Cat Rambo is joining us today to talk about their novel, Rumor Has it. Here’s the publisher’s description:
The crew of the You Sexy Thing navigates the aftermath of facing down a pirate king and the relationships that they have created with one another in Cat Rambo’s action adventure science fiction Rumor Has It, the third book in the Disco Space Opera.The crew of the You Sexy Thing have laid a course for Coralind Station, hoping the station’s famed gardens will provide an opportunity to regroup, recoup, and mourn their losses while while finding a way to track down their enemy, pirate king Tubal Last.All Niko wants to do is pry their insurance money from the bank and see if an old friend might be able to help them find Last. Unfortunately, old friends and enemies aren’t the only unreliable elements awaiting her and the crew at Coralind.Each will have to face themselves–the good and the bad–in order to come together before they lose everything.The Disco Space Opera
You Sexy Thing
Devil’s Gun
Rumor Has It
What’s Cat’s favorite bit?
When I first started working on the Disco Space Opera series, I knew one thing that I really wanted to do over the course of it: have a long-simmering love triangle that would play out over the course of the series that would resolve in the final book, and by then (hopefully) have readers on the edge of their seats. By now, all three are apparent: Captain Niko Larsen, Petalia the Florian, and the enigmatic, roguish Jezli Farren.
One of the reasons I wanted to do that is I find it so satisfying when another author does it. When they create characters you care about, characters who you want to see find themselves and happiness. Characters who you don’t want to say goodbye to, so you find yourself slowing in that final chapter, reluctant to let the connection end. That’s one thing a satisfying ending does: gives the reader a chance to say goodbye while reassuring them that the character will have a happy ending of one sort or another.
One of my favorite series, one that I’ve read four or five times now, is Dorothy Dunnett’s The Lymond Chronicles. They’re not speculative (they’re historical fiction), but they’re masterclasses in handling description and dialogue, and in layering in clues and subtle foreshadowing. Even when I’m rereading, every time I hit the last few chapters, I’m slowing because I don’t want to leave that collision of perfect things that is the culmination of the romantic plotline in the final book.
If I create something a tenth as engaging as that, I’ll be happy. So my favorite bit about RUMOR HAS IT is a chance to advance some of the details of that plotline. Niko doesn’t know yet that she’s attracted to Jezli – or at least she hasn’t admitted it – but she does know that Jezli can get under her skin in a way no one else can.
At the same time, Niko still hopes for a reconciliation with Petalia, her long lost lover, who has been poisoned against Niko by a long-time enemy. Petalia seems to be warming in recent days, but Niko knows it could be part of a long-running trick, and has no idea whether she’ll ever be able to trust them.
Meanwhile Petalia seems to be stringing Niko along half the time, and rejecting her the rest.
It’s all a lot of fun, particularly Jezli, who is a con woman and persuader by trade. So I loved doing moments like this:
Petalia’s eyes narrowed. “It’s not Festival time there, is it?” they demanded. “That would be insane.”
This time, Niko’s eyes wandered, seeking Jezli’s. Her lips quirked. “WEll,” she said, and Jezli held her breath. “Certainly it would be, and certainly it is, but that is exactly what we are doing.”
“Just when I thought it was impossible to like you much better,” Jezli said. “You are a daring woman.”
“Desperate, perhaps, rather than daring,” Niko said, her tone softer than it had been.
Petalia glanced between the two, and their eyes filled with an emotion Niko had not seen in their pale depths for a long, long time.
I’m also enjoying watching Niko’s second in command, Dabry’s reaction to all of this. He knows Niko better than anyone, and he’s rooting for one of the participants in particular, while also savoring seeing his captain just a little taken at a loss for what to do. Other crew members have their own opinions of the matter, although several of them are, like You Sexy Thing, clueless about it all. Only Lassite and I, though, know what’s going to happen in the end.
Someone asked me recently how much of an outline I have for the overall series, and the answer is: not much of one. I know the steps the romantic plotline takes each time, and how it relates to what’s happening to the focus of each book, but other than that, I’m letting the books show me the way with only those barest of navigation aids. It’s so much more fun that way. I hope some of that relish adds to the flavor of the latest book.
LINKS:
BIO:
CAT RAMBO (they/them) is an American fantasy and science fiction writer whose work has appeared in, among others, Asimov’s, Weird Tales, Chiaroscuro, Talebones, and Strange Horizons. A graduate of the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, where they studied with John Barth and Steve Dixon, they also attended the Clarion West Writers’ Workshop. They are currently the managing editor of Fantasy Magazine. They published a collection of stories, Eyes Like Sky and Coal and Moonlight, and their collaboration with Jeff VanderMeer, The Surgeon’s Tale and Other Stories, appeared in 2007. They live and write in Washington State, and Cat Rambo is their real name.
