Next, Allen Steele talks about his new novel, Spindrift:

Very often, my stories and novels are inspired by visual images. Spindrift is one such instance. Several years ago, while at a science fiction convention in Boston, I had a conversation with my friend and collegue, the science journalist Jeff Hecht, about an article he’d recently published in New Scientist. Jeff’s piece was about so-called trans-Neptunian objects – asteroids or small planets that astronomers believed existed in the outermost reaches of the solar system – and accompanying his article was an illustration depicting the surface of just such a world.

This image of a dark and ice-covered plain, far beyond the Sun, got stuck in my mind; I knew almost immediately that there was a story to be told about this place. At the time, though, I was just beginning work on Coyote, so it was put on the back burner. Coyote led to Coyote Rising, which in turn led to Coyote Frontier … and still, I kept thinking about men in spacesuits, trudging across a lightless world, their way guided only by the wan illumination of their helmet lamps.

During that same period, astronomers confirmed the existence of trans-Neptunian objects: first Sedna, then Eris, and finally the revelation – still controversial in many quarters – that Pluto is not a true planet after all, but rather just another resident of the Kuiper Belt. At the same time, articles were being published in science magazines regarding the possibility of rogue planets, something which had long-since been a staple of science fiction that now appeared to be real.

All this happened while I was writing the Coyote books. By the time I was halfway through Coyote Frontier, I was beginning to think that I might be able to continue the series beyond the conclusion of the trilogy, perhaps as a related novel set in the same universe, using the events on Coyote as background. And then I recalled that mental image which had been haunting me for so long…
Looking back on it now, I realize that I’d set up the situation for Spindrift within the first chapters of Coyote. Perhaps this was an act of my subconscious mind. All I know is that, once I finally arrived at the place where I’d imagined those lonely space explorers, it was with an eerie sense of familiarity. I’d been there before, and now I was getting a chance to describe what I’d seen.

So Spindrift is the title of a novel about a place called Spindrift. It has evolved considerably from what I first thought it would be – indeed, its greatest secret (shhh! … I’m not telling you here) literally came to me in a dream – but nonetheless it goes back to that magazine illustration, briefly glimpsed nearly a decade ago. I had a lot of fun getting there; I hope you will, too.