Rich Larson | "In the Hours Preceding the Fall of Tau-Sants" | Science Fiction | Ep. 16

Rich Larson reads the opening passage of “In the Hours Preceding the Fall of Tau-Sants,” a cyberpunk-flavored short story published by the online magazine Reactor and available to read for free at reactormag.com. “In the Hours…” follows two operatives that arrive in a rain-drenched city to commission a mysterious weapon. Rich talks to Jon and Cory about:
• Dropping readers into a scene “as late as possible”
• Coining a phrase like “quantic canal” first for how it sounds, then reverse-engineering its meaning for the story
• A bus ride in France that inspired the story's mood, before any plot existed
• Working on five to seven short stories simultaneously and sometimes using a rolled die to decide which project to work on
• Publishing prolifically (nearly 200 stories in the last 15 years) rather than polishing rare, perfect stories, and the peace he’s made with that tradeoff
• How this story became the “test palette” for a science fiction novel set in the same universe that Rich is currently writing