Quotes from Kameron Hurley

Life was what you did with what was done to you.

I started writing 'God's War' knowing that I wanted to write about real people on a resource-strapped planet at perpetual war.

As a science fiction and fantasy writer, I used to love writing bleak, grimdark futures full of bleak, grimdark people. But I've found that as the world around me darkens, all I really want to do is grasp for more light.

The reality is that much of the stuff you see in film, television, comics, and children's cartoons got its start inside the inspired, disruptive halls of science-fiction and fantasy literature.

There is no greater threat to progress than the phrase, 'That's impossible.'

'The Stars are Legion' is part space opera, part thriller, about two warring families battling it out for control over a legion of organic starships.

As both an essayist and science fiction and fantasy novelist, I write about and for the future. I talk about the past to remind us that what we believe has always been true - that men and women are somehow static categories, or that men in power has always been the default, or that same-sex love affairs were always taboo - has not always been thus.

Writers of all things speculative have played in alternate and parallel worlds for a long time - everyone from Stephen King to Philip Pullman to Tanith Lee - and it's an obsession that likely isn't going away any time soon.

Human beings thrive on imagination and pushing boundaries and limitations. Imposing limits when we don't actually have any true idea of what's possible is like imposing a steel trap over the mind.

This is the biggest trick of the sort of thing I write: creating fun, powerful stories with tons of interesting stuff going socially and culturally that doesn't overly confuse the reader.

As an introverted kid who lived in the middle of nowhere, my stories made up the whole of my social life. That meant that while other kids cultivated hobbies like skateboarding or playing the piano, I sat at home scribbling in notebooks.

Pen names have always fascinated me, in part because I understand the professional and economic and even societal reasons to do so.

Before I wrote 'God's War,' I probably did eight years of research into the Middle East, Judaism, Islam, Catholicisim, and all sorts of fabulous other things.

When I was a kid, I watched a lot of 'Twilight Zone.' My mother was obsessed with the show, as it was a staple of her childhood - and thus she made it one of ours, too.

As for the best '80s action movie, I'm going to be predictable here and say 'Die Hard.' I watch that movie at least twice a year. Perfect script.

Once readers and industry professionals have you pegged down as writing a particular type of book, they are less likely to try something new from you if they decided they didn't like the first one.

I read and write speculative fiction because I want to go someplace really different.

My parents both worked full-time flipping burgers at the local fast-food joint, and my grandmother looked after us. English was her second language, so instead of books, I learned spoken French nursery rhymes and curse words.

Let's just put it this way: if you think there's a thing – anything – women didn't do in the past, you're wrong.

What makes a book unique isn't always about having one big grand new idea. It's about combining many different ideas in new and interesting ways.

Know that you're gonna screw up, and be OK with it, and do better next time.

Storytelling is a universal: every culture does it. There's a reason our religious books aren't simply a list of shall-and-shall-nots. Morals and teachings are contained in stories, which are studied, dissected, and passed down; we remember stories in a way we don't remember lists of facts.

While many alternate reality stories ask, 'What might have been?' parallel universe stories literalize the war between good and evil that plays inside each of us every day. It's what makes this type of story so perfect for many fantasy tales: we're all just a coin flip away from being entirely different people.

Creating a future requires a profound and yes, unrealistic, vision of what is possible. But it is fantasy and wonder that drive technology and innovation.