An Interview With Saint Jaqi Her Own Self

There are so many people to thank and hug and cry with as we reach the last of three intensely close release dates… none more so than the main character herself.

Let’s hear now from the one person who’s suffered the most during this process… the main character of A RED PEACE and the following books, Jaqi. Folks I present an interview with my favorite scrappy smuggler and ne’er-do-well.

(Picture by Cory Skerry, the amazing Ink Shark.)

Welcome, Jaqi.

Salutes, slab. You got anything to eat around here?

Uh, yeah, you can feel free to make a sandwich, just don’t use–

Oooh! Smoked salmon! I en’t got the first clue what salmon is, but it sounds well by! Tastes a bit rubbery. Oh, that’s cuz I en’t opened it yet, just crunched on the package. Well, the package en’t bad.

Jaqi, we were saving that for dinner Thursday.

Aiya! You put me through some serious grim in those three books. It weren’t bad enough that my home got smashed up, and I went crawling through the guts of a space tick? Just in this last book I went on a trip ‘twixt galaxies, and met some robot folk and had to face down them devils and again, and thenyou went and–

Spoilers! Not everyone who gets this newsletter has read the book yet!

I’ll keep my airlock shut if you let me have this salmon.

Sigh… Okay, I’ll let you eat it if you just answer a few questions for me.

Shoot, slab.

Now that you’ve gotten through the adventure–or at least the first big stage of the adventure–what will you do with your free time?

Learn how to make a big fancy cake. I been trying, but I eat all the batter first each time.

That’s a goal I myself have trouble with. In Memory’s Blade, you’re finally learning to read. What’s the first book you want to pick up?

Not the books about me, that’s for sure. I had enough of that prophecy babble. I been looking around the giveaway bin on the spaceship and I saw this book called Eat Pray Love and I reckon there’s two of my favorite things in it so I’ll just read the bits with the eating and loving.

Now that you’ve fought the Shir–

Aiya! Don’t name the devil!

Now that the trilogy is ended… how did you feel about that ending?

Slab, I en’t read none, but I kinda reckoned that we was all gonna end up at a big feast. Like with some critter all crisped up and tasty. That en’t how you ended it!

So I should have written you into a Song of Ice & Fire book.

Lots of eating in them books, then?

Yes, but…

Point the way, slab. I’m done getting written by you. I’ll find this fella who knows how to feed his characters.

Jaqi, everybody!