StarShipSofa 772 Jeremy Szal

StarShipSofa 772 Jeremy Szal

From StarShipSofa by Tony C Smith

December 24, 2025 · 1h 11m

About this episode

This episode features a story by Jeremy Szal, exploring themes of addiction and dark space opera.

Main fiction: "Stars in a Grave, Stars in a Skull" Jeremy Szal was born in 1995 and was raised by wild dingoes, which should explain a lot. He writes epic fantasy and dark space opera of a character-driven, morally grey nature. His main series is the Common trilogy from Gollancz/Hachette, which includes Stormblood , Blindspace , and Woflskin , about a drug harvested from alien DNA that makes users permanently addicted to adrenaline and aggression. He’s the author of over fifty short stories, translated into fifteen languages, many of which appear in his short fiction collection Broken Stars . He was the editor for the Hugo-winning StarShipSofa until 2020 and has a BA in Film Studies and Creative Writing from UNSW. He carves out a living in Sydney, Australia with his family, where he loves watching weird movies, eating Japanese food, exploring cities, learning languages, cold weather and dark humour. Find him at  https://jeremyszal.substack.com/   or @JeremySzal This story first appeared in Broken Stars (2024). Narration by: Will Stagl Will Stagl lives in Tucson Arizona and is a proud member of the StarShipSofa team. This month you’ll likely find him tearing through…

People in this episode

Host: Tony C Smith

Guest: Jeremy Szal

Topics covered

  • epic fantasy
  • dark space opera
  • character-driven stories
  • addiction
  • science fiction
  • narration

Keywords

  • Jeremy Szal
  • StarShipSofa
  • dark space opera
  • addiction
  • fantasy
  • narration
  • Broken Stars

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: StarShipSofa, Gollancz/Hachette

Books & works: Stars in a Grave, Stars in a Skull, Broken Stars

Places: Sydney, Australia, Tucson Arizona

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