Seven years, one month, and 15 days before the meal on which you’re about to eavesdrop, Alan Smale and I got together to chat about his Clash of Eagles trilogy. Now that he’s completed yet another trilogy, we decided to grab lunch during Awesome Con to discuss how his Apollo Rising books came to be.

Smale writes alternate history and hard SF. His novella of a Roman invasion of ancient America, “A Clash of Eagles”, won the 2010 Sidewise Award for Alternate History, and his series of novels set in the same universe, Clash of Eagles (2015), Eagle in Exile (2016), and Eagle and Empire (2017), are available from Del Rey (US) and Titan Books (UK and Europe). His Roman baseball collaboration with Rick Wilber, The Wandering Warriors, came out from WordFire Press (2020), and Hot Moon, his alternate-Apollo “technothriller with heart,” set entirely on and around the Moon, was launched by CAEZIK SF & Fantasy in July 2022, followed by sequel Radiant Sky in November 2024 and the concluding volume in the Apollo Rising series, Burning Night, in November 2025.

Smale has also sold over fifty pieces of shorter fiction to Asimov’s and other magazines and original anthologies. His short story, “Gunpowder Treason,” set in London in 1605, the lead story in Tales from Alternate Earths Vol. III from Inklings Press, won the 2021 Sidewise Award. His non-fiction essays have appeared in Lightspeed and Journey Planet, and he wrote a regular column about scientific and historical turning points for Galaxy’s Edge.

Born and raised in England, he lives in Maryland and recently retired from a career as an astrophysicist and data archive manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He also sings bass and serves as Business Manager for high-energy vocal band The Chromatics, who have performed at various science fiction conventions (D.C. Worldcon, Balticon, Shore Leave, Farpoint) and were Music Guests of Honor at Philcon.

We discussed the three projects he’d told me in 2019 he was going to write next (and what became of them), how what was originally intended to be a standalone novel turned into his latest trilogy, the synergy of writing an alternate history about the Apollo space program while working at NASA, how the constraints imposed by science helped improve his plot arc, the way astronaut personalities have changed across the decades, how to write alternate history to be entertaining both for those who know actual history and those who don’t, the advice he wishes he could give his younger self, how we don’t really dislike info dumps (only the ones which aren’t done well), and much more.

Here’s how you can join us at Mariscos 1133 restaurant — (more…)

On September 21, 2022, I headed over to The Ivy Bookshop in Baltimore for another installment of Charm City Spec. And while that night’s four writers read selections from their novels, I was in the front row recording as much as my battery power and speed with pressing the start button allowed.

Here I am holding up my Flip camera, captured while Alan Smale was at the mic —

And because of that, though you weren’t there, now you can be. Check out the four performances below.

Serby Gray
reading from her novel Ashes of Regret

Randee Dawn
reading from her novel Tune In Tomorrow

Alan Smale
reading from his novel Hot Moon

Amy L.Bernstein
reading from her novel The Potrero Complex

If you’d like to catch one of these events in person, another Charm City Spec is coming up on November 16, this time at the Bird in Hand Cafe & Bookshop. For more information, follow Charm City Spec on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

The first episode of Eating the Fantastic went live on February 10, 2016, so as we find ourselves just a couple of days away from the third anniversary of this podcast, I’d like to thank you all for taking a seat at the table with us each episode, liking the show on Facebook, and leaving ratings and reviews over at iTunes. And thanks as well to the 142 guests who’ve been willing to join me over 88 episodes. And of course, thank you to those who’ve been supporting Eating the Fantastic on Patreon, or dropping a couple of bucks in the Paypal tip jar to help cover some of the costs associated with the show.

My guest this episode is Alan Smale, who has published short fiction in Asimov’s, Realms of Fantasy, Abyss & Apex, and other magazines. He won the 2010 Sidewise Award for Best Short-Form Alternate History for “A Clash of Eagles,” about a Roman invasion of ancient America. That’s also the setting for his trilogy, which includes the novels Clash of Eagles, Eagle in Exile, and Eagle and Empire, all published by Del Rey in the U.S. and Titan Books in the UK. When not writing, he’s a professional astronomer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

We met for lunch at Mad Chef Kitchen & Bar, a gastropub which opened recently in Ellicott City, Maryland’s Turf Valley Towne Square. We were looking for something equidistant from both of us with good food, and based first on my research and then our experience, we definitely found it.

We discussed why an astrophysicist’s chosen field of fiction is alternate history rather than hard science, how his fascination with archeology and ancient civilizations began, the reason he started off his novel-writing career with a trilogy rather than a standalone, the secrets to writing convincing battle sequences, the nuances of critiquing partial novels in a workshop setting, how his research into Roman and Native American history affected his trilogy, what steps he took to ensure he handled Native American cultures appropriately, that summer when at age 12 he read both War and Peace and Lord of the Rings, one of the strangest tales of a first short story sale I’ve ever heard, how and why he joined forces with Rick Wilber for their recent collaboration published in Asimov’s, and much more.

Here’s how you can listen to our conversation at Mad Chef Kitchen & Bar — (more…)