This episode of the SFFF drops you straight onto the factory floor with Robert Reif, the Zoomer indie author who somehow writes like a pulp-era wanderer inebriated on optimism. His debut novel, Frontier One, feels like Tarzan meets Sally Ride, wrapped in that old-school, high-adventure energy that so much of science fiction abandoned when it got moody, preachy, and self-righteous.
Robert riffs about Charlie, the jungle-raised flat-world himbo who treats the sky like a ceiling; Talina, the astro-zoologist who drags him into the cosmos and immediately questions every life choice; and the 12-world star system loaded with giant bugs, Cold War moons, and a rogue planet firing off creepy signals. Reif drives the action through character collisions: Charlie crushes, Talina blocks, the crew bickers, and every twist comes from real human choices, not world-building geekery.
The new novel hums with pulpy momentum, the kind a Gen Z author has no business writing but pulls it off anyway. We tear through the plot without spoiling the bigger beats: oxygen-jacked megafauna, inter-moon political brinksmanship, relationship friction, philosophical clashes, and a complex solar system poised for the sequels. Along the way, their conversation takes the scenic route through everything sci-fi fans love to talk about:
- Retro futurism vs. hard-science spreadsheet fiction
- Star Trek optimism vs. Star Wars myth-making
- The Expanse’s appeal
- Why most writers drown their books in lore instead of story
- Why Reif writes like he grew up in 1957 instead of 1997
- Space exploration rants with real heat—Artemis, Mars delusions, lunar sanity
- Why science fiction refuses to die in a world allergic to truth
Meet a new author who rejects nihilism and writes with actual wonder, and loves to talk classic sci-fi, real space exploration, while offering a preview of his expanding 12-world universe. Grab a copy, settle in, and leave him a stellar review.
The Guest
Robert T. Reif is an American science fiction writer, filmmaker, world adventurer and amateur astronomer. He was born in New York City, raised between New York and Connecticut, and studied at Sarah Lawrence College. While writing, he worked behind the scenes on documentaries, commercials and television productions. Frontier One is his first novel.
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