A.D. Sui is a Ukrainian-born, queer, disabled science fiction writer, and the author of THE DRAGONFLY GAMBIT and the forthcoming Erewhon novel, THE IRON GARDEN SUTRA (2026). She is a failed academic, retired fencer, and coffee enthusiast. Her short fiction has appeared in Augur, Fusion Fragment, HavenSpec, and other venues. When not wrangling her two dogs you can find her on every social media platform as @thesuiway – https://thesuiway.ca/
Jean-Paul L. Garnier is the owner of Space Cowboy Books bookstore and publishing house, producer of Simultaneous Times Podcast (2023 Laureate Award Winner, BSFA, Ignyte, and British Fantasy Award Finalist), and editor of the SFPA’s Star*Line magazine. He is also the deputy editor-in-chief of Worlds of IF & Galaxy magazines. In 2024 he won the Laureate Award for Best Editor. He has written many books of poetry and science fiction. https://spacecowboybooks.com/
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JPG – The Dragonfly Gambit has all of the elements of space opera: a big story, politics, empire, worldbuilding, etc., but unlike most modern space operas the book is short – how did you manage to create such a large-scale story in so few words, and what are your feelings on space opera as a sub-genre?
A.D. S – First, thank you so much! I want to say that space opera has a long-running tradition of glorifying empires. They’re almost the natural default government system in far-future science fiction, which positions them as a sort of inevitability. But historically, we know this isn’t true. Empires fall all the time. That’s the whole point. So, I really wanted to focus on a time of an empire falling.
As far as the structure goes, I can’t remember who said it, it might have been one of my agency siblings, but in a novel, each scene fights for its right to exist. In a short story, every sentence does. A novella is somewhere in between, so my editing wasn’t as ruthless as it would have been for a short story, but I was definitely focusing on each sentence delivering either character development or new information, and preferably both. Also, as much as it is a space opera, it also has *one* location where most of the action takes place. So, I could really go into a lot of detail about the world/order of things by describing this one place instead of jumping between locations.
JPG – One of the themes in the book is sacrifice and martyrdom, sacrifice being an arcane tradition to the culture in the book – can you speak about the nature of sacrifice and weighing individual characters against large-scale problems?
A.D. S – It’s a bit of a pipe dream to think that one person can shift the tides of history. I don’t think anyone is that special. It’s one of the reasons why, as a genre, science fiction and fantasy are moving away from, or challenging, the Chosen One narrative. But how often do you see a disabled protagonist who is a woman, in her thirties, and by every marker, a failure, be The Chosen One? That was fun to write, and yes, very self-indulgent.
Now, sacrifice and martyrdom were two themes that felt natural when having a conversation about militaries. Martyrdom is baked into military culture, you can’t escape it. Historically, militaries uphold and immortalize those who lose their lives in combat. We label these people as heroes while simultaneously treating them terribly while they’re still alive or if they remained alive (see the utter lack of any decent veterans’ services). It’s easier to herald someone as a hero than to actually treat them as such. There is a tension in there between the shine of heroism, and the loss of life and the absolute meaninglessness of it while it’s still there.
JPG – Many of the characters are fighter pilots, and there some epic dog fights in the novella. Can you speak about writing action scenes in space?
A.D. S – Oh, so much fun! I am notoriously not great when it comes to writing action scenes and things get even trickier in space. Where is up in space? Who knows, not me. There was a lot of ‘paperclip flying over my laptop’ involved in developing those.
Fun fact: since there is no air resistance in space those fighters don’t need to be aerodynamic at all. They can just be cubes. That’s a fun thought!
JPG – The book is written in a casual tone which emphasizes the confidence of the protagonist, Nez. Can you speak about her self-assuredness amidst disability and being ostracized?
A.D. S – That’s my Eastern European sense of humor coming through. The logic behind gallows humor goes as such: if you can laugh about it, then it’s not so bad, and Nez has had a lot of bad stuff happen to her and a lot of people treat her poorly. In many ways, it’s a wall she places between herself and everyone else. A few times during the story you see the cracks form and you peek inside and see how these insults get to her, how difficult it is for her to execute her plan, how much her disability frustrates her even as she believes herself capable. But to the outside observer she’s calm and confident. It’s all a ruse, one she keeps up until the very end.
JPG – Similarly, the antagonist, Rezal, masks weakness with bravado – can you speak about this choice and how she counterbalances Nez?
A.D. S – Rezal is an interesting character because she has just as much to lose as Nez if she is found out, but where Nez can use the image of the “poor, disabled woman” to her advantage to get people to underestimate her, Rezal can’t. Her whole persona is built around the image of perfection and indestructibility. One of the games that Nez and Rezal are playing is the assessment of how capable each one is. Each one knows the other’s secret and tries to force their hand to reveal it.
JPG – Even though most of the story takes place on a spaceship, the decadence of power is vividly described, as are the unnecessary accouttrements of power. Tell us about using setting to explore power dynamics.
A.D. S – So many of the visual elements in Rezal’s living quarters are inspired by Russian aristocracy. I’m Ukrainian, so we’ve been fed this idea of the “superior Russian culture” for a very long time. Progress was positioned as gold-framed oil portraits and heavy, long, dining room tables. Carpets and applique wallpaper. This comes up several times in Rezal’s and Nez’s conversations about what progress is and what the colonies were before the Rule. Nez, and her people are positioned as “uncivilized” before the Rule and suggested that they should be grateful to assimilate into a prosperous empire.
We also see that this decadence of décor does nothing to stop the ultimate fall. From her “shithole” apartment and then her equally unimpressive quarters aboard the mothership, Nez manages to achieve her goal, even if she never improves her “status”. The shiny things mean nothing to her, same as the “Great Russian Culture” means nothing to me.
JPG – One aspect of the characters that stuck out to me is the tenderness between adversaries, how did you use this to heighten the drama of the story?
A.D. S – I’ve heard a number of times now that Dragonfly is an enemies-to-lovers story, and it’s not! There is no love there. There are many people who have complicated and mainly negative feelings towards one another. They also have sex.
The moments of tenderness serve a purpose. I didn’t want to write characters that were all bad, comedically bad even. Plenty of terrible people in history had soft spots for family members, for their pets. I wanted to highlight that, specifically in Rezal. There is no redemption for her, she is borderline evil, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want connection. That’s the most awful part of it, I think, that people who commit horrible atrocities are also people who want to be loved and cared for. Those two drives don’t cancel out one another. They co-exist, and that’s why we should always be careful. It’s not the comedically evil people that are the most dangerous.
JPG – In relation to the previous question, tell us about using sexuality as a weapon, seduction versus betrayal, and how the corruption of power plays into this while personal feelings are also on the line.
A.D. S – I think at some point Rezal buys into the idea that Nez is into her, and Nez really *is* into Rezal. But this is more of a “game recognizes game” scenario than genuine affection. It’s all part of them trying to get the other to slip, just another technique. I also think sex is a great opportunity to demonstrate the ways in which power might shift even if for a moment.
*shout out to my editor, dave, who didn’t edit the sex scene in the book because if he did I would have shriveled up and never written anything ever again.
JPG – In some ways this book is about revenge, but it didn’t feel like the classic revenge tale – how did you navigate this trope while keeping it fresh?
A.D. S – I never thought of Dragonfly as a revenge story. To me, it’s a redemption story of how Nez figures out what she stands for and how far she’s willing to go for her convictions. Shay rightfully calls her out on her moral high ground early in the book. Even given the circumstances, she had participated in the very structure she is attempting to bring down. She even wanted to thrive within its parameters without challenging them. That’s a fact. She has to reckon with that before she can move ahead.
Shamefully, I hadn’t read that many classic revenge stories, so I am largely unfamiliar with the tropes!
JPG – What’s next for you, and what are you currently working on?
A.D. S – I recently announced that I’ll be having not one, but two whole books coming from Erewhon. So, I’m currently in editing land, trying to keep my search history from placing me on a watch list. (shameless plug) I’d encourage anyone curious about what’s coming up to subscribe to my newsletter, Facts for Fiction [https://thesuiway.beehiiv.com/subscribe].
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Great interview!