Welcome to A Month of Rain and Reads, a celebration of self-published and indie SFF throughout the entire month of November. To find out how you can take part and view the whole list of content, visit our introduction post.
Today, we share an interview with Andrew Hindle, author of the The Final Fall of Man series and more.
Describe yourself like you would a character in one of your books.
Andrew is a hobo who somehow got transplanted into the life of a successful middle-class family man. His clothes are shabby and usually falling apart. His hair and beard really have to be seen to be believed most days. He’s at best a high-functioning caffeine addict and booze hound, and yet unaccountably he’s managed to not only hold down an office job and write a bunch of books, he also seems to have surrounded himself with people who … like him. Doesn’t seem right, but there you go.
Andrew got online sometime in the late ‘90s during the age of Usenet, and has been there ever since. Not because the Internet is good, but … I don’t know, sunken cost fallacy or something.
Our theme for November is A Month of Rain & Reads. Do you subscribe to the idea of curling up with a good book while the rain pours down outside. What book would you read? Would you bring tea and a blanket? What would make the moment perfect?
I do love to lie in bed while there’s rain falling outside, and ideally a thunderstorm off in the distance. Tea (or possibly a hot chocolate with a wee dram in it) and blanket definitely preferred. Right now I’m reading the second book of The Biomass Conflux by William C. Tracy (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BF5XVYR8), and enjoying it in paperback (also signed and dedicated since I was lucky enough to meet the author at Worldcon a while back!) although I do generally read e-books. Paperbacks have that tactile heft, but you can’t light your way to the toilet in the middle of the night with a paperback.
What else do you want our readers to know about you?
Hmm, mentioned alcohol twice already, Worldcon, my toilet habits … nope, think that about covers it.
Why did you decide to self-publish, and what has been your biggest success so far?
Back in 2011-2012, I was diagnosed with cancer and decided to turn my social media interactions (from first symptoms to clean bill of health) into a little book. It was such a personal thing to me, I decided I didn’t want to even try getting it approved by some publisher I didn’t know, or some agent whose motives I didn’t trust, or some committee who only cared about the bottom line.
Then, after I wrote the book and published it (Arsebook), I thought “hang on, all my stories are that personal.” And so I started to write and publish and didn’t look back.
I wouldn’t call myself a successful author. But that’s not really a priority, so much as getting the voices out of my head and onto a page where they can’t do any more damage (certainly not if nobody else reads them).
What is your favourite thing about being an indie author?
Let’s flip that around a bit and say what my favourite thing about being an indie reader and reviewer is – the absolute freedom that comes when someone has a story inside them, and they just tell it without having it homogenised and watered down by a lot of interfering “stakeholders”. I mean, is it still a good idea to get some beta readers and a good editor? Sure. But I’ve seen more creativity and joy in indie books than I have in a long time from the traditional publishing world.
So, as an indie author? I’ve often joked that I’ve written about twenty books in the time since George RR Martin wrote the latest Song of Ice and Fire book, but if all twenty of them put together had sold the tiniest fraction of one of his books, I could retire. Traditional authors have resources, but does it make their books better? No, not in my opinion. It just makes them easier to find, and back-loads them with a whole lot of customers with disposable income.
Also, most of the time indie authors provide their books (certainly their e-books) at a much cheaper rate than the predatory line-go-up traditional publishing economy demands. Sometimes, I’m even blessed to get books for free in exchange for a review! What, you’re going to give me a book that I want to read, in return for an opinion I was probably going to blog about anyway? Sucker. I love you.
You’ve written an impressive eight-book series about sci-fi dark comedy. What do you love about writing comedy, and what would you say is your funniest line?
Hah! So, my dark comedy sci-fi series, The Final Fall of Man, is about a bunch of people on a starship. It actually started as a share-bait joke on social media. You know the sort: the first nine people in your online friends group are the crew of a starship, how long will they survive?
In this case, turns out they survived eight books. Okay, a few of them died. They also stopped being the real-world people on whom they were based, because that just felt weird … but several of my friends still delight in identifying themselves with their characters.
I couldn’t tell you my funniest line, although the captain of the starship is fond of saying “don’t shit in my lap and tell me it’s a napkin.” So let’s go with that.
Do you lean mostly towards writing sci-fi genres? Are there other genres you’d like to explore?
My first love has always been fantasy. From classics like The Lord of the Rings and The Earthsea Trilogy and The Wheel of Time and everything by Terry Pratchett, to pure glorious pulp by authors like Douglas Hill and David Eddings (what ever happened to that guy? Sure hope he didn’t turn out to be problematic, I’m not going to google it [I’m kidding, don’t google it, but 14-year-old me was a fan of his books and didn’t know about the death of the author concept]), I have been hooked ever since I could read. If anything, sci-fi is a later addition to my headspace and it comes mostly from TV and movies. I’m woefully poorly-read aside from Asimov, Clarke, Wells, Herbert, Adams … okay there are a few, but come on. Can you call yourself a foodie if all you’ve eaten is bread and butter?
But then, once you start getting into the surreal stuff like King’s Dark Tower series, and The Death Gate Cycle by Weis and Hickman, that’s the sort of thing I really love. Big world-building, a blending of science and magic … yeah. That’s the stuff. Why choose between wizards and spaceships when you can have wizards in a spaceship? If you don’t have genre whiplash after reading a book, what has any of this been for?
You’ve also taken part in The Self-Published Science Fiction Competition AKA SPSFC as a judge. What was it like being a judge in SPSFC?
I don’t know if we have time to get all the way into that! But I will say that I found it incredibly rewarding – and am still happy to be part of the community that has grown around it. Yes, there are difficult times, because authors are messy and reviewers are only human. And it’s a lot of work. But I’ve enjoyed it.
I actually first became a judge in the SPSFC because I was a contestant in the fantasy-genre version of the contest, the SPFBO. I didn’t care for the way the competition operated overall, so I determined to be the judge who actually read the whole book before actually writing a proper review of said book. Only one book can win, but every book should get something. And you know what I learned?
It is really fucking hard, that’s what I learned. Reading every book cover to cover, regardless of readability or just sheer size, is a huge job. And none of us are doing it for a living. I managed it for a few years, at least for the books I was allocated, and I ended up with some great relationships with authors and fellow judges, but it was exhausting. And while I still wish there was a better way for the SPSFC and the SPFBO to deal with the books that don’t make the cut, I fully understand why most of them go the way they do.
I’m not judging in the SPSFC now, but I’m still mooching around. Indie authors could do far worse than to submit their stuff to the SPSFC and the SPFBO. It may not get you a huge amount of exposure or feedback, but it’s always good to be part of a community. And you want to have a thick skin.
What themes are important to you, and how are they reflected in your writing?
They always say to write what you know, but how exactly the Hell are you supposed to write about space adventures in the distant future or being a fucking wizard while the government consistently and systematically fails to legalise the requisite drugs?
Seriously though, I’m endlessly fascinated with the potential of humanity either to do wonderful or terrible things – usually both, at the same time. My future history is littered with atrocities and waste, but also glimmering moments of humanity being glorious. Which way I go with it usually depends on whether I’ve just been scrolling the newsfeeds, or watching Doctor Who.
When it comes to writing what I know, I suppose my main life experience (aside from cancer) is twofold:
1) A white Australian coming to terms with the history of enslavement, theft and bloodshed that has put me in the comfortable place I am.
2) An immigrant attempting to assimilate to a language and culture (Finnish) that I consider my homeland – but to which I know, to many, I will always be considered a foreigner.
I’ve explored these, somewhat, in my stories. Usually from the perspectives of aliens attempting to understand human beings and the weird stuff they do.
What are you working on next? Can you tease us?
Well, it relates to the previous question and I’m very excited about it actually! It’s a fantasy (what I am calling Highgrim fantasy, as it is alternating chapters of high fantasy and grimdark), and follows the story of a young farmhand who turns out to be a wizard and ends up facing off against the classic Dark Lord.
As you might guess from such a hackneyed summary, this is actually one of the first books I ever wrote as a hopelessly derivative teenager, but it has undergone a whole lot of iterations in the past thirty-something years and I hope it overturns the tropes wherever necessary. It is also a very personal exploration of a young person finding out they are the inheritor of a world-dominating power and fortune that was arrived at by violent, brutal and downright horrifying means, and figuring out how they can reconcile that with the fact that they consider themselves “the good guys”.
Also there’s telepathic dinosaurs in it.
And a few quick questions. What’s your favourite…
Whenever I’m asked this, I say The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway. Heartily recommend.
More recently, aside from Shadecursed which I have reviewed for A Month of Rain & Reads, I have also really loved The Preservation of Species series (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DKG8QWY8) by Geoff Jones.
I’m still playing and re-playing Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom from the Legend of Zelda series. A lot of people complain about them, which to me just goes to show that some people will find a way to complain about anything.
The one piece of advice I will offer about writing is the same advice I once received from a wise friend about raising kids, and is the only piece of advice I have ever really taken to heart and regularly share with people, and it is this: Do not listen to other people’s advice.
…advice for someone who wants to publish their own book?
With due consideration for my answer directly above, you can take this with salt to taste … but I have three pieces of advice here:
1) Do it.
2) Use professional editors and artists (not A.I.)
3) Do not listen to other people’s advice (but please take my points 1 and 2 above as heartfelt requests).
My kids. They challenge me, impress me, and make me want to be a better human.
…way to clear your mind when everything gets a bit much?
I’m open to suggestions. My go-to move is to just get steadily more exhausted and stressed until my body shuts down and I go in for a half-day Depression Nap™, but this is not what I would call a workable system.
Do you have any last words? Any shoutouts to authors who have supported you or whose books have inspired you?
I can’t recommend the books of G.M. Nair enough (if I may be a little self-serving and share my interview with him here.
I also wish more people would give love to Rebecca aka. Indie Book Spotlight (active all over social media but I really only have Bluesky now), a tireless fountain of support and hype for the indie author community.
And if you have a moment, consider giving a follow to the Many Realms book contest, it’s still finding its feet and indie book contests are not easy, running one is an absolute labour of love and dedication (I am in fact a contestant there and not a judge or volunteer): www.instagram.com/many_realms
About Andrew Hindle
Andrew Hindle, known variously as Chucky, Hatboy, Edpool and other nicknames seemingly intentionally formulated to ruin his marketing and branding efforts, has been writing stories since the age of about 8 and has no intention of stopping any time soon. When he’s not writing books, he’s writing a wide range of articles and reviews on his blog. When he needs to pay the bills, he writes technical documentation for an assortment of tech and industry customers. He lives in Finland with an incredible family who tolerate his bullshit and deal with him in the sarcastic manner he deserves.
- Website: Hatboy.blog
- Bluesky: edpool.bsky.social
- Find Andrew’s Books on Amazon
