House of Mystery Radio Sessions: Sci-Fi/Fantasy author Pat Daily
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
By Alan R Warren and Michael Hawley
Pat Daily is a polymath, serial entrepreneur, gamer, and the author of SPARK, a near-future science fiction novel. Pat began his professional career as an engineer and Air Force test pilot. After leaving the military, Pat worked at NASA’s Johnson Space Center on both the Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs before launching his first company. He has worked globally as a human performance and safety consultant.
When not writing or trying to bring new airplane designs to life, Pat can be found gaming. He is a fan of role-playing games – particularly open worlds with engaging storylines where actions have consequences. Pat and his wife live in Houston.
Interview originally broadcast: January 12th, 2026
Pat Daily’s third book in the Spark Chronicles, Embers, combines leading-edge science with a story of survival, resilience, and progress. A retired Navy pilot who once worked at NASA, Daily approaches his novels with a wealth of technical skill and credibility, so the science in his stories remains grounded even if he’s writing about futuristic tech such as hydrogen-powered aircraft or augmented reality theme parks.
The Spark Chronicles tells a story of a Korean-American boy, Will, orphaned under harrowing circumstances. Trauma and neglect have made him suspicious, defensive, and sleep with knives. Once he enters the foster system, he finds Spark — a Disney-scale theme park based on augmented reality. There, he encounters the enigmatic Feral Daughter, and thanks to their efforts, the children see the hidden secrets of the park, ranging from assassination attempts to global conspiracies. Daily’s characters “feel real because every character, especially, really comes from people’s actual experiences,” he said.
Will, for example, draws on a young man whom Daily and his wife tried to assist; Feral Daughter, his daughter. “I begin with character drives and needs,” says Daily. “That makes it so that authentic behavior, reactions, and dialogue are produced.” Once we get the world out, minor characters will be added to it even more, extending the universe’s dimensions. While publishers have said the series is marketed as young adult, Daily prefers to say, “young at heart.” Their appeal, and the range of their readers, is as broad as the young can understand.
His readers range from teenagers to seniors, and his stories speak to anybody interested in stepping into a world he’s imagined, filled with technology, ethics, and human emotion.
The process of writing is itself meticulous. Daily weighs how real life plays into his mood, mediating it to make sure it reflects the scene he is creating. Music and walks allow him to keep his focus, and beta readers — his daughters, friends, and longtime fans — lend vital feedback that ensures dialogue and character interactions closely resemble real life. Daily is a professional who adds flesh to the story.
His work in hydrogen-and-battery-powered aircraft consulting informs technical dimensions of the books, from realistic physics to reasonable futuristic technologies. “The gross weight of a battery-powered aircraft is the same at takeoff and landing,” he points out, explaining how a real-world focus on detail in aviation impacts the authenticity of a narrative.
Outside of the science, Daily’s writing investigates more profound issues. Optimism, resilience, and hope in humanity’s potential — particularly for the future, against the backdrop of A.I. and tech-fear — pervade the story. While he didn’t intend a subtext to this, the narrative instinctively conveys his faith in human ingenuity. Even the story’s darker aspects, such as assassination attempts and global power struggles, are firmly grounded in emotional realism. Writing about characters who are drawn from real people and put through complex journeys can be intense, Daily recognizes. “Putting them through tribulations can be tough, but knowing where they come out of it helps a lot,” he says. The balance between authentic emotion and plot tension keeps readers hooked. After all, the Spark Chronicles is less about thrill and adventure than it is something more profound. It is a study of character development, ethical dilemmas, and technological possibilities.
Will and Feral Daughter lead readers through a world that has technological advances as well as dangers. The narrative in this novel is more about overcoming obstacles than it is about human ingenuity, as well as science. Pat Daily shows that when you mix a certain amount of technical understanding with some of their imaginative capacities, you produce fiction that is plausible and attractive to everyone interested in adventure, suspense, or a vision of how something could be done.
Full Interview: Pat Daily - Embers - House of Mystery Radio on NBC | Acast
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