The biggest challenge in a sci-fi mystery is figuring out exactly what to focus on and how long to focus on it. Because the entire world is speculative, the reader usually doesn’t have a good reference point for anything you create, which means you have to describe a lot more. Descriptions of fully realized, speculative worlds is of course one of the joys of reading science fiction in the first place, so you don’t want to skimp too much on this.
Tim Chawaga – 13 August 2025
The Back Flap
Triss Mackey is flying just under the radar, exploiting a government loophole that lets her live quietly aboard the Floating Ghost—her rented, sentient CabanaBoat. In exchange, she dives for recycling, recovered from the flooded area of formerly-coastal cities known as the yoreshore. If she happens to find some salvagia—nostalgic salvage, valued artifacts from the past—well, that’s just between her and the highest bidder.
But when the federal government begins withdrawing from Florida entirely, Triss must buy the Ghost outright or lose her loophole. Meanwhile, the corporate mafias are poised to seize power, especially Mourning in Miami, led by the legendary Edgar Ortiz, owner of the Astro America luxury hotel. Triss needs a score big enough to keep her free from both the feds and corporations, before the Ghost is sent to a watery, insurance-scamming grave.
In pursuit of such a score, she stumbles upon the chained up, drowned corpse of Ortiz, and winds up with more than she bargained for, including a partnership with Ortiz’s hotshot spaceracing son, Riley. If she can help Riley solve the mystery of his father’s death, it may lead them to a valuable piece of salvagia and with it, the hope of a sustainable, free way of Florida living.
About the book
What is the book about?
Salvagia is set in flooded near-future South Florida. Triss Mackey is flying just under the radar, exploiting a government loophole that lets her live quietly aboard the Floating Ghost—her rented, sentient CabanaBoat. In exchange, she dives for recycling, recovered from the flooded area of formerly-coastal cities known as the yoreshore. If she happens to find some salvagia—nostalgic salvage, valued artifacts from the past—well, that’s just between her and the highest bidder.
But when the federal government begins withdrawing from Florida entirely, Triss must buy the Ghost outright or lose her loophole. Meanwhile, the corporate mafias are poised to seize power, especially Mourning in Miami, led by the legendary Edgar Ortiz, owner of the Astro America luxury hotel. Triss needs a score big enough to keep her free from both the feds and corporations, before the Ghost is sent to a watery, insurance-scamming grave.
In pursuit of such a score, she stumbles upon the chained up, drowned corpse of Ortiz, and winds up with more than she bargained for, including a partnership with Ortiz’s hotshot spaceracing son, Riley. If she can help Riley solve the mystery of his father’s death, it may lead them to a valuable piece of salvagia and with it, the hope of a sustainable, free way of Florida living.
When did you start writing the book?
I wrote the initial concept into a short story in 2019, and then worked on expanding it.
How long did it take you to write it?
I worked on it on and off for a few years. The first draft of the novel version probably took me about a year. Then I re-wrote it entirely quite a few times while trying to get an agent.
Where did you get the idea from?
I remember picking up a copy of the book Seasteading which was a sort of proof-of-concept manifesto for a non-profit backed by Peter Thiel to figure out how libertarians could live at sea in the future instead of paying taxes or whatever it is they felt they couldn’t do on land. And I thought that it would be interesting to approach it from the other way: using technology to create sustainable, speculative communities in the spirit of places like Christiania in Copenhagen, and put them in the abandoned, de-regulated places of the near-future, like the newly eroded coasts.
At around the same time, I was really compelled by the work of John D. MacDonald, particularly the Travis McGee series, and I thought that character represented the sort of counter-culture personality that would fit well in that world. And I wanted to wrap it all up in a mystery.
Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?
The biggest challenge in a sci-fi mystery is figuring out exactly what to focus on and how long to focus on it. Because the entire world is speculative, the reader usually doesn’t have a good reference point for anything you create, which means you have to describe a lot more. Descriptions of fully realized, speculative worlds is of course one of the joys of reading science fiction in the first place, so you don’t want to skimp too much on this.
But a mystery lives and dies by plot and pacing. Spend too long describing details like the finance policies that exacerbated hyper-inflation at the exact moment in time that adoption of the metric system was being forced through Congress which is why the US dollar is now the kiloDollar and why it has a new name in the future might be interesting to some economists but ultimately is a momentum-killer.
Another challenge was writing the book in first person. Everything happening in the world is experienced through the point of view of my protagonist, Triss. She can only describe what she is aware of, and in science fiction this can sometimes be a challenge, for the world-building requirements stated above. But, that kind of focus can also help with momentum and pacing.
What came easily?
Dialogue. My background is in playwriting, and even in fiction I typically write the dialogue of most of my scenes first to get the rhythm and the characters’ points of view before filling them in with action and description. Regarding the pacing challenges above, I found dialogue to be a useful momentum-keeper: it’s much more interesting to have two characters talk about a world-building item amongst each other than to have one character monologue it to the reader.
Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?
Pretty fictitious. The character of Myra, in my head, looks and sounds like an old co-worker of mine, and is based on fictional Travis McGee’s fictional best friend Meyer. My protagonist Triss is based on Travis.
We all know how important it is for writers to read. Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write and, if so, how have they influenced you?
For this book in particular, the work of John D. MacDonald, particularly the Travis McGee series. The setting, characters, and voice. But also, the style of description. John D. MacDonald writes these really clear, interesting pictures of people and characters in very few sentences. I tried to write both vividly and sparsely.
In general the works of Kim Stanley Robinson, Becky Chambers, and Annalee Newitz all greatly influenced my world-building here.
Do you have a target reader?
People who are interested in serialized sci-fi, like the Murderbot Diaries and middle-aged dad-types who like a mystery beach read.
About Writing
Do you have a writing process? If so can you please describe it?
My writing process is barely organized chaos. I do typically start with a rough outline, and then every chapter I pretty much have to re-write the outline. It’s more inspirational than anything else, a recording of what could possibly happen (and what very likely doesn’t). Then when it comes to writing the actual chapters themselves, they are in a constant state of change.
It takes a long time. Often my sentences just end so I can get to the next sentence and then a couple days later I’ll come back to the first sentence and then delete the sentence that was so exciting I skipped to it. Sometimes I hit “Return” twice and then just take another stab at the paragraph I just wrote. Sometimes I make a character repeat what they just said two pages ago just to see how it looks to have them say it there. Or maybe as a power play, who knows.
I sort of understand how people write novels longhand but I do not understand how they wrote them with typewriters; if I wrote five thousand words of one continuous thought and published it, I think my driver’s license would be revoked.
Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?
Yes, mostly jazz.
For Salvagia I had a playlist, which I’d never really done before but it ended up being a really good way to get in the zone. There’s some Florida music on there, like Will McLean and Gloria Estefan. I put it on shuffle but always started with The Band’s wailing cover of Atlantic City, about people down on their luck getting dressed up and going out on the town anyway.
About Publishing
Did you submit your work to Agents?
Yes.
What made you decide to go Indie, whether self-publishing or with an indie publisher? Was it a particular event or a gradual process?
My agents submitted my book to various editors, and the editor that was interested enough to make an offer, Toni Kirkpatrick, happened to be at an independent publisher. We met and got along really well, and her excitement about the project is what made me want to work with Diversion.
Did you get your book cover professionally done or did you do it yourself?
The cover was created by Steve Thomas, who did an amazing job and does amazing work. He has a lot of retro-sci-fi natural park-inspired prints, and Salvagia is exactly all of those things. I couldn’t be happier with the cover which is beautiful.
Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?
We are working with a marketing agency called Books Forward.
About You
Where did you grow up?
Haverford, PA
Where do you live now?
Brooklyn, NY
What are you working on now?
The sequel to Salvagia, and also a new, completely unrelated project about airport lounges and AI.
End of Interview:
Get your copy of Salvagia from Amazon US.