Jacqueline Carey is best known for her epic fantasy Kushiel’s Legacy series, but in 2009 she branched out into science fiction with Santa Olivia, a gritty novel about Loup Garron, the daughter of a genetically modified man growing up in a military outpost on the border between the United States and Mexico. This month, Saints Astray, a sequel to Santa Olivia, hits bookstores and picks up the story only minutes later, as Loup and her girlfriend, Pilar, are fleeing the outpost. I asked Jacqueline about her goals for the sequel and her thoughts on one of Loup’s defining characteristics: the fact that she cannot feel fear.

[Malinda Lo’s interview with Jacqueline Carey]