Melinda Snodgrass is the novelist and screenwriter finest recognized for her basic Star Trek: The Next Generation script “The Measure of a Man.” Her newest novel, Lucifer’s War, pits an unlikely band of heroes in opposition to a horde of Lovecraftian monsters which were spreading worry and ignorance all through human historical past.

“It’s unbelievable now, the kind of nonsense people are accepting, that’s being pushed on them by social media,” Snodgrass says in Episode 529 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “I really wanted to make a stand for science and rationality, as opposed to magic and superstition.”

The ebook is about in Snodgrass’ residence state of New Mexico, a spot the place science and superstition conflict in a very placing approach. “It’s a very weird place, where you have Los Alamos laboratory, Sandia laboratories, high-tech, high-energy centers,” Snodgrass says, “Some of the finest scientific minds in the world come here to lecture and study and commune with each other, and then on the other side you have people who will balance your aura and sell you a crystal to deal with your cancer.”

New Mexico is residence to an unusually excessive focus of science fiction writers, a bunch that Santa Fe resident George R.R. Martin has jokingly dubbed “the New Mexico mafia.” “Sadly we’ve lost two of our greats,” Snodgrass says. “We lost Roger Zelazny and we lost Fred Saberhagen, but Suzy McKee Charnas is here, Steve Stirling, Stephen R. Donaldson is here, Walter Jon Williams. It’s a very prolific group of writers here.”

Snodgrass, who has a number of TV exhibits in improvement, is hopeful that New Mexico can change into a powerhouse of fantasy and science fiction filmmaking, in addition to novel writing. “I’ve been mentoring writers through the Stagecoach Foundation, which is one of George’s projects, and we have a lot of talent here, a lot of young talent here,” she says. “We don’t need to set up a writers room in Los Angeles. We can do it here in New Mexico. That’s my ambition and goal.”

Listen to the entire interview with Melinda Snodgrass in Episode 529 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (above). And try some highlights from the dialogue beneath.

Melinda Snodgrass on New Mexico:

My mother and father moved right here after I was 5 months outdated, so I can’t fairly declare I’m a local as a result of the natives take that basically severely, however I’m shut. I’m actual shut. No matter the place I’ve gone, after I went to high school in Austria to review opera, I at all times got here residence, and even after I’ve been in LA working—due to my display work—I at all times stored my residence in New Mexico. This is my base. My roots go deep right here. My dad used to warn individuals, “If you come here, don’t stay any longer than six months because if you do, you’ll never be able to leave.” He had supposed to arrange a department of his enterprise for my half-brother to handle, after which we had been supposed to maneuver to Honolulu, and on the finish of six months my dad stated, “I can’t leave this place. I love it.” And so we stayed.

Melinda Snodgrass on Lucifer’s War:

With the older police detective, Weber, I noticed as I wrote the books that that was the place the love affair was, so I noticed after I needed to rewrite the ebook, I needed to give Weber a [viewpoint]. He didn’t have a viewpoint after I first did the books, however then I noticed he was going to change into Richard’s love curiosity and finally his husband, and I assumed, “He better have a viewpoint.” So I put him in as a viewpoint character now on this ebook, to let him begin to develop and develop, so it doesn’t appear to come back a lot out of nowhere. I’m very grateful for the chance to return and form of easy the whole lot out. I imply, in some methods I’m sitting right here going, “Maybe we ought to write all of the books of a series before we publish any of them.”

Melinda Snodgrass on Prince of Cats Literary Productions:

Popping up there have been these what I name “boutique publishers.” They don’t function fairly in the identical approach as a giant New York writer. I imply, clearly they choose and select books they’re going to symbolize, however it’s extra of a partnership. My writer handles having books copyedited, I picked my [cover] artist. I’ve a beautiful artist, Elizabeth Leggett, who I need to brag on as a result of she’s superb. … I paid her to do the paintings, however it was a dialogue between my writer—Alexi Vandenberg—Elizabeth, and myself about what sort of covers we needed, how we needed to do this. But they deal with structure, they’re liable for getting it up on all of the platforms, and Alexi handles plenty of the advertising—like determining when he desires to run an advert and when he desires to place issues on sale.

Melinda Snodgrass on George R.R. Martin’s train:

It’s plenty of enjoyable. If persons are popping out to go to New Mexico, they may need to add the prepare journey out to Lamy and again, or the sundown prepare, which simply goes out and also you take a look at the sundown after which come again. So that’s taking place, and in reality the opposite present I’m attempting to develop will make the most of the prepare, and I’ve one other script that has plenty of trains in it. And imagine me, trains are one of many hardest issues, attempting to work with Amtrak, as a result of they really have a schedule and so forth, so studios simply love the truth that George and his associate Bill Banowksy personal a prepare—a personal prepare—as a result of you possibly can shoot with out having to work round all these different points, so it’s fairly cool. I feel we’re going to be doing plenty of filming utilizing the prepare.

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