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The beauty of science fiction is that it can be pretty much anything. It can be people on spaceships exploring the stars. It can be settlers being stalked and killed by an alien monster. It can be about an alien trying to blend in with humans. It can be bold, scary, amusing, or heartbreaking.
What it can also be is…a cookery show. If you like Bake Off, Masterchef, Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares, or Is It Cake? then you are going to love the book we’re featuring in this episode.
Lavanya Lakshminarayan joins us to discuss her Flavour Hacker series. But while book one, Interstellar Megachef, features a cookery show, it’s also about race, class and prejudice, a theme further explored in book two, Intergalactic Feast, out in March 2026.
Lavanya Lakshminarayan is the author of The Ten Percent Thief, which was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke, BSFA and Locus Awards and featured in Reactor’s Best Books of 2021, and of the critically lauded Interstellar MegaChef, whose sequel Intergalactic Feast is out in 2026.
She is the first science fiction writer to win the Times of India AutHer Award and the Valley of Words Award, both prestigious literary awards in India. She’s occasionally a game designer, and has built worlds for Zynga Inc.’s FarmVille franchise, Mafia Wars, and other games. She lives in India.
