Brian Trent

10/23/2025

Author copies have arrived!!

10/01/2025

Today, my story “The Print Job” is up for free reading at Baen.com! In a near-future of advanced 3D-printing, a murder has been committed, and it falls to an ex-con to figure it out.

“The dead men had printed semi-automatics for their assault on the shop and, from the look of spent casings, must have fired off a thousand cheaply printed bullets. But their target had printed a monster of some kind, and there wasn’t much left of the gunmen by the time Miguel Falcón arrived on the scene…”

https://www.baen.com/print_job

The Print Job by Brian Trent - Baen Books

08/12/2025

As anyone who remembers Kolchak from The Night Strangler knows, modern Seattle is built atop an earlier incarnation, which can be visited. Secret rooms, vast open spaces, old doorways… it’s all down there.

After this descent into the underworld, I then ascended the 605-foot tall Space Needle for drinks and a view, and later visited the Chihuly Gardens and Glass, which looks like a dreamscape inspired by Jules Verne, Lewis Carroll, and W***y Wonka.

08/11/2025

Here in Seattle, a city which retains the same futuristic vibes as when the Space Needle and monorail were unveiled for the 1962 World Fair. Not coincidentally, that year also saw the debut of The Jetsons, whose Skypad Apartments of Orbit City were inspired by Seattle.

I was here 20 years ago, and while lots has changed, Seattle’s fusion of breezy repose and entrepreneurial energy hasn’t faltered. The sheer number of major companies that started here is head-spinning. The Seattle music scene was the soundtrack to my formative years. And Pike Place is as vibrant and delectable as ever, the epitome of what a waterfront marketplace should be.

07/14/2025

Jaws is one of the films that changed my life. No surprise—it changed cinema itself, became the world’s first blockbuster, and launched the career of Steven Spielberg.

JAWS AT 50 is a captivating look at how the classic was made: a documentary on a truly perfect cinematic creation. Terrifying, stirring, adventurous, humorous… and a film that almost didn’t happen (it legitimately bothers me that in an alternate universe Jaws as we know it doesn’t exist). Jaws is as powerful today as it was a half-century ago: structured like a two-act play, and a masterful combination of primal fears and human endurance, Psycho and Moby Dick, a monstrous force of nature and the villains of human greed. The beginning alone is so horrific that I still get knots in my stomach when I go swimming.

JAWS AT 50 is highly recommended.

07/09/2025

Overwhelmingly, sequels and prequels are terrible. From the J.J. Abrams Star Trek films to The Hobbit, Prometheus to anything past Terminator 2, they fail spectacularly. But why? And what are the exceptions? How can sequels and prequels be done right?

This is a subject near and dear to my heart (and career) and the subject of the latest episode of Space Station Squid.

A podcast of science fiction and fantasy discussion, from the classics to the hidden gems, hosted by award-winning sci-fi author Brian Trent.

06/16/2025

This is what happens when my group of friends decides to get together for drinks and a movie, and someone says at the last minute, “How about we pretend it’s the 1920s?”

05/12/2025

My new novel PERDITION’S STORM is now available for preorder! Hitting stores everywhere in November, this is a tale of survival in post-apocalyptic Italy, set in the New York Times-bestselling Black Tide Rising series! If you’d like to support a human author, see below. 🙂

Amazon:
https://a.co/d/axtla5F

Barnes and Noble:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/perditions-storm-brian-trent/1147179880?ean=9781668072967

ZOMBIES MEET THE MAFIA IN JOHN RINGO’S BLACK TIDE RISING UNIVERSE, AUTHORED BY A RISING STAR IN SCIENCE FICTION, BRIAN TRENT!Before the world fell, Silvio Cipriano was a contract-killer for the Italian Mafia. When the H7D3 virus came to Italy, Silvio...

04/29/2025

Most remakes are bad, but some are spectacularly so and miss the entire point of the original. THE TIME MACHINE (1960) is a relatively faithful adaptation of the 1895 novel by H. G. Wells, with a sensitive and thoughtful performance by Rod Taylor. The remake in 2002… not so much (to put it mildly). It actually makes me angry.

Welcome to the subject of this week’s episode, and the question of whether or not the human race can ever learn from its mistakes.

A podcast of science fiction and fantasy discussion, from the classics to the hidden gems, hosted by award-winning sci-fi author Brian Trent.

04/10/2025

Going further down the Nile on the way to Aswan, we’re approaching more recent historical sites. After Alexander the Great dislodged the Persians from Egypt, the Greeks established a centuries-long reign here (ending with Cleopatra).

Alexander insisted that Egyptian customs and religion be respected, and today we see two examples of that: the temples at Edfu and Kom Ombo. The latter is of special significance in that it is dedicated to two gods: Horus, and Sobek the Crocodile God (and hundreds of crocodile mummies have been unearthed in this region). The hieroglyphs tell stories of deities, battles, and even a recipe for making perfume.

Every Egyptologist we spoke to emphasized the sheer amount of to-be-discovered tombs around here; ground-penetrating radar has shown extensive tunnels and chambers, just waiting to be exhumed.

And so our trip winds to a close. Egypt has always had a special place in my heart. From now on—like the timeless obelisks—it will live forever in my mind and soul, too.

04/09/2025

Today we visited the West Bank for the Valley of the Kings, the Mortuary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, and the Colossi of Memnon (a misnomer, as these were actually built for the mighty Amenhotep III, who presided over a sublime Golden Age in Egyptian history).

The Valley of the Kings is cut directly into the rock, and contains more than 60 tombs… with plenty yet to unearth. In a perfect world we’d be betting on which archaeology team would make the next major discovery, in the way that we obsess about football teams.

The Temple of Hatshepsut is a wonder to behold, even in its vandalized state. Hatshepsut’s reign was marked by stability and trade, though her legacy was nearly erased by her stepson after her death. The Colossi of Amenhotep III stand to honor one of Egypt’s greatest pharaohs—a patron of the arts and builder of nationwide prosperity. Unfortunately, he was succeeded by a lunatic son whose religious fanaticism brought ruin and destruction to Egypt. Bad leaders bring down great civilizations, imagine that.

04/08/2025

The Nile is a sapphire serpent, taking us four hundred miles south of Cairo to the glorious sites of Karnak and Luxor.

Karnak is the largest temple complex in the world. To approach it, you walk the Avenue of Sphinxes… and then you enter a breathtaking wonderland of obelisks, statues, and a forest of gigantic columns reaching 70 feet in height. The original dyes are still visible after more than 3,600 years. Hatshepsut’s obelisk is 97 feet tall and, astoundingly, is carved from a single block of granite.

This ancient place is a fusion of library, art gallery, and religious center. Both Luxor and Karnak were once part of the ancient city of Thebes.