Melinda Snodgrass is a novelist and screenwriter best known for her classic work Star Trek: The Next Generation scenario “The Measure of a Man.” Her latest novel, Lucifer’s Warcreated a group of heroes incapable of fending off a horde of Lovecraftian monsters that have spread fear and ignorance throughout human history.
“It’s unbelievable now what kind of nonsense people are accepting, that’s being driven by social media,” Snodgrass said in Episode 529 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy audio file. “I really want to be on the side of science and rationality, as opposed to magic and superstition.”
The book is set in the state of New Mexico, home to Snodgrass, a place where science and superstition collide in a particularly dramatic way. “It’s a very strange place, where you have the Los Alamos lab, the Sandia lab, the high-energy, high-tech hub, other, and then on the other side, you have people,” Snodgrass said. will balance your aura and sell you a crystal to deal with your cancer. “
New Mexico is home to an unusually high concentration of science fiction writers, a group of Santa Fe residents. George RR Martin has been jokingly referred to as the “New Mexican mafia.” “It is with great sadness that we have lost two of our greats,” Snodgrass said. “We lost Roger Zelazny and we lost Fred Saberhagen, but Suzy McKee Charnas is here, Steve Stirling, Stephen R. Donaldson is here, Walter Jon Williams. It’s a very prolific group of writers here. “
Snodgrass, whose several TV shows are in development, hopes that New Mexico can become a powerhouse in fantasy and sci-fi filmmaking, as well as in fiction writing. “I mentored writers through Stagecoach organization, it’s one of George’s projects, and we have a lot of talent here, a lot of young talent here,” she said. “We don’t need to set up a writer’s office in Los Angeles. We can do it here in New Mexico. That is my ambition and goal.”
Listen to the full interview with Melinda Snodgrass in Episode 529 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (above). And check out some highlights from the discussion below.
Melinda Snodgrass in New Mexico:
My parents moved here when I was 5 months old, so I can’t claim to be a local because locals take it very seriously, but I’m close. I’m really close. No matter where I go, when I go to school in Austria to study opera, I always come home, and even when I’m in LA working — for screen work — I always keep my home in New Mexico. This is my base. My origins go into depth here. My father used to warn people that “If you come here, don’t stay longer than six months because if you do, you’ll never be able to leave.” He was going to set up a branch of his business for my half brother to manage, then we were going to move to Honolulu, and at the end of six months my dad said, “I can’t leave this place. I love it.” And so we stayed.
Melinda Snodgrass on Lucifer’s War:
With the older police detective, Weber, I realized when I was writing the book it was a love affair, so I realized that when I wanted to rewrite the book, I had to give Weber [viewpoint]. He didn’t have a point when I first wrote the book, but then I realized he would become Richard’s love interest and eventually his husband, and I thought, “You better be me. He should have an opinion.” So I put him as a point of view character now in this book, so that he starts to mature and develop, so it doesn’t seem to come out as much. I’m grateful for the opportunity to go back and sort things out more smoothly. I mean, in a way, I’m sitting here saying, “Maybe we should write all the books in a series before we publish any of them.”
Melinda Snodgrass on Literary work Prince of Cats:
There are what I call “store publishers”. They don’t operate like a big New York publisher. I mean, obviously they pick and choose the books they’re going to represent, but it’s more of a partnership. My publisher handles the book copying, I chose [cover] artist. I have a great artist, Elizabeth Leggett, who I want to brag about because she’s amazing. … I paid her to do the artwork, but it was a discussion between my publisher – Alexi Vandenberg – Elizabeth, and myself about what kind of cover we wanted, how we wanted to do it. that. But they handle the layout, they’re responsible for getting it across all platforms, and Alexi handles a lot of the marketing work — figuring out when he wants to run an ad, and when he wants to run. want to sell everything.
Melinda Snodgrass on Train by George RR Martin:
That was a lot of fun. If people are going to visit New Mexico, they might want to add the train to Lamy and back, or the sunset train, which just goes out and you watch the sunset and come back. So that’s happening, and in fact, the other program I’m trying to develop will use the train, and I have another scenario that has a lot of trains in it. And believe me, trains are one of the hardest things, trying to work with Amtrak, because they really have schedules and so on, so the studios just love that George and his partner Bill Banowksy owns a train — its own train — because you can shoot without having to deal with all the other problems, so it’s pretty cool. I think we will shoot a lot by train.
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