You have just all these different bits and pieces that I just plucked from in order to fashion the story that I wanted to tell with this. I mean, you have WALL-E, you have The Swiss Family Robinson, you have elements of Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg in A.I. And this is all done by this young queer goth woman who, at the time when she was writing it was frowned upon for women to be doing anything, much less telling stories about monsters and evil and the follies of man.Īnd I wanted to pull from this entire history that we had, not just in fiction, even though there's large parts of that too, but from movies and TV shows. And then a couple of years later, she wrote what is rightly considered to be the first post-apocalyptic novel. I mean, for those who aren't really aware, Mary Shelley essentially invented the science fiction genre at the age of 19 when she wrote Frankenstein. And if I can't pull from that history and try to fashion it into my own, what am I even doing? I'm so glad that you mentioned Mary Shelley's Frankenstein because that to me is probably in the top-five most important works in the English language, in my opinion.

And there is such an extraordinary history in the science fiction and fantasy genre. It is probably only second to horror in my love of the genre.

TK: I love science fiction and fantasy as a whole. What inspired you to weave in all of these elements? And then our main character, Vic, feels like somewhat of a nod to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. There's a murderous nurse robot known as Nurse Ratched, a reference to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. At its heart, In the Lives of Puppets is a retelling of the Adventures of Pinocchio, but it's also a love letter to literature and pop culture. So, you have such a knack for writing stories that tackle some pretty heavy topics but still manage to tug at your listeners’ heartstrings in all of the best ways.

MC: Of course, we are so thrilled to have you. TJ Klune: Thank you so much for having me, Michael. Michael Collina: Hi, I'm Audible Editor Michael Collina, and I'm so excited to be speaking with Lambda Literary Award-winning author TJ Klune about his new audiobook, In the Lives of Puppets. Note: Text has been edited and does not match audio exactly.

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