; her four-book Onyx Court series of historical fantasy out of Tor (Midnight Never Come, In Ashes Lies, A Star Shall Fall, and With Fate Conspire), and her Lies and Prophecy from the Book View Café.

Most recently, her A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir of Lady Trent has hit the shelves. If you haven’t read it already, you should all go read it as soon as you can.

[And now, some questions are answered!]

If I were able to time travel 100 years into the future and find a descendant of mine writing about the never-ending popularity of vampires, I wouldn’t be surprised one bit. There’s nothing trendy about vampires because they are, in some ways, our greatest metaphor; able to stand in for nearly whatever our storytellers want to throw at them. Though according to Joseph Caldwell—one of the original writers on Dark Shadows—vampires are “a metaphor for compulsive sex!” And if that doesn’t explain the immortal popularity of the fanged ones, I don’t know what does!

Recently, I was lucky enough to sit down with Caldwell and discuss the origins of Barnabas Collins, how to write a good soap opera, and why the motto in the Dark Shadows writers’ room was “Stop me before I suck more!”

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Tor UK is publishing an anniversary edition of Jeff Noon’s extraordinary Vurt out next month, so I wanted to post up something in advance to whet appetites. If it’s not enough that this edition contains a foreword by Lauren Beukes and three original Noon short stories.

Vurt was published twenty years ago, won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and has attracted praise from everyone from William Gibson to Geoff Ryman and Lauren Beukes, with fantastic reviews also received from The Times, Independent and many others. Vurt is a powerful story set in a near-future Manchester, where the barriers between dream and reality are mutable—and this leads its protagonists into more dangers than we could ever know.

Jeff is a true wordsmith and is known for his innovative approach to writing, so I asked him a few questions about writing, experimenting with prose and how he keeps himself fresh. Although as SFSite.com says, “Vurt was a breath of fresh air at the time it was published and it remains so today.” So over to Jeff....

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Who better to interview a living legend than another living legend? “Talking with Tom” is the second installment of a new Tor.com series in which Tor publisher Tom Doherty chats with one of the many authors and industry icons whose careers he helped launch and shape.

Please enjoy this fascinating and wide-ranging conversation between Tom Doherty and Harriet McDougal, who collaborated for decades on many iconic science fiction and fantasy titles, including of course every novel in The Wheel of Time series. Tom and Harriet discussed Harriet’s work as an editor, her late husband’s career (including information about an as-yet unpublished fantasy novel by Jordan), the Wheel of Time’s famous artwork, and of course the recently released final installment in the series, A Memory of Light. Also present was Irene Gallo, Art Director for Tor Books.

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Aliette de Bodard’s recent novelette On A Red Station, Drifting, struck me so much to heart that I asked her to join us for a few questions about her work and the genre field. As the author of three novels (Servant of the Underworld, Harbinger of the Storm, and Master of the House of Darts, collected as Obsidian and Blood last year) and myriad short stories, a winner of the 2010 BSFA Award for Best Short Fiction, and someone who featured prominently on the Locus 2012 Recommended Reading List, she knows whereof she speaks—and let me just say that if you haven’t read her short fiction (particularly last year’s “Immersion” and “Scattered Along The River Of Heaven,” both online at Clarkesworld), well, what the hell are you waiting for?

Go. Read. We’ll be here when you get back.

[Back? On to the answers!]

Frances Hardinge is the author of A Face Like Glass which has just been published in paperback—and was shortlisted for the Kitschies Red Tentacle Award (Best Novel category). We caught up with Frances to find out more about her fifth novel, set in the underground city of Caverna, where expressions have to be learned from the famous Facesmiths. You can also click on the link to get a free extract from A Face Like Glass.

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Adrian Tchaikovsky is the prolific author behind the long-running, epic fantasy series, Shadows of the Apt. The Air War is his eighth novel, publishing this month, featuring his imaginative and original insect Kinden. We caught up with him to ask him a few questions about how he goes about writing such an intricate storyline, and you can also get a free extract of The Air War here.

The Air War is the eighth novel in your Shadows of the Apt series—how do you keep all the plot lines straight in your head?

Although part of an ongoing series, I work hard to make sure that each book has its own discrete plot, including an end where at least some things are resolved, even though wider issues of the series arc continue. I think breaking down the overall development like this makes keeping track of things considerably easier. I also do quite a lot of structural planning before I write, so that I have a good idea of where each book should leave me. Not that it always works out as planned, of course.

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Welcome back to The Pop Quiz at the End of the Universe, a recurring series here on Tor.com featuring some of our favorite science fiction and fantasy authors, artist, and others!

Today we’re joined by Evie Manieri, the debut author of Blood’s Pride, the first book in the new Shattered Kingdoms fantasy series, out from Tor Books on Tuesday, February 19.

Join us as we cover topics ranging from whether a TARDIS fits in an apartment or the other way around, useful post-apocalyptic skills, and more!

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Welcome back to The Pop Quiz at the End of the Universe, a recurring series here on Tor.com featuring some of our favorite science fiction and fantasy authors, artist, and others! Today we’re joined by Marie Brennan, the author of A Natural History of Dragons, which has been described (okay, on this site) as “Downton Abbey with dragons” and is a very fine tale of a Victorian woman who strives to become the anthropological expert on dragons. (It’s also full of great illustrations and hits shelves today!)

Join us as we cover topics ranging from defenestration, how scary an immortal elite class would be, and how we should revive the 17th century swear-word “windfucker.”

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“Ballardian—resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in JG Ballard’s novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments.”

-Oxford English Dictionary

“It seems to me that what most of us have to fear for the future is not that something terrible is going to happen, but rather that nothing is going to happen... I could sum up the future in one word, and that word is boring. The future is going to be boring.”

-JG Ballard, 1991

Drained swimming pools and drowned cities, crashed cars and deserted highways—the term “Ballardian” has not just entered dictionaries but also the public and media consciousness in the years since the author’s death. But by doing so there is a danger that some sense of meaning has been lost; that by becoming a soundbite to be thrown about by lazy critics, journalists and even politicians it has not just lost multiple layers of nuance, but come to represent something Ballard never intended—a cliche of inhumanity and dystopia associated with a man that, contrary to popular perception, never celebrated either.

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