But the whole point of sci-fi/fantasy is to be able to ask those what-ifs, to deal with a society built around this sort of idea. And as I cast those different characters, I'm like, 'What if you could do that for your family?' That's obviously horrible as authors, we are horrible people, we think of things like this, and we probably shouldn't. And that's not uncommon for me, just be casting different characters.

Like Spensa (we are gonna release these with the collection of the novellas), I did three different versions of Skyward before I settled on, I think, the fourth one for how her personality was going to work. Like a lot of things, it's just like, 'What if you could audition for having different children? What if you could pick which one's personality's gonna fit in your family really well?' I audition characters. I wanted to ask if you have any stories about how you came up with any of the races in Skyward. And especially with the Diones and the whole birthing process and kind of testing out having a child, it's just so unique. And I loved it because, after I read about the figments, then I would smell something in real life, and it just starts to infect your world. I don't think anyone else has done a smell that's sapient. In Skyward, there was some of the most unique alien designs I have, at least, read. If you read through the Skyward series, there are some story hooks for things that I might tell or I might not tell, going forward, if those stories decide that I need to write them. And where I place a story is really depending on, as it grows and develops, what sorts of themes do I want to deal with, and things like that.

Like all of my settings, even with something like the Cosmere, the goal for that is always to give me the means to tell the stories I want to tell. I know what Spensa's story is, if that makes sense. And so, where is the limit? I'm not sure that I've put a boundary on it. So one of the goals of the cytoverse is to give me that receptacle for stories that I want to tell going forward. One of the things, as I've been writing on the cytoverse, is I've wanted to have a good science fiction space setting to tell stories that don't fit in the Cosmere. With the worlds expanding so much in book two and then even futher with the novellas you did with Janci Patterson, do you have almost like a cap in your head? Like, we can only go this big? What is the potential for this cytoverse in your head at the mometn?

Cytonic release date