The story continues, chapter 13 is around the corner and Wuckster brings our protagonists home. Or does he?

Let's take a moment to make acquaintance with the author before we uncover what happens to the crew.

Dear Wuckster
We are glad to have you on board for this SciFi Relay adventure.
And we want to thank you for spending this moment with us for this interview.

Tell us a bit about yourself, your journey as a writer and your foray into the Orange part of the web (a.k.a. Wattpad)

I started writing stories pretty much as soon as I learned how to write when I was a little kid. I kept at it fairly regularly as I got older and even majored in English Writing in college.

I'd always wanted to write a full-length novel but had never been able to stick to an idea long enough to do so. I'd always seem to get a few pages in before losing inspiration and interest and then I'd abandon whatever I was working on.

Finally in 2001, I started writing what would become Tourist Trap. I'm not sure what was different about this one, but I managed to keep chipping away at it and finally saw it through to the end in 2004. I'd written my first novel, but I didn't really know what to do next. I didn't know anything about how one went about getting anyone to actually read your novel. I tried a little bit of the whole querying agencies thing, but getting form rejection letters back almost faster than I sent the queries out was pretty discouraging.

I stumbled on Wattpad in 2013 sort of on accident. It seemed interesting, but I was also a bit skeptical about it. Nonetheless I decided to post a couple chapters of my book on it, just to see what the deal was. To my surprise I got some reads and comments on it almost instantly. So I decided to post the rest of it and it soon got selected as a "featured story" which drove way more readers to my book than I kind of ever thought I would get. I had been stupid enough to end my book on a semi-cliffhanger, so inevitably I got tons of readers who made it to the end and wanted to know where the sequel was.

"Oh crap," I said. "I'd better write a sequel." So I did.

And then I wrote another non-related book. And then I started writing a second sequel to my first book. And somewhere along the way I got sucked into a lot of writing contests on Wattpad and have churned out a boatload of short stories and three novellas. So overall it has proven to be a good motivator for me to write.

1, 2, 3... Tell us about ONE story you would have wanted to write, TWO authors you admire, who inspire you.... THREE characters who often come into your mind when you start a new story...

One story I would want to write (and maybe still will one of these days) is a sequel to my book The Shady Adventures of Fabian.

Two authors I admire... well, there are a lot more than two, but Kurt Vonnegut has always loomed large for me. I just love his sense of humor and his way of looking at the world. I also really like Douglas Adams for similar reasons, even though I'd say his style is a bit different than Vonnegut's. I've always liked stories that are funny but also tackle big philosophical ideas and I think both of those authors are good at that, while also telling really entertaining stories.

Three characters who often come to mind when starting a story... hmm... I'm going to say Alice from Alice in Wonderland because I always like stories of ordinary people being thrust into extraordinary situations. I also like Sam from the Lord of the Rings because he's a good reminder that sometimes the real hero of a story isn't who you would initially think it was. And then I'm going to say Darth Vader because a compelling villain is often the best part of a story.

What made you want to participate in the relay?

I've never done anything like this before. I'm always interested in trying new things and stretching myself as a writer and I liked the idea of collaborating on something. Plus I was simply curious if we could actually pull off something that was any good, or at least semi-coherent.

How did you find the experience?

Overall it was pretty fun. There were definitely times, especially in the early going, where there were so many ideas flying around that the whole undertaking seemed pretty chaotic. It was hard to imagine anything coming out that would gel into a logical narrative. Fortunately the bigwigs in charge of this project did an excellent job of reigning things in and giving it some focus. That said it was cool to bounce ideas off of a lot of different people and feel a sense of creative synergy. Some of the unused ideas were definitely interesting and there were a million completely different directions this story could have gone.

What challenged you the most in this venture? Something that maybe brought you out of your writer's comfort zone?

So getting assigned a chapter in the middle of a story and starting to work on it without really having read anything else is most definitely not the way I normally work. There was a decent outline in place and a lot of character traits had been established, but I wouldn't say I really had much of a feel for the characters at all when I started to write my chapter. It was different having to coordinate with other writers and trying to check up on minute details to hopefully ensure that things matched up. Even so it was hard to stay on top of every plot twist and character trait that had been decided on and there was a strong sense as you wrote that maybe you were doing it completely wrong and contradicting important story points or portraying a character incorrectly. I can honestly say this is probably the first and only time I would view the writing experience as a complete act of faith.

Something we are most curious about... How about you give us a little teaser of your part in this story? A sentence or two that will keep us on our toes and impatiently wait reading your chapter?

In my part of the story our protagonists finally arrive on Earth. So why does everything seem so incredibly wrong?

And while we are feeling the tease, as we consider the Science Fiction genre, we are all expecting wondrous worlds and weird alien species... Can you tell us about one element you brought to the Relay, one element you created for this story? It may be an alien race, a location in space, or maybe a special technology... Tell us about this special character, object, environment or settings you built up for your part in the story. What was your inspiration for it?

For my chapter specifically I have created a race of aliens that is very not human in appearance or in the things that they enjoy. I don't want to give too much away, but it was important to my chapter that these creatures could not reasonably be thought to be related to humans in any way. So among other characteristics, they have square heads, three arms, enjoy eating rocks and broken glass, and also take relaxing acid baths.

For the story as a whole I'm going to claim credit for naming the ship the Strawberry Mollusk. There was a thread on the discord asking for ideas for ship names and they were basically looking for something weird, nonsensical, and a bit silly. I had actually just been looking at a cartoon with a talking strawberry and then I turned and looked at my wall where I have a poster hanging up for the band Ween. One of my favorite albums of theirs is called The Mollusk, so I just kind of put strawberry and mollusk together, thought it had a nice ring to it and suggested it, and the next thing I knew the ship had a name. I can't take any credit at all for the ship's look as many of the other highly creative people in this project took that name and ran with it.

And just to make it even more understandable. This little part of yourself you added to make the story even greater, can you give us a definition as if it was an entry in The Great Dictionary of Science Fiction?

Strawberry Mollusk - noun- A space faring vessel of unknown origin. Many theories exist as to why it is pink in color and how it got so beaten up, but these remain merely theories.

So, now we know how to name a spaceship! And without waiting more, let's read chapter 13.
Enjoy!