The Big Idea: Alex Shvartsman

To mock a classic trope in your own story, one must first unabashedly love that trope. Author Alex Shvartsman is a die-hard sci-fi fan, which gives him the perfect angle to write his own take on things. Follow along in the Big Idea for his newest novel, The Best of All Possible Planets, as we make fun of tropes (lovingly) together. ALEX SHVARTSMAN: One day, my son read Candide by Voltaire for school, and wanted to discuss the book with me. I remembered enjoying the novella, but it had been decades ago, and I had never read it in English translation. So I opened Project Gutenberg and dove in. I still liked it, but my main takeaway was this: A loose retelling of Candide (sans a load of 17th Century misogyny) would make for an excellent space opera comedy. Every writer knows this feeling—sometimes an idea grabs you by the shirttails and won’t let go until you spill it onto the page. The more I thought about Space Candide the clearer the book structure seemed in my head. My characters…