An Interview with Matt Bell, Author of APPLESEED

Hello, librarians. We're very excited to share our latest episode of The Library Love Fest Podcast, featuring a conversation between LLF's Chris Connolly and Matt Bell, author of Appleseed, on sale July 13th.

If you're a fan of Neal Stephenson, Blake Crouch, or Jeff VanderMeer, then you're going to love the ambitious, sweeping arc of Appleseed. It takes place over the course of more than a thousand years, with three distinct but interconnected storylines: two brothers seeking riches and glory in eighteenth-century Ohio as they plant apple seeds in the vast, untamed wilderness; a group of resistance fighters in a ravaged near-future Earth who are plotting to topple a mega-corporation before it enacts a vast geo-engineering project; and, finally, a mysterious sentient being roaming an ice-covered North America a thousand years in the future who goes on a daring quest to track a homing beacon after centuries of solitude. 

Make no mistake, this is very much an environmental novel, and approaches the issue in a fresh, unique way that feels particular to the best of speculative fiction. Matt Bell seamlessly combines myth, fairytale, science, and the very real issues facing our planet while keeping the reader totally engrossed with beautiful prose, a breakneck pace, and carefully rendered characters.

You can listen to the interview below. And keep reading to see some of the praise for Appleseed!

"The reason you’ve never read a book like Appleseed is that there’s never been a book like Appleseed. The scary thing, though, is this is a world you might recognize. This premise, this content, this form, this language—only Matt Bell could have given us this novel."
—Stephen Graham Jones, author of The Only Good Indians

"Woven together out of the strands of myth, science fiction, and ecological warning, Matt Bell’s Appleseed is as urgent as it is audacious."
—Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble

"This is a fiercely original book—at once intimate and epic, visceral and philosophical—that sent me scurrying for adjectives, for precedents, for cover. Matt Bell commands the page with bold, vigorous prose and may well have invented the pulse-pounding novel of ideas."
—Jess Walter, New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins and The Cold Millions