*Transcendental *Logic

I’ll be blunt: This is my first interview. Journalism always seemed a little too reality-bound for me, so I just never went there. But I think I really liked doing this interview — that may just be because my subject is so cool, but if it works out well, maybe I’ll try to track down other cool people and harass them with long-winded questions, too. ;)

Welcome to the Interview of Kristopher Young, whom I ended up conversing with because he was tolerant of my colorful posts & emails praising his novel. Not that one can praise his novel colorfully enough, mind you — it’s called Click and if you follow that link to Amazon, you’ll see nothing but glowing reviews, and for good reason. I’ve mentioned his book before (I believe I called it “Chuck Palahniuk with the volume at eleven, and perfect noise-reduction”, and I stand by that) — but what I didn’t mention, because I didn’t figure it out until Kris kindly shoved my nose in it, is that the author is also the entrepreneur behind Another Sky Press.

Another Sky Press is truly a special development in publishing — it may even be revolutionary, which is obviously what Kris is after. The company sells print copies for “cost plus a voluntary donation”, and it gives away free electronic copies of everything online. (Nice, well-designed .pdfs, too, with no DRM-y crap at all.) Besides Click, the company currently has an anthology and some art available (including a coloring book that makes me drool), and claims to have plans to offer more books, music, short-stories, and the gods know what else, all in their unique, consumer-centric fashion.

Whatever you think about Kris’ decision to offer his almost-certainly-would-have-been-a-conventional-bestseller to the public this way (I ask him what he thinks about it in the interview), you have to admit that closing your eyes and envisioning a world where most art is published the way Another Sky is suggesting is a pretty, pretty picture indeed.

You just don’t get better than idealistic, forward-thinking businesspeople…or at least that’s what I thought, until I met one who’s also a jaw-droppingly good writer. Hmm, is this guy for real? Well, I can’t say for sure, but if he’s a construct, his AI is fantastic. I mean, check out how well it answered all these questions about Another Sky Press and Click and even some other stuff I threw in just to trip him up in case he was a robot!

[Click to read the entire interview in all its glory!]

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