Canadian SF writer and film-maker Jim Munroe has been active in the North American indie book and media scene for more than a decade. He is the author of four novels, numerous short videos, multimedia and games, zines, a recent lo-fi scifi feature film, and a new graphic novel, Therefore Repent! (No Media Kings/ IDW). After the publication of his first novel, Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask (1999), Munroe decided to leave behind media conglomerate HarperCollins, and to publish under his own indie press label, No media Kings. His subsequent novels, Angry Young Spaceman (2000), Everyone in Silico (2002), An Opening Act of Unspeakable Evil (2004), have been critically praised for his original spin on SF ideas, his intelligent social commentary, and for his often funny, endearing, and very human characters. For his new graphic novel to be published in January, a collaboration with artist Salgood Sam, his readers will need to draw on their inner demons and to join the fight with those left behind on post-Rapture earth. Munroe half-seriously describes his graphic novel as his “re-imagining the Bible franchise, like Frank Miller did for Batman.” Munroe invited me into his home in December 2007, just a few weeks after the birth of his daughter, to talk about his latest projects.

Robert J. Sawyer, known generally as the dean of Canadian science fiction and a publishing machine, should need no introduction. But we'll give him one anyway. Sawyer first caught our attention in 2000 with Calculating God, a novel about an alien who one day appears in a museum and, among other things, engages the scientist who discovers her in conversation about the existence of God. In 2002, Sawyer won the Hugo Award for Best Novel for Hominids, a novel about neanderthals on a parallel Earth.

Sawyer's novels tend to address directly contemporary issues, and though he never shies away from controversy, his approach is never less than evenhanded. Moreover -- as our interview proves -- he really is a mensch.

In the following wide-ranging interview, which was conducted via e-mail, Sawyer talks with the Science Fiction Quarterly blog about the state of the science fiction genre, his particular approach to writing, and what we really should be reading instead of those Star Trek tie-ins.