BookView Review

Welcome to BookView Interview, a conversation series where BookView talks to authors.

Recently, we interviewed Christian Hurst about his writing and recently released book, Lily Starling and the Death Machine, a high-stakes, character-driven YA sci-fi with a distinctly dystopian edge (Read the review here.).

What does literary success look like to you?

I try to keep my definition of success fluid. I entered the workforce during the financial crisis, and my career in advertising taught me how to adapt and reinvent myself over time. That mindset has actually brought me a lot of happiness in my work.

I didn’t necessarily plan on being exactly where I am today, but I do consider myself successful—and more importantly, fulfilled. I’ve always seen myself as a creative professional, and publishing novels after years of storytelling feels like a natural next chapter in that journey.

Ultimately, success for me comes down to connection. It’s about the work reaching readers and resonating with them. The fact that people are reading these stories and genuinely enjoying them—that’s the part that means the most to me.

What inspired the premise of your book?

Science fiction has always been a huge part of my life. When you’re kind of a weird kid who looks at the world differently, you appreciate having other worlds to escape to. It takes the pressure off.

But then you realize the lessons there actually apply to real life.

There are certain themes I’ve explored in my work a lot, related to time and connection. There’s this phenomenon I talk about a lot: when you are truly honest with yourself and true to who you are on the inside, it can get a little lonely. Because there are no automatic clicks.

I wrote these books with the main message that connection happens. And continues to happen. Don’t give up — I think that’s the most important message young people need to hear.

Tell us some more about your book.

This is the latest installment in the Lily Starling series—a YA to upper YA science fiction series inspired by classic pulpy space opera, but told in a more modern, lyrical style with a focus on emotional realism.

Each book explores a different stage of Lily’s journey. In the first, she’s finding herself in an unfamiliar world and trying to understand who she is. The second asks what you do when you come up against something that feels unstoppable. Book three is about what it means to hold onto hope in darker, more complicated circumstances.

This story picks up directly where Storm Riders left off. Lily continues that mission, but it quickly becomes something else. She’s forced into the role of the investigator, and the tone shifts into something closer to a sci-fi thriller. There’s a kind of slow descent into obsession—almost Fincher-like in how it builds.

At the same time, the idea of connection we talked about earlier is still central. Lily isn’t a dark, brooding hero—she’s the hero who shows up. The question becomes how she adapts to everything unfolding around her, and how she manages to hold onto hope through it.

Keeping hope alive is the journey.

What makes this book important right now?

It’s interesting because a lot of these ideas are things I’ve been thinking about for a long time. There’s the version of this story that existed when I first imagined it twenty years ago, and then there’s what it’s become now.

One of the themes I’ve always been drawn to is the idea of a wide-scale pandemic. This book was originally drafted with a contagious space virus as part of the backdrop. It’s not the central plot, but when COVID happened, I revisited the story and saw it differently.

What stood out to me wasn’t just the event itself, but how people respond to it. How information moves. How different groups interpret the same situation in completely different ways. And how quickly fear can be reshaped into something else—something more convenient, like paranoia.

I considered pulling that element back, but it still felt like the right backdrop. Not because it mirrors our reality directly, but because it creates the conditions to explore larger ideas. This is a very different situation, with a very different conspiracy, but it allows the story to look at things like societal stratification, control of information, and complicity.

I’ve always been drawn to writers like Victor Hugo and Ursula Le Guin—especially in how they explore the cost of absolutism. That’s something I try to carry into my own work. I want every perspective in the story to feel grounded, even when it’s in conflict. Even the villains are coming from somewhere real.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced as a writer?

For me, it’s focus.

I have so many ideas I want to get out into the world. I’ve talked to writers who spend years perfecting one book and then have no idea what to do next. I’m the complete opposite. I always know what comes next—the problem is there are only so many hours in the day. Or, in my case, in the night, after everyone else has gone to bed.

Where some may lack ideas, I tend to have too many, and I have to choose which ones get my full attention. The real challenge is actually sitting down and doing the work when I have the time.

What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?

I usually know where the story is going. I tend to have the larger arc mapped out. Where I sometimes get stuck is in the emotional reality of the characters.

There was a moment while I was writing Storm Riders—I was sitting down to write Xynn’s interlude, “The Caste We Choose,” and something wasn’t clicking. I couldn’t move forward. It was just… off.

I went back to the introduction, to the flashback on Adius II. I had written enough to understand what their time together felt like—but I hadn’t actually put that feeling fully on the page.

So I stopped and wrote Tea With Razh, which is now part of the novella Love on Adius II. I wrote it in one night. It’s the only complete story I’ve done in first person from Lily’s perspective, and it’s really just about the ache of new love—two people trying to face the reality of the world while wanting to stay in that moment forever.

Once I had that, everything else in Storm Riders made sense. I understood what they were trying to get back to.

That’s the challenge for me. The characters are very real in an emotional sense, and I have to feel it before I can write it. If I don’t believe it, it doesn’t go on the page.

After I finished Chapter 3 of Death Machine, I actually had to step away for two weeks. It hit hard enough that I almost walked away from the book entirely.

So for me, the hardest part isn’t structure or plotting—it’s making sure the emotional truth is there.

What life experiences have shaped your writing most?

I grew up in a religious family, and that gave me a very specific perspective early on. I’m no longer religious, but I’m not resentful or antagonistic toward it. I’m actually very grateful for my upbringing.

At the same time, I often felt like I was on the outside looking in. I credit my parents for giving me the space to explore who I was internally, and a lot of that exploration came through reading, movies, art, and music.

Over time, I developed a strong sense of identity—of what makes me, me. But like I mentioned earlier, that can be a little lonely. You don’t always fit neatly into predefined spaces.

I think that perspective is actually ideal for a storyteller. You become an observer. You pay attention to people, to how they think and feel, to the spaces between what’s said and unsaid. I have a lot of empathy for the people around me, and I tend to carry those observations with me.

And then, eventually, they show up in the work.

What’s next for you?

The Lily Starling series is planned as a five-book arc. Book four is already well underway, and it’s going to lean more heavily into time travel—something readers have been asking me to revisit since the first book.

There’s a reason it comes in here, though. Up to this point, Lily has been figuring out who she is and building a sense of stability. Book four asks what happens when someone reaches that point—and then has it used against them.

This isn’t about Lily confronting her flaws in the same way. It’s about being forced to make difficult decisions. A lot of the choices we face in life aren’t clear right or wrong—they’re between two neutral options, or two bad ones, or even two good ones. Those are often the hardest decisions to make, especially when there’s no one else who can make them for you.

We’re moving into the second half of the series now, but in a lot of ways, it feels like things are just getting started.

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