Exclusive: Michael Mammay talks The Misfit Soldier and military sci-fi

Military science fiction often gets a rap for being very serious and filled with heavy ideas and themes. While that reputation is sometimes well-earned, it’s not always the case. Michael Mammay broke onto the military sci-fi scene in 2018 with his novel Planetside, which followed semi-retired colonel Carl Butler as he unraveled a conspiracy with galaxy-wide implications. He followed up with two sequels, Spaceside (2019) and Colonyside (2020), which further expanded Butler’s story. They were great books, and elicited just as many laughs as gasps.

With his fourth book, The Misfit Soldier, Mammay is taking things a step further. The Misfit Soldier is a heist novel, combining elements more common to stories like Ocean’s Eleven with the trappings of military sci-fi. When one of Sergeant Gas Gastovsky’s soldiers is left behind on a war-torn planet, he assembles an eclectic team of misfits to go after the missing man. But as with any good heist novel, there’s plenty more to the story than the mission. I had a blast reading this book; you can find my full spoiler-free review for it here.

To mark the release of The Misfit Soldier, Michael Mammay stopped by the site to tell us all about the book, his biggest military sci-fi pet peeves, and what science fiction characters from other stories he’d want on his squad if he were undertaking a borderline insane mission like the one his characters take in the book.

This review contains only very minor spoilers for The Misfit Soldier, so no need to worry about it ruining the book’s many twists and turns.

DANIEL ROMAN: Hi Michael, thanks so much for taking the time to discuss your work with us today! Your new novel The Misfit Soldier is a standalone, which makes it a bit of a departure from your previous three novels that are all set in the same series. What’s the origin story for this book?

MICHAEL MAMMAY: The Misfit Soldier is something I’ve been kicking around for, I don’t know, five or six years, maybe. Back when I was waiting to see if Planetside was going to sell, everybody kept telling me that I needed to write something else. You know…in case that one didn’t sell, right? Except I couldn’t. I was pretty new to writing, and I had a tough time distancing myself from the stress of being on submission. But everyone says you have to write something else, so I started this one and also The Weight of Command. Maybe 15,000 words on each. The Misfit Soldier specifically sprang from this little 300 word piece of flash fiction I wrote one day for fun. It was these two soldiers sitting around and discussing the possibilities of space whales. I took those two characters and put them into a short story called “The Crossroads” where the two guys are fighting a bot tank while one of them continually makes jokes about sleeping with the other one’s sister. And really, it was those two characters who became Gas and Putty, and the tone of that story that became how I wanted to tell The Misfit Soldier. (By the way, “The Crossroads” is available for free in both print and audio, and you can find it on my website.)

And even though I started it back in 2016, I didn’t get to write it, because Planetside sold and they wanted an immediate sequel, and then those books did really well so we decided to do the third one, and all of a sudden it was 2020 before I was writing TMS.

DR: You combined elements of military sci-fi and heist stories in a really satisfying way in this novel. Each member of the team has their own unique skillsets and personalities. Can you talk a little bit about the process of designing this squad of misfit characters and how they all fit together?

MM: It all started with Gas and Putty. Gas is a guy who knows how to get things done, and he knows everybody. So of course when he needs something, he’s got someone he can turn to, people with special skills and traits. And since one of those traits he needs is a healthy disregard for the rules, they’re usually people that have hidden those skills from the military. I always knew he was going to build a team, and I just started putting it together with him. I tried to think like Gas, and he was like, ‘I need a pilot, but no pilot is going to help me…let me get a daredevil mechanic with a bit of a death wish to fly the ship.’ And for everything that he needs, he comes up with a solution in the form of another misfit, and I invented those characters and their backstories to fit what he needed. With, of course, one exception, who he doesn’t necessarily choose. Or maybe he does. I don’t want to give away too much on that one.

DR: Can we talk a bit about the power armor? Because the power armor was pretty cool. When you’re adding science fiction tech like this into your story, what are some of the behind-the-scenes things that go into making it all work?

MM: For me, I just wanted something cool, so I kind of crossed something from Halo with Iron Man and the power armor was born. After that, I just kept adding features to it as I needed them, and then just whatever I could think of to make it cooler, but not overpowering it so much that it got in the way of the story. It really was more that than anything—creating tech that served what I wanted to do. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I make a lot of stuff up as I go.

DR: One thing I really liked about The Misfit Soldier is that it allowed you to look at the military from a different angle than your previous books. Colonel Carl Butler in Planetside spent time as a high-ranking officer and intimately knew how the politics worked, even if it didn’t always help him. Conversely, Gas Gastovsky is closer to the bottom of the totem pole. Was there anything in particular this shift in perspective allowed you to explore or bring to the story?

MM: There were a few things. First, I wanted something similar enough to what I’d done where the fans of my previous books would still enjoy it, but different enough so that it would be…uh…different. So there are some similarities between Butler and Gas, I think. The two major ones are that they both have big personalities and they both manipulate the system within which they exist. And that’s where it kind of ends, right? With Gas, I got to have a lot more fun with it, because Butler, for as much as he operates outside the rules, he’s still part of the system. Gas is a free actor. He can do a lot more ridiculous stuff, and he’s younger, so I was able to add in a lot more soldier humor. Butler uses humor, but it’s mostly sarcasm. In The Misfit Soldier, it’s a bit more sophomoric. They’re soldiers, and they can say anything at any moment, which led to some of my favorite interactions.

DR: This book had twists on top of twists and cons for its cons. How did you go about designing the multiple layers of reveals you had running throughout the story?

It actually took a few passes. The first version of the book, turned into something more like the Planetside books—kind of a mystery. I didn’t really start out to write it that way, but that’s what I knew, so I think I kind of defaulted to it. I turned it in to my editor, David Pomerico, and he read it and didn’t love it, and so when he sent me my edit letter, he opened it with ‘I don’t think this is the book you meant to write.’ And let me tell you—that’s one of the ballsiest things I’ve ever seen. For an editor to say that? Because that could go south in a hurry, saying that to a writer, especially if you’re wrong. It just takes a ton of confidence to go out on that limb. But he did, and he was absolutely right. It wasn’t the book I wanted to write. I wanted to write a heist/con novel, and I hadn’t done it. So I watched a few heist movies—The Sting, Ocean’s Eleven, a few more—to try to get a better feel for the beats that I was missing, and then I went back and rewrote about two thirds of the book, layering in those twists and cons, until I turned it into what it is today. I tried to think more about manipulation than I did in the first version—who was trying to do what to whom—at as many points as possible.

DR: An element that really surprised me was the romance subplot! We won’t get into spoilers, but I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that, since it struck me as a new feature of your work here. What made you decide this was the book to include that?

MM: That was kind of in my head from the start, that there was going to be a bit of that. I don’t remember when I came up with it, but I do remember after I pitched it to Harper Voyager and they liked the idea, David telling me that a little romance angle might fit, and I remember telling him that I was already planning on that. But that was like 2019, so I don’t really remember what I had planned. And with me, it doesn’t really matter, because everything changes when I start writing anyway. So I just went into it with the idea that part of the motivation for one of the characters was a crush on Gas, and Gas, for as smart as he is about people, is totally blind to that. And then it kind of went from there.

It’s a way to make things different from my previous work, and I really think it fits well with the heist aspect and the fact that they’re all young people. You throw a bunch of twenty-three-year-olds together and somebody is going to catch some feelings. And I just loved the idea of Gas being this total player in everybody’s mind, because he’s so smooth, but underneath he is just this insecure ball of insecurity like the rest of us. So the romance was a way to show that side of him. Plus, you know…I got to make sex jokes. Always funny.

DR: You served in the military, and therefore have some pretty strong real-world experience to bring to military sci-fi stories. I was wondering: what’s one of your biggest pet peeves when you read works in the genre? Conversely, are there any things that, when you read them, signal to you that an author has really done their research?

MM: My biggest pet peeve, bar none, is when people write soldiers as uniform entities who all feel the same way about things and all have exactly the same traits and values. You see this show up a lot as certain stereotypes, like always following orders, or always being on time, or thinking really rigidly. I remember the exact moment I quit on Supergirl. We were watching and there was this four-star general who couldn’t change how he thought. He was just absolutely rigid and there was only one way. That’s ridiculous. Nobody gets to be a general without being able to adapt to new and complicated situations. Ahem. Let me get off my soapbox. Buy me a beer sometime and I’ll tell you some stories, though. Another pet peeve is abusive leaders. The NCO that calls people ‘maggot’ for instance. I’m not saying that never happens, but I promise it’s not as common as ’80s movies make it out to be.

As far as things that make it real, it’s the little things. I was reading this book called Wake of War, by Zac Topping, that comes out in July, and just the way that he describes the plane flight into the combat zone…it’s nothing that you could ever get from a movie, but it something that every soldier who has ever done it will immediately recognize.

I do want to say that there are some people who haven’t served who still do a really good job with soldiers. Peter McLean, for one. Jay Posey. There are a lot more. I don’t want to sound like I think I’ve got the market cornered or anything.

DR: The Misfit Soldier isn’t the only book you have coming out this year—you actually have another novel, The Weight of Command, coming out later in the year exclusively in audio form. Can you tell us anything about that book, and what made audio the right fit for the project?

MM: The Weight of Command is more of a traditional military SF, a lot more…what’s the opposite of light-hearted? It’s more serious. It starts with a nuke going off and killing the entire leadership of a peacekeeping brigade, and there’s only one officer left alive. A lieutenant. So it’s a story about she now has to command a brigade, and the forces on both sides of the border who see that as an opportunity to test the force.

As for audio, that kind of happened on its own, but I was all for it when it did. I’m a huge fan of audio books, so when Audible made me an offer, I jumped on it. Working with a second publisher was also a way for me to get two books out in a year, which is sometimes hard to do in publishing, so it was a way to get more work into the world faster (and let’s be real, to get paid twice.)

DR: In addition to the two books you have coming out in 2022, you’re also in the thick of writing a novel about a generation ship, right? Can you tell us anything about that project, and what about it excited you enough to pursue that next?

MM: I’ve been thinking about this project since I went to Launch Pad back in 2018, which is a conference where science fiction writers get to go study real space science for a week at the University of Wyoming with astrophysicists and other experts. I wanted to do something a little more science, a little less fiction. Plus I just love the idea of a generation ship, a closed system, as a setting. And then, as a writer, I wanted to try to do something bigger. My first five novels are all first person, single point of view, and this new project is four points of view, in third person, so it’s different in that regard and it’s a new challenge for me, a different set of skills. It’s something I want to try. We’ll see how it goes and if I do more like this or if I go back to my first-person stories. Hopefully some of both. If all goes well, you’ll see this one in late 2023.

DR: What have you been reading or watching lately that you’ve really loved?

MM: Reading I just finished Wake of War, which I mentioned, and Braking Day, which is a generation fleet book, by Adam Oyebanji, and on audio I just finished the second book of Megan O’Keefe’s trilogy, Chaos Vector. Love that series. It really scratches the Expanse itch.

On TV, we just finished Cobra Kai, which is just a masterclass in complicated, multi-dimensional characters, plus a lot of ’80s nostalgia and some humor to go along with it. We’re watching 1863 as it comes out, because my wife likes historical fiction and the cast is great. I feel like I should include something SF in here. All the Marvel stuff and most of the Star Wars, though I haven’t dipped into Boba Fett yet. I think the last SF that I really loved was Orphan Black, which we just watched a little while back, being somewhat late to the party.

DR: Ok, last question. You’re putting together a team for an absolutely insane mission behind enemy lines, and can recruit characters from any sci-fi story to fill it out. Who do you want in your squad?

MM: Okay—from any medium? I want a team with a bunch of different skills. First, give me Ripley as my badass. You’ve got to have one badass. I’ll take Caiden, from Essa Hansen’s books, because let’s face it, the dude is practically magic, if a little too pure for his own good. We’ll break him of that. We’ll need some top cover, and for that, I want Chrisjen Avasarala from the Expanse series. Let her manage the bigwigs so we can sneak under the radar. We can always use a dose of cunning, so I’ll take Rory Thorne, from her eponymous novels by K. Eason. And we’ll need a tech wizard, because, as Gas says, get with the times. You’ve always gotta have tech guy. And for that…can I have Rocket, from Guardians of the Galaxy? I’m going to go to the judges on that one. Judges say…I can have whoever I want. It’s either him or one of the guys from Real Genius. And we need a pilot. I guess Rocket could do double duty, but give me…I feel like I’m going too much TV here and not enough books, but I’ll take Hoban, from Firefly, in a slight edge over Starbuck, from Battlestar, just because she’s so serious, and we’ve already got too much of that. Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal.

I probably spent way too much time thinking about this.

DR: I’d say just the right amount, because that is not a team anyone would want to mess with. Michael, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us about The Misfit Soldier!

MM: Thanks for having me. I loved the questions—it’s so much fun to do an interview where the person asking has already read the book.

The Misfit Soldier is out now from Harper Voyager, and is available at any online retailer or your local book store. You can follow Michael Mammay on Twitter or find out more about his work on his website.

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