Happy Friday! Sapphics and sci-fi go hand in hand on this blog, and Avrah C. Baren's First Comes Death shows all the reasons why. Get stuck into our interview with the author and learn about the inspirations behind the novel, from X-Men to Avrah's day job at a space agency, plus learn more about the creation of the queer SFF anthology, Of Stardust.
Hi, Avrah! Thank you for joining us. First, could you introduce yourself?
Of course! I’m Avrah C Baren and I’m the author of First Comes Death, a sci-fi novel about two women who come back from the dead with superpowers thanks to a black hole anomaly. I’m also the editor for Of Stardust, an anthology of queer SFF that will be putting out its second anthology later this year!
Tell us about your debut novel First Comes Death and what inspired you to write it.
First Comes Death is like if Sense8 and X-Men got squished together into one really gay novel. It’s about these two women, Dina and Ivy, who come back from the dead within the first pages of the book. Not only do they have to navigate this second chance at life, but both of them also discover strange new powers as a result of the black hole anomaly that brought them back. It’s full of globetrotting adventures, found family, sapphic yearning, revenge, and lots of banter!
I grew up on the X-Men cartoons of the 90s, so superpowers and how different individuals navigate them has always fascinated me. As have black holes. I used to be terrified that a black hole would just appear to swallow me and my house up in the middle of the night. Now, as an adult, I find them fascinating. I love scientific phenomena that we haven’t found a way to full understand yet. It gives our world of technology and lack of mystery this air of magic. Put those things together, along with a morbid fascination with death, and you have First Comes Death.
What was the process behind building this strong world and were there any challenges? Were you inspired by any other SFF settings, stories, or even real places?
What I love about the sci-fi genre is that you have a chance to play with science a bit. The goal is always to make your world believable enough to engage your reader and allow them to suspend their disbelief. In this case, I had to know enough about black holes to make the idea of an anomaly bringing someone back from the dead with superpowers believable. The challenge being that despite my day job at a space agency, my knowledge of space and astrophysics dates back to high school. This meant researching the current literature about black holes, along with prodding a friend whose husband is an astrophysicist. I also turn to my D&D group for world-building questions like this. They’re the best when it comes to texts like “Hey, does this world-building exposition make sense to you?”
X-Men has always been the main inspiration for this novel, but Sense8 and V.E. Schwab’s Vicious are also huge sources of inspiration for me. I just love stories that show different characters under different conditions navigating the same new strange phenomenon: in my book’s case, coming back from the dead and gaining superpowers. As for the locations featured in First Comes Death, this book has scenes all around the world since the characters spend most of the story on the run. Most of the locations featured in the book, from Dakar, Senegal to Queenstown, New Zealand, are places I’ve traveled to for work or fun. I love traveling and have been really fortunate to have done a lot of it, so it was very fun to put all those places on the page!
Can you tell us a little bit about your characters? Which, if any, do you identify with most and why?
Dina and Ivy are really the epitome of “opposites attract”. Dina starts as a quieter character, just living the life she thinks she should be living because she’s afraid of disappointing her parents, even as a grown adult. She’s estranged from the one family member who might truly understand her and she hides herself from her parents and so-called friends. Ivy is feisty and rebellious and has a plan to get out from under the thumb of her gang leader before the novel starts. She’s never been a good strategist, but she knows how to back up her words with a punch. Or better yet, punch first and ask questions later. But both characters’ well-laid plans go awry when they end up dead…and then come back to life with new powers. They’re accompanied by a fun cast of side-characters like Topher and Lucia, who have more years wielding superpowers under their belts and have plenty of thoughts on what the other “Resurrected” should be doing with their afterlives.
While I would love to be as badass at Ivy, I tend to identify way more with Dina. Throughout the book, she is trying to figure out how to separate her own wants and desires from how her community views her. She often feels lost and out of control, a sentiment I can definitely get on board with. But she’s strong in the quiet ways I’d like to think I’m also strong!
Similarly, which characters do you hope readers will connect with most?
While Ivy is a stronger presence in the book (intentionally so), I hope Dina’s quiet presence draws readers in. I also adore Topher so much. They’re like a hipster, version of Professor X, minus a few decades of wisdom. I love their nerdiness and good humor and I think readers will definitely get a kick out of them!
The book features a sapphic romance (yay!). What are your favourite tropes to read and do any make an appearance in Dina and Ivy’s love story?
My favorite trope by far is “I’ll find you anywhere”. Whether it’s a reincarnation story or Snow White and Charming in Once Upon a Time, I am such a sucker for lovers separated by thousands of miles and strange circumstances always finding each other in the end. This of course is featured quite strongly in Dina and Ivy’s love story. Due to the nature of Dina’s powers, the two women are torn apart over and over again. But somehow, no matter the distance, they keep finding their way back to each other.
What initially drew you to the sci-fi genre and what do you love most about writing queer romance in this setting?
Oh man, originally it had to have been Star Trek. I grew up on Next Generation and always loved the exploration of new worlds in every episode. It made the sci-fi genre feel like this playground I could spend hours in, just thinking about endless possibilities. And then of course, X-Men came in as a different type of sci-fi. Our world, but more. And every character had their own story to tell. I feel like sci-fi opens so many doors to so many futures. It can help make sense of the past and present, and make you want to fight for a better world. And it gives me the same thrill that fantasy does, where the magic feels real. Except in sci-fi, science is the magic.
Once I became more at home in my own queer identity, it only made sense to write that queerness into my novels. Keeping that queerness, especially queer romance in the sci-fi genre helps emphasize the reality that queer people belong in every future and every world. And in terms of the romance itself, I love the angst and yearning. Any time I can put that on the page, it’s just so fun!
Did you find any challenges while writing First Comes Death? How did you overcome them?
Coming up with and fleshing out the mechanics of how my characters were going to get their powers was the most difficult part about writing this novel. We know so much more about the impacts of radiation than we did when say The Incredible Hulk came out. I needed a new, unique way for these characters to get their powers. Even when I settled on a black hole anomaly as the root cause, I needed it to make sense for the reader. It didn’t have to be 1000% accurate – to me that’s the fun of sci-fi – but it had to allow the reader to suspend their disbelief.
Have any shows, movies, books, or games not already mentioned influenced your own work at all?
I will preface this with the sentiment that I am a coward when it comes to horror shows and movies. But The Haunting of Bly Manor takes up more of my brain space than is probably healthy. The love story between Dani and Jamie is just so achingly beautiful. When I wrote Dina and Ivy, I wanted their love story to echo that relationship.
You also edited and featured in the Of Stardust anthology, featuring queer, fantastical stories. Tell us what prompted you to begin this exciting project with other authors!
Yes! Of Stardust was born out of this desire to put more queer work out in the world. I was already getting my feet under me with self-publishing and I had a bunch of friends I’d made during my time in the Pitch Wars mentorship program. Some of us had found agents or self-published our own work, some of us hadn’t. But I knew quite a few people enjoyed the short story genre. So I reached out to that community and basically said “Hey, can I convince you to be in an anthology?” It was at a time where LGBTQIA legislation in the US was already taking a turn. Things are even scarier now (to put it mildly). I don’t always feel like I can do much to change things, but I can write and I can self publish an anthology. So here we are.
And what can readers expect from your story in this anthology?
My story features a creature from Jewish folklore called a “yeduah” or an “adne hasadeh”. The rough translation is “man of the woods”. My story is about a yeduah who is coaxed out of her forest, only to find herself trapped in a garden to become a rich man’s prized exhibit. It’s about her experience with humanity and searching for a way to secure her freedom.
What did you enjoy most about putting together an anthology? Would you consider doing it again in the future, and if so, what would you love the next theme to be?
I am so lucky to know so many talented writers, so putting out a call to my community and then getting to read all their amazing work was such a joy! Since it’s a smaller collection, it’s also been so great to be able to be fully transparent about the admin on my end, like finding the cover artist and such. I know it’s a cliche at this point to say that writing often feels so solitary, but being able to collaborate within that solitary world was so fun!
And yes! We will be putting out a new collection this year (2025) in June! The theme will be “Lore reshaped”. All of the authors have been asked to play with a myth, fairy tale, or folk tale of their choosing for this collection. I’ve gotten a chance to read most of our entries already and I can tell you it’s going to be fantastic!!
May we get a hint or two about what you may be working on next? More sapphic sci-fi, perhaps? (*Whispers*: please?)
So in 2024, I became a hybrid author, which means that while I’m still putting out projects in the self-pub space, I’ve switched gears to focus more on the fantasy novels I’ve been working on! It may take a while for those to see the light of day, but I can promise I am working very hard to get my sapphic fantasy novels out in the world! I have some other sci-fi ideas brewing (maybe in the world of First Comes Death?), but for now, you can expect a new Of Stardust this June!
You also have a B.S. in Environmental Science, an M.S. in Wildlife Science, and you’re working on a PhD in Geography. Wow! Do these studies inform your writing at all, and if so, how?
I do indeed! I have always always loved nature and studying the natural world. That fascination is front and center in the fantasy novels I write, many of which occur in a forest like the ones I used to hike all over for field work. But even in my sci-fi writing, I love including elements of nature. Dina’s superpowers are a perfect example of that. While she herself isn’t super attuned to nature, her powers are fully connected to water currents. She travels at the beck and call of oceans and rivers. I’m no hydrologist, but I’ve always found the movement of water so fascinating. And so I wondered what would happen if someone followed those currents all around the world!
Our podcast focuses on media we’re currently loving. Are there any books, shows, movies, or games you’re enjoying at the moment? Any recommendations for our audience? Bonus points if it includes sapphics!
I’ve been deep into escapism lately and my two favorite places to find that are the current season of Traitors and anything on Dropout, especially Gamechanger. Alan Cumming hosting Traitors is one of the most delightful things I’ve ever seen on TV. His outfits every episode are just so iconic and you can tell he’s having so much fun playing this super extra version of himself. The reality TV stars they pick to play on this game show aren’t the best at playing games. But wow are they fun to watch!
And Gamechanger is just a hoot and a half every episode. It’s all these comedians, some from the College Humor days, improvising responses to different prompts where the goal of the game changes every episode. It just cracks me up every time, as do most shows on Dropout. I’m also so glad there’s a new season of Dungeons and Drag Queens out. Nothing is more fun than watching drag queens playing D&D with Brennan Lee Mulligan.
About the Author
Avrah C. Baren (she/they) is a SciFi/Fantasy writer based in the DMV, where she lives with a neurotic tuxedo cat. She is an alum of the Pitch Wars Class of 2021 and a graduate of the Futurescapes 2023 Writers' Workshop. She holds a B.S. in Environmental Science, an M.S. in Wildlife Science, and is working on a PhD in Geographic Information Systems. They spend their days researching mangroves and landcover change, and continue to nurse a passion for avian ecology. They love writing fantastical tales with Jewish-coded and explicitly Jewish characters that explore our connections with nature and each other.
When she isn’t writing, she is climbing rocks, working at the Renaissance Festival, and trying to become a wood witch.
Follow her @avrahwrites on social media. For news and updates, please subscribe to her newsletter at abigailiswriting.com!
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