80. A World Where Love is Banned w/ JA Merkel (author of The Fourth Portal)
JA Merkel is the author of the Fall Gauntlet novella series, as well as The Fourth Portal, a dystopian science fiction novel kicking off the Song of Saudade series. Here we mostly discuss the Fourth Portal, set in a distant future on another planet, where love itself has been criminalized. We talk about him, his process, editing, and how the Fourth Portal can be read as a commentary on individualistic vs communal societies. JA, as I found out, spent three years living in South Korea as an ESL teacher, and I just had to pick his brain on that because of the trip I took to Korea in the autumn…
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