Alexis Ames (she/they) is a speculative fiction writer with short fiction in publications such as Pseudopod, Radon Journal, and Escape Pod. The Chamos Project is her first novel.
Author Links:
All Author & Book Links: linktr.ee/alexis.ames
Samples of Work (Short Fiction): alexisamesbooks.com/short-fiction
Book Club/Reader Pitch for The Chamos Project:
A ship on its way to Alpha Centauri to seek out a new home for humanity becomes stranded years away from aid after a mysterious accident, and Doctor Leander Dade must fight for survival alongside the very androids who once cost him his love and almost his life.
You’re here to talk about your self-published novel The Chamos Project, but you’re also the author of short fiction that has been featured by Pseudopod, Radon Journal, and Escape Pod. How did you find the transition to writing long form fiction from short stories, and did you conceive The Chamos Project as a short story first, or did you know from the start it would be a longer project?
I’m actually a long-form writer first and foremost! I’ve been writing novel-length works since I was about 11 years old. I branched out into writing shorter fiction in college, and I started submitting those short stories to various publications in 2018.
As of today, I have 40+ short stories out there in the world! I find short fiction to be a good challenge for me, since I am such a long-winded writer. It forces me to be concise and punchier with my writing, so I think it’s really helped me grow and improve. It’s also good that I’ve built an audience from my short fiction that I can now take with me as I publish longer works.
What’s your relationship with Sci-Fi – when did this love of the genre begin, and what/who are your main influences?
I’ve loved sci-fi since I was a kid! My parents got me into Star Trek at a young age, and that’s been my biggest influence, especially with The Chamos Project. I always envisioned it as a cross between Star Trek and Titanic, but in space and extremely queer.
I was also influenced at a young age by Ray Bradbury, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Isaac Asimov, and robots/androids/artificial intelligence have always held a special fascination for me.
The core of The Chamos Project revolves around a forbidden romance between a human and an android, and I think readers will find nods to the Golden Age of sci-fi as they read the book.
How much research or background knowledge went into the book, and how did you develop the world this is set in? How do you handle the science elements of this Sci-Fi novel?
Because I’ve been reading, watching, and writing sci-fi for many years now, a lot of the elements of the world came naturally to me. I also have a background as a space science educator, so a lot of what I learned through my day job was incorporated into the novel.
Beyond that, I have some scientist friends who I have been able to use as resources for the more technical aspects of the book. That being said, this is not a hard science fiction book. A lot of hand-waving also goes into it! I know that we won’t see androids like this or faster-than-light travel in real life, but it’s fun to play with in fiction.
How did you develop your main character, Dr. Leander Dade, and can you talk us through your process for character development? What references/influences did you use?
This book was interesting to write because Leander Dade came to me as a fully-developed character first, and he then informed the plot and the world that I built around him.
He was influenced by my love for grumpy doctor characters (think Dr. McCoy in Star Trek), and he has trauma and disabilities that were either influenced by my own experiences, or ones that I researched and worked on with my sensitivity readers.
I love writing older characters who have a rich backstory, as well as characters who have to confront someone or something from their past over the course of a story.
Do androids dream of electric sheep? (Kidding…) But what are your human/android relations like, and why did you choose to include them in your novel?
I have to add a disclaimer here that this book was first conceived of and written in 2013, long before ChatGPT came along. Back then, I found the concept of androids and how humans might interact with them to be a fascinating thing to explore, so it appears a lot in my writing from that time period.
The human-android relations in this book are complicated! I don’t want to give away too many spoilers, but overall, they are uneasy allies. As you get to know the individual characters, you find some who are completely hostile to androids, and others who have fallen in love with them.
There is also a lot of strife among the androids themselves, and they are not a monolithic group.
Lastly, can you tell us more about your romantic subplot – although this is NOT a romance, what drew you to include an enemies-to-lovers/star-crossed lovers element to the novel?
There are a lot of things I find myself writing over and over, and enemies-to-lovers/star-crossed lovers is simply a trope that I adore!
I also love second chance romances, and characters who find love later in life.
Leander Dade is a human who finds himself drawn to someone he shouldn’t be, for a variety of reasons, and that is something I find really compelling in a story.
It’s true that this novel is not a Romance, but it is deeply romantic and the love story is the most important part of it.
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