An Interview with Kevin Hincker, author of The Story Eaters Of Yamm

Hello, readers! We have a treat for you today with an interview from acclaimed sci-fi author Kevin Hincker. His latest novel riffs off of the Wag The Dog scenario familiar to consumers of both sci-fi classics (that we won’t name here because of potential spoilers) and political thrillers of page and screen.

The Story Eaters Of Yamm revolves around a group of science-fiction writers who’ve been hired by a mysterious corporation to create an alien invasion story. They soon discover that not only is the invasion real, but that what they’re writing is being used as a blueprint for a galactic war involving extraterrestrial snails capable of mind control.

Leading the writers is Larry Palczewski, a hapless, time-blind author whose affliction sets up the clever metafictional structure of story. If you love humorous speculative fiction that pays homage to genre tropes, as well as unique, experimental novel formats, then you definitely have to check out this book!

Read on for a brief, spoiler-free interview with the author himself, on the topics of humor, sci-fi tropes, aliens and neurodiversity!

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Why do you think humor is important, especially in science fiction?

Science fiction as a genre is about reaching for – and across – boundaries, proposing definitions for the unknown, exploring truths in ways that other forms of fiction aren’t designed to do. But a lot of these truths are dark. A lot of them, when considered honestly, are frightening or upsetting. And it’s EXACTLY here, in the midst of confronting fear and paradox, that laughter serves its highest purpose. It brings us back to our bodies, our present, where no, there are not giant parasitic mind eating snails invading your planet with spore bombs – so just relax and have a giggle.

How did you react to learning that your character Larry may be neuro-divergent?

My earliest beta readers returned with feedback that they appreciated the fact that Larry was “clearly nuero-divergent” but that I’d never explicitly called it out in the book as such, to which I replied, “Umm… huh?” Larry comes straight out of my subconscious and he seems – though extreme in some of his strategies – perfectly normal to me. Like if I was ever faced with giant, parasitic, mind eating snails while at the same time discovering my mother might be a terrorist, and gathering clues about who my mysterious father really was, I would react in exactly the same way Larry does. He’s just a normal person dealing with extreme circumstances, isn’t he, I asked them? At which point these readers made an “I don’t know, I’m just saying…” face, then smiled and patted me on the arm fondly. Like I was missing some important point. That’s how I reacted.

Much of your book mirrors the tropes and influences of other science fiction novels. Why did you choose them?

Well, since I have a policy of never remembering things (which is actually a strategy to hide the fact that I would never remember anything even if I tried (a strategy I just defeated by revealing my bad memory)) I can’t say for certain – but I think the science fiction writers I picked to include were authors of some of the earliest books I ever became obsessed with and dreamed in the language of for weeks after I finished reading. As for the tropes I picked, “Umm … huh?” Those are not tropes. Those are realities about the world that I have learned through reading and dreaming in the language of thousands of science fiction stories.

How do you think the aliens will invade us?

My honest answer is that I think the invasion has already begun. I think the first alien intelligence that humanity will meet will be a synthetic intelligence we birth ourselves. Whether the model ends up being an LLM or something yet un-dreamed of, these synthetic consciousnesses will be just as alien to us as anything that might one day land on the White House lawn. The difference is that very few people will recognize them as such – until it is too late. No, haha, not really – that’s just a science fiction trope I once dreamed about. It won’t ever be too late.

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The Story Eaters Of Yamm by Kevin Hinckey was published June 16 2026 and is available from all good booksellers.