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Five Questions with Patrick Lundrigan

Dosferatu (http://twitter.com/#!/dosferatu) and Dandyfunk (http://dandyfunk.typepad.com/) are great internet names. Where did those come from?
Dosferatu,  which has been my on-line handle since the Usenet days, is a combination of DOS and Nosferatu. Dandyfunk is an old nautical term for a meal made from leftovers all thrown together in the same pot — sort of the theme for my blog.

Your story in RSF this month, First Light, has the feel of space exploration that has been ‘lived in’. What inspired you to write the story?
Astronomers call the first look through a new telescope first light, and when I heard that term I extrapolated — what about the first light ever? I also read about a mythical cave where  a tribe had kept a fire burning continuously for hundreds of years. So I combined those two ideas, and set it in a future a lot like the present. Things will break, and some people will be stuck doing the dirty work to clean up.

It clearly feels like part of a larger universe.  Have you got more going on there?
I have several stories set in what I call the Dark Ocean Universe. A place where dark matter and dark energy are used for faster than light travel, since we won’t be traveling that fast in the space-time we have now.

Recently you won the 2010 Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest with your story, Space Hero. What is most memorable about that experience?
Seeing my story on the main page of Baen Books was memorable! But the contest, sponsored by Baen Books and the National Space Society (http://www.nss.org/), seeks to inspire interest in science and technology in an effort to transform fiction into reality. I am humbled to think that a story of mine met that criteria.

What are you working on now & what should we expect to see from you in the future?
Right now I’m juggling several short stories and a couple of novels while trying to write new stuff.

We’re excited to bring Patrick’s story to our readers and are sure we’ll be seeing more from him in the near future.

1 comment

1 Redstone Science Fiction #10, March 2011 | Redstone Science Fiction { 03.06.11 at 10:41 pm }

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