What is the title of your latest release?
THE FRANCHISE
What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
A film studio, after producing a fantasy film series for many decades, decides to create a “living set” of the franchise’s fantasy world and populate it with people whose memories have been changed so that they think they are really part of that world. The studio thinks it will be a great way to create more content. Surely, there won’t be any negative repercussions.
How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
The fantasy world itself is a pretty generic, European medieval setting, so the film studio had to build their set somewhere that visually could stand-in for that while also keeping the characters isolated from the real world. In early drafts I had this simply be up in the Adirondacks, but ultimately it had to be on an island to keep everyone contained. But it couldn’t be a tropical one and couldn’t be too isolated itself. The island of Madeira met most of these plot requirements and also offered additional story opportunities.
Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Glenn is an actor who has been hired by the film studio to shepherd the set’s storylines along. His memory has not been changed. And no, I would not hang out with him. He’s not a very fun hang.
What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Vain, Insecure, and Needy. He’s not evil but he’s not trying his best, you know?
What’s something you learned while writing this book?
When it comes to chapter organization, simpler is always better. This is really a lesson about story structure in novels. I have a lot of time jumps and POV shifts in this book, and having “Part 1: Chapter 1: Interstitial” or whatever doesn’t help a reader navigate that. The chapters themselves have to communicate where you are, chronologically and in terms of character, and if they don’t then whatever fancy scheme you have for arranging your chapters won’t matter.
Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
It’s very iterative. I do try to get a full “draft” done with the entire story down before going back to edit it, but if I know a scene or chapter isn’t working I won’t wait to rework it. Sometimes the rest of the book won’t flow out if one part is stuck. Other times it doesn’t matter, and I can write around a problematic section until I get to edits, which is really where the book comes together anyway.
What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Is bourbon a food? If so, then a nice glass of bourbon on ice.
Describe your writing space/office!
The third bedroom in our house is the “study,” which means it has some desks, bookshelves, Lego sets, and a lot of boxes we’re eventually going to unpack. (We’ve lived in our place for eight years, so we’ll get there soon.) I do a lot of work in there but most of my writing (which I do longhand in early drafts anyway) actually happens all over the place. Really anywhere I can manage to get the pen out. A whole lot of writing happens in bed after everyone else is asleep for the night.
Who is an author you admire?
Jeff VanderMeer is that rare thing, a true literary science fiction writer. That is, he’s equally as serious about his prose as he is about his speculative ideas, and vice versa. That’s really hard to do, and especially hard to do successfully. He’s also prolific, publishing frequently, something that nearly all my favorite writers have always been.
Is there a book that changed your life?
THE CANTERBURY TALES. During my sophomore year of college I took a Chaucer class where we spent the first month really honing in on the language and learning to read Middle English. Then we spent the rest of the semester working our way through the Tales. I was entranced. The humor, the mixing and playing with genre, the multiplicity of voices, the social commentary: that book has everything. I went to graduate school just so I could keep reading it all the time.
Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
I was doing the most mundane thing, which was sorting receipts after a work trip. My agent and I had been going back and forth with the publisher for some time over the manuscript, sharing and pitching different ways the book might work or be edited, so although it wasn’t out of the blue I had started to wonder if maybe this one wasn’t going to work out. But I was happily wrong about that, my agent congratulated me, I hung up, and then I had to go back to sorting receipts.
What’s your favorite genre to read?
Probably just in terms of how much of it I read of it, science fiction and fantasy. But I do read very broadly, and there are things about most every genre that I really love.
What’s your favorite movie?
If I could mash together a bunch of Coen Brothers movies (some combination of Miller’s Crossing/Fargo/Big Lebowski/A Serious Man/Inside Llewyn Davis, perhaps), you’d probably get the closest you can to my own creative interests and sensibilities. But just in terms of a single movie, probably Casablanca. You can’t beat perfect.
What is your favorite season?
Fall. Not for any surprising reason, just that the leaves are pretty.
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
This year my birthday was during a big blizzard, so we were stuck inside all day and just watched a bunch of movies on Blu-Ray. It was nice!
What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Notes from a Regicide, by Isaac Fellman. It came out last year and was just nominated for a Locus Award. I hope it gets a bunch more awards nominations. It’s an incredible book: a trans artist’s prison diary from a far future, Renaissance Venice-esque dictatorship, interspersed with his adopted son’s ruminations on it (and on his relationship to his parents) in New York City many years later. It’s a book about politics, trans love, bodies, and art, specifically painting. The speculative elements seem light but are central to the story. It’s not just a literary family saga where you can lift the speculative stuff out of it and have it still mostly work. It’s really wonderful. A book totally of the present moment but which speaks beyond the now, as well.
What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Various Asian cuisines. Sushi, of course, but also Chinese and Thai. Vietnamese is great, as well.
What do you do when you have free time?
If I’m not doing something with my family I’m probably reading or watching the Phillies.
What can readers expect from you next?
My next book, tentatively titled WE USED TO BE HEROES, will be published by Tor in the spring of 2027. It’s about a suburban Narnia. In other words, it’s about hell.
A FanFiAddict Most Anticipated Title!
Game of Thrones meets The Truman Show in this epic tale of a Hollywood-owned fantasy world where nothing is quite as it seems to the people who live and die at the studio’s whim.
A land filled with magic and dragons and wizards and warriors.
Thousands of people live and work within its borders, fearful of their enemies and loyal to their king.
The classic fantasy world of The Malicarn has been brought to life on the big screen in a series of phenomenally successful blockbuster movies, almost entirely populated by characters in total belief that their sham fantasy lives are real.
A fan-favorite actor finds himself doubting the studio's work, but this franchise has an almost unstoppable momentum, and bringing freedom to a population that already believes itself to be free won’t be as easy as he thinks.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Fiction Adventure | Science Fiction [ Tor Books, On Sale: May 12, 2026, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9781250406583 / eISBN: 9781250406590 ]
Thomas Elrod lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and daughter. His writing has appeared in the LA Review of Books, Independent Weekly, and elsewhere. The Franchise is his first novel.
No comments posted.
© 2003-2026