What is the title of your latest release?
DAEDALUS IS DEAD
What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
Daedalus, who famously designed the Labyrinth that imprisoned the Minotaur, enters the underworld to look for the ghost of his son, Icarus, who died using the wings his father built. Daedalus also looks back on his own memories of Crete, trying to understand why Icarus ignored his warnings and flew too close to the sun. It’s about becoming a parent and having to own up to the ways you’re complicit in the brutally unfair world your kid has to live in.
How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
The image of the Labyrinth at Knossos on the island of Crete has been in my psychic attic for a long, long time.
Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Definitely not, too much risk of getting fed to a Minotaur.
What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Creative, cowardly, crafty.
What’s something you learned while writing this book?
I learned I could finish a book! I’ve started and abandoned two novels, usually running out of gas and ideas between 20k and 30k words. Daedalus is Dead started as an exercise for a writing class, then snowballed. I saw Nightfire, Tor’s horror imprint, had an open call for novellas coming up, so I worked to finish the story and ended up with a complete draft of about 27k words by the submission deadline. Then after submitting it I had ideas for more chapters and the next draft expanded by around 10k words. It wanted to grow, much like the Labyrinth in the story. So I succeeded in finishing a book by not trying to write a book, initially. The book I’m currently working on also started as a writing exercise that grew into a story that grew into a novel, so that approach is still working for me.
Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
The former. I generally draft a chapter in longhand in a pocket notebook, then rewrite while transcribing it into a Word document. Dennis Lehane was one of my favorite crime writers in college and I read about him using that method, so I adopted it too. It takes longer to complete a draft, but you can get one whole round of rewrites out of the way by the time anyone sees your pages.
What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
There used to be a burger place near our apartment that made an exquisite salmon burger with spicy aioli. It paired well with a chocolate shake.
Describe your writing space/office!
I have a writing desk, but I end up at various spots around our living room. I might write in the comfy chair by the bookshelf, or on the couch, or at the dining table. Often I work in the early morning before the kids are up, so I have the room to myself. My desk has artwork by our eldest, and a framed map of Raymond Chandler landmarks in Los Angeles, and a statue of John Constantine that my best friend gave me.
Who is an author you admire?
I aspire to the level of honesty and compassion and wry social criticism that Victor LaValle demonstrates in his books. His voice is that of a friend who loves you enough to tell you some hard truths you might not want to hear. And he depicts fatherhood wonderfully.
Is there a book that changed your life?
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. This was the first book I remember checking out from the grown-up Sci-Fi/Fantasy section at Abington Free Library. It was an older hardcover edition with an enormous, blue-masked Martian on the cover holding up their open hands with palms toward the reader, right above the image of a gorgeous insectile landing craft suspended over the Martian landscape. I don’t remember if I decided I wanted to write genre fiction right then, or if it happened over the course of reading the book.
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.
We had a good conversation with Eli Goldman at Tor.com in late 2023, and they made an offer for the book shortly thereafter. But I have a particularly vivid memory of getting the call from my now-agent, Cameron McClure, almost a year before that. It was December, and I had just pulled my oldest kid out of day care and taken him to urgent care because he came down with pinkeye. So I was pushing my son down the street in Jersey City in his stroller, with his oozing eye, it was cold and wet and maybe snowing, when Cameron called me to tell me she liked the Daedalus manuscript. I thought, “This is it, I did it.” And then we went to get pinkeye medicine.
What’s your favorite genre to read?
In the last few years, I’ve become more of a horror guy. John Langan, Tananarive Due, Stephen Graham Jones, Victor LaValle, I can’t get enough of their stuff. The Shining has become something of a sacred text. I try to work horror elements into my fiction, but I haven’t written a straight horror story… yet.
What’s your favorite movie?
This changes all the time, but Candyman may be the movie I think about the most at this point in my life. The music, the images, that unbelievable Tony Todd/Virginia Madsen chemistry, the way both Todd’s performance and the script depict a larger-than-life urban legend, the matter-of-fact unpacking of how segregated infrastructure works, Clive Barker’s beautiful, bloody voice made flesh… it’s got everything and it all gels into a perfect movie.
What is your favorite season?
Fall.
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
My birthday is the same week as Free Comic Book Day, so I take my kids, and we all get comics.
What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
I just saw 28 Years Later and it flattened me. It’s mostly a movie about a sensitive young boy and the different paths adults show him for dealing with a society rife with violence, sickness, alienation, and death – you know, a society nothing like ours. It’s such a gorgeous, colorful, bighearted film, and its themes are always top of mind for me now. I can’t wait to watch it with my boys when they’re big enough, assuming they grow up liking that kind of thing.
What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
I tend to reach for greasy, unhealthy pub food when I’m out. Fish and chips, buffalo chicken sandwiches, that type of thing. We’re making a conscious effort to cook more at home so we’re not ordering in or eating sandwiches all the time, and I’ve been getting more into hearty vegetarian food that doesn’t suck, which was not much of a presence in my life before marriage. We have a bean and sweet potato chili we make that is filling and easy, and mango tofu avocado bowls with coconut rice.
What do you do when you have free time?
I read in the tub, or go out to see a matinee while the kids are at school.
What can readers expect from you next?
I’m working on a novel about superheroes, fascism, and the shitty trajectory America has been on since 9/11. It’s moody but I promise it’s also fun and exciting.
DAEDALUS IS DEAD by Seamus Sullivan
A delirious and gripping story of fatherhood and masculinity, told through the reimagined Greek myth of Daedalus, Icarus, King Minos, Ariadne, and the Minotaur.
Daedalus of Crete is many things: The greatest architect in the world. The constructor of the Labyrinth that imprisoned the Minotaur. And the grieving father of Icarus, who plunged into the sea as father and son flew from the grasp of the tyrannical King Minos.
Now, Daedalus seeks to reunite with Icarus in the Underworld, even as he revisits his own memories of Crete, hoping to understand what went so terribly wrong at the end of his son’s life. Daedalus will confront any terror to see Icarus again—whether it be the vengeful spirit of Minos, the cunning Queen Persephone, or the insatiable ghost of the Minotaur.
But the truth, stalking Daedalus in the labyrinth of his own heart, might be too monstrous for him to bear.
Fantasy [Tor, On Sale: September 30, 2025, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9781250370471 / eISBN: 9781250370488]
Buy DAEDALUS IS DEAD: Amazon.com | Kindle | BN.com | Apple Books | Kobo | Books-A-Million | Indie BookShops | Ripped Bodice | Walmart.com | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | Amazon FR
About Seamus Sullivan
Seamus Sullivan’s fiction has appeared in Terraform and his book reviews have appeared in Strange Horizons. He lives in Jersey City with his family. Deadalus is Dead is his first novel.
No Comments
Comments are closed.