In this 44th episode of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Factory, Mookie dives in deep with science fiction author James Kenwood to explore his themes and best practices for storytelling. The discussion ranges from war and political power to moral responsibility, flawed heroes, pacing, worldbuilding, and the hard truth that readers do not owe writers their attention.

James explains how military history and recurring cycles of conflict shape his fiction. His serialized, work-in-progress novel Mars Fire examines settlers on Mars trapped between rival Earth powers, while his shorter fiction delivers concentrated bursts of action, sacrifice, and moral tension.

Mookie pushes the conversation further, contrasting noble archetypes with comic antiheroes, asking whether fiction should inspire, expose hypocrisy, or simply entertain. Together they dissect why some stories grip readers for life while others evaporate in their first few pages.

Together they share several best practices for authors:

• Start with pressure, not scenery. Readers care more about a problem than your skyline, spaceship, or kingdom. Introduce tension early.
• Make every chapter cost something. If nobody risks losing status, love, safety, freedom, or identity, the chapter is filler.
• Use worldbuilding in motion. Explain the Mars rover while someone is fleeing in it. Explain the airlock while it malfunctions.
• Create moral crossroads. Force characters into decisions where every option hurts. That is where personality is exposed.
• Cut repeated explanations. Once readers understand the setting, move on. Trust them.
• Give characters competing agendas. Drama spikes when smart people want different things for valid reasons.
• Build consequences forward. Every major action should create a new problem, not restore comfort.
• Use flaws strategically. Vanity, cowardice, greed, laziness, obsession—flaws generate plot better than perfection ever will.
• Earn speeches. If a character delivers philosophy, make sure tension surrounds it. Nobody wants a TED Talk in chapter six.
• Track narrative momentum. Ask constantly: does this scene increase curiosity, dread, conflict, or desire? If not, fix it.
• Write scenes readers postpone sleep for. Aim for “one more chapter” energy. That is the gold standard.
• Know your story’s fuel source. Is it suspense, wonder, romance, revenge, mystery, satire, politics? Feed that engine consistently.
• Use action to reveal worldview. A selfish character grabs the parachute first. A noble one pushes someone else toward it.
• Don’t confuse complexity with depth. Ten factions and three timelines mean nothing without emotional stakes.
• Respect the reader’s intelligence. Suggest, imply, dramatize. Stop overexplaining everything.
• Leave residue. The best stories continue in the reader’s head after the final page.

Join two writers for over two hours as they explore what stories are for, why conflict matters, and how to write fiction that actually hits.

The Guest

James Kenwood is a part-time historian and a full-time reader at night; by day, he works as a specialist in the banking industry. He currently resides in Western Europe after a recent immigration, along with his wife. He has one cat – Raver (name was inherited, not chosen) – and spends far too much time looking at the contrails over his town and dreaming of flying.

On Substack

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Saddle up for a wild ride into one of speculative fiction’s coolest frontier mashups: the science fiction western. In this episode, Mookie stirs it up with debut novelist Rick Cutler, author of Colt Ostergaard: A Man with a Gun, to talk about laser six-shooters, frontier justice, worldbuilding grit, and how the cowboy archetype still hits hard when launched into the future.

Rick breaks down why science fiction westerns work so well. The two genres combine the raw freedom and danger of the Old West with the limitless imagination of sci-fi. That means lonely gunslingers, lawless territories, strange technology, alien landscapes, and moral showdowns where survival is never guaranteed. If you love Firefly, The Mandalorian, classic Star Trek, or pulp adventure with brains, this conversation lands squarely in your lane.

The episode also tracks Rick’s impressive rise as a debut novelist. He didn’t stumble into success. He wrote for years, sharpened his craft through trial and error, submitted boldly when opportunity appeared, and turned a short-form concept into a full-length novel that found the right publisher at the right time. His story is a reminder that “overnight success” is usually built on years of quiet persistence.

For writers, Rick delivers practical no-nonsense advice:

• Treat writing like work, not waiting for inspiration
• Write consistently, even when you don’t feel like it
• Stay true to your characters and let them behave honestly
• Know your audience and write with readers in mind
• Ignore discouraging voices that kill momentum
• Find other writers who challenge and support you
• Use rejection, luck, and setbacks as fuel instead of excuses

Rick also shares his old-school writing method: drafting longhand on legal pads, rewriting by hand, then typing later. Slow, deliberate, disciplined. No gimmicks. Just craft. Their convo is a fun, insightful conversation about creativity, persistence, publishing, and why the future still has room for a man with a gun riding into the unknown.

The Guest

Writer Rick Cutler works in both Science Fiction and Fantasy, but is most famous for his Colt Ostergaard stories in the Raconteur Press “Space Cowboys” series. He also has multiple stories in other anthologies such as ‘Glitched Grimm’ and ‘Uncanny Valet’. Rick graduated from Graceland University with a degree in Sociology, followed by a Computer Tech degree from Rockhurst University. He has been an usher and a tour guide; worked on an archeological dig; and sold vacuum cleaners door-to-door before settling down to sell advertising for 20 years in the South and Midwest. He retired, then jumped into a new career for 21 years doing tech support and data management for a major corporation. Colt Ostergaard: A Man with a Gun is his first published full-length novel. He now lives in Kansas with his wife Doris Day. No cats. No dogs. But that could change at any moment.

His Books

His Website

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In this episode of The Science Fiction and Fantasy Factory, Mookie sits down with Michael A. Clement, a former finance professional turned speculative fiction writer, to trace the unlikely path from spreadsheets to stories, and why it worked.

Clement didn’t come up through the usual writer pipeline. No MFA. No lifelong literary obsession. Just a late-life pivot sparked by a single idea: what if a machine chose not to obey? From there, things escalated into asteroid-mining AI blackmailers, homicidal appliances, buffoonish aliens, and deeply human stories about loss, memory, and moral consequence.

Mookie and Michael dig into:

• The moment creativity ignites—and why it sometimes waits decades
• How classic influences like The Twilight Zone shaped Clement’s moral, allegorical style
• Writing as a second-act reinvention, not a lifelong identity
• The power of speculative fiction to tackle real-world issues without triggering defenses
• Microfiction, AI-assisted storytelling, and the strange new tools reshaping creativity
• The uncomfortable truth about publishing: slush piles, gatekeepers, and a system begging to be disrupted by AI helping creators connect to consumers

They also dive the looming collision between human creators and AI—where convenience, creativity, and obsolescence start to blur. Is AI a tool, a collaborator, or the thing that replaces you? Michael's answer is pragmatic: create anyway, write anyway, and leave something behind.

The Guest

Michael was raised in San Diego, California. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Southern California and a Master of Business Administration from the University of San Francisco. Most of his career was spent in financial services. Since 2006, Michael has made Hong Kong his home. Now retired, he writes science fiction as a hobby. Michael has written seven books: five novellas: Khrysos, This Book Is A Murderer, Chasing Roswell, Pan-ego, and Zogtopia (which have been combined into a collection, Alien Journey Ahead); one collection of short stories, Cosmic Portal, and one novelette, Alien Daydreams (his latest book).

His Writing

https://www.facebook.com/Michael.A.Clement.Books

http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelaclement

http://www.amazon.com/author/author_khrysos_book

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