David J. Williams

Jeff VanderMeer interviewed David J. Williams about his latest novel, The Burning Skies. Part of the Q & A:

Amazon.com: How was writing your second novel different from writing your first?

David J. Williams: The toughest thing about it was that I had six years to do the first and only a year to do the second. To draw an analogy from the music world: there's a reason so many second albums underperform--you take a band that's had a lifetime to write the first album, and then you lock them in the studio and say, okay guys, the clock's ticking and we need forty more minutes of classic riffs! Fortunately, I had the whole thing mapped out at a high level, so it was really just a matter of following the gameplan I'd already developed. And in The Burning Skies, we have the opportunity to see a lot more of the world of the early 22nd century. The bulk of the narrative is set in orbit; the book centers on the space station known as the Europa Platform, the site of the secret summit conference between the U.S. president and the leaders of the Eastern bloc. But the elite terrorist group Autumn Rain crashes the party, and things go out of control from there...

Amazon.com: How difficult is it to write about the President of the United States? Did you have any examples in fiction that you thought worked particularly well?

Williams: What I didn't want was...[read on]

Read an excerpt from The Burning Skies, and learn more about the author and his work at the official website of David J. Williams.

David J. Williams is a former programmer for the Homeworld videogame series and a graduate of the Clarion workshop. The Burning Skies is the sequel to his acclaimed debut novel The Mirrored Heavens.

The Page 69 Test: The Burning Skies.

--Marshal Zeringue