Stalking S. M. Stirling

Author S. M. Stirling has risen again to the top of my favorites list this past year. One could argue that he never left, but with a short hiatus between the original Nantucket series and the newer Emberverse series, he had dropped off my radar.

I first fell in love with his work when I started reading Island in the Sea of Time a few years after it came out. I finished the series happy, but let down as there was nothing new to occupy me. I went on to discover and enjoy other great authors like Kurt R. A. Giambastiani, Jack DuBrul, and Robert Jordan (yes, I was late to the Wheel of Time party, so sue me).

When I saw Conquistador come out in 2003, I was excited to see something new from him on the shelves. While I knew he had a back list I could have read, the spacey sci-fi stuff didn't interest me (Draka, The General, and T2 series namely). I nearly got into the Peshwar Lancers series, but the blurbs didn't sound very exciting. Conquistador sounded much more exciting.

Unfortunately for me, it was a bit of a let down.

So clearly when the Nantucket series reappeared with Dies the Fire, I was stoked. It was like hearing Star Wars was going to be in the theater again. And ever since, I've been swept back into the Change and the events that happened after. I've gone back to the original series to catch up on the characters involved and I am still happy with every book in the series. There are favorites, sure, but every book together makes one of the finest series I've seen in ages.

With all the ooey-gooey praise aside, I'd really like to interview Mr. Stirling. There are questions I have, some serious but most are silly. I've looked for previous interviews from the man himself himself but have come up with precious little. Which means my first question would be, why don't you do more interviews? As you can see in the list below, there isn't much to go on.

My other questions would be, well, I haven't decided yet. Silly questions are easy, but trying to think of something to ask an author that rarely gives interviews is a bit daunting. But if you know Mr. Stirling (or you are Mr. Stirling), I think I'd be willing to give it a shot. After all, what can I lose?

Interviews:
2008 - December - Dani Kollin
2008 - September - The Dragon Page
2008 - May - Peter Hodges (Part One and Part Two)
2007 - August - Alibi.com
2006 - January - Locus Magazine
2002 - February - SF Crowsnest

Articles:
2008 - April - Robert J. Sawyer
2007 - December - American Heritage

Miscellaneous:
Stirling's Amazon Blog
Stirling's Sigma Bio
Stirling's appearance at The Poisoned Pen

Note: You may notice that one particular website is missing from this plethora of stalking. That would be the main source of information on anything Stirling; smstirling.com. It isn't missing because I don't like, it's missing because I'm assuming (dangerous word there) that those familiar with Stirling are also familiar with his site.