Future Fables and Strange Stories with Author I.B.

For October’s guest we welcome author I.B. who currently resides in Calgary where he writes in a broad range of genres as seen in his short story work. Some of his writing has been published by Stray Books ZINES and an anthology novel titled Future Fables and Strange Stories. Let’s welcome Ian to the blog!

Thanks, I.B., for joining us, can you give us a brief introduction about
yourself?

Thanks for
having me on! I’m I.B., a science fiction writer that lives in Calgary, passing
time dreaming in imaginary worlds.

You have an anthology, Future Fables and Strange Stories, which
spans a variety of genres with the future being a primary theme. What interests
you in the topic?

I got really
into Golden Age Sci-Fi, genre stories from the 40s and 50s, and was drawn to
their visions of the future. Those old novels and pulps have a strange mix of
futures, ranging from grand visions of humans colonizing the galaxy to bleak
nuclear wastelands, and just about everything in between. Reading all those
stories, it was like seeing a big conversation — a bunch of voices talking
about emergent technology and all the possible roads it could take them on.

Today, I find a lot of sci-fi is dystopian, with apocalypse stories and technology turning on us being the dominant themes. With Future Fables and Strange Stories I wanted to capture that conversational tone, an exchange of ideas, found in Golden Age Sci-Fi, writing stories with a mix of futures that questions where we can go. Now, more than ever, technology is changing our lives at an incredible rate, and there’s no better place to ask questions about that technology than in sci-fi.

Which story in the anthology do you hold closest?

That’s a
tough one, each story means alot to me, but I find myself thinking about Cult
the most — probably because it ties in heavily to a novel I’m working on, but
still, it holds a special place in my heart.

Cult was the
last story I wrote for Future Fables and
Strange Stories, and it, in a loose way, starts to tie all the stories
together. It also gets into a big topic, a clash between the American
government and tech companies, which, reading the headlines, seems to be coming
true. And the main character, Denby, I recycled from an old piece of writing I
did, and getting to bring back an old character in a new form is always fun.

You’ve also had other short stories published in ZINES, what types of genres
do you write about for those?

Those
stories are very similar to Future Fables
and Strange Stories, and are connected to them in big and small ways. The
story in Pulp Kings #2 is a follow-up to a A World of Options from Future Fables.

While
everything is meant to stand on its own, the stories work like a mosaic, each
one part of a much larger work, revealing a larger, overarching plot. I’m a big
fan of Isaac Asimov, and he tied a lot of his work together to create a
fictional future, and in a different way, I’m trying to do something similar —
tell the story of a fictional future(s).

Are short stories your primary interest with writing? Or have you focused
on other forms?

For the last
couple of years, short stories have been my main focus, but I’m steering away
from them right now. In telling that bigger, overarching story made up of
independent works, short stories were a good starting point. I also had a whole
lot of story ideas in my head that I wanted to get out, but now I’m interested
in exploring larger, bigger ideas instead of short concepts.

Currently,
I’m finishing a novel, It’s Dangerous To
Go Alone, and while it ties into Future
Fables and Strange Stories, it’s self-contained, and getting to work on one
piece with one cast of characters has been great.

Is there a second Future Fables and Strange Stories in the works, or
something else entirely?

There sure
is! I’ve got my next few books planned out, and intend on doing a sequel to Future Fables and Strange Stories after
a couple of other projects. A lot of the short stories I’ve written for Pulp
Kings are going to be in the sequel, and way down the line, I’m planning on
doing a third to close out the bigger, overarching plot I’ve mentioned. Before
the sequel, I’ve got It’s Dangerous To Go
Alone, which is coming out soon, and Sleeping
Sickness, a novel which expands on one of the short stories from Future Fables.

Any final thoughts you’d like to share with the readers and aspiring
writers?

Writing is
like any skill and needs a whole lot of practice, but it can be a hard thing to
practice. Try to find any writing gig that pays — the internet has lots of
freelance opportunities — and pick up whatever project you can. Don’t be
picky. It doesn’t matter if it’s not what you want to write; it helps you gain
the skill to write what you want to write. And read, read lots, and read a
whole bunch of different stuff. Reading a mix of authors is the best way to
develop your own style, and broadens the amount of ideas you’re exposed to.

Thank you, I.B., for joining us!

You can find Ian and his work from the following links
below:

Stray Books

Goodreads

Instagram

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