My latest novel, about the finding and romancing of a hermit on the outer-solar-system moon of Ariel, has reached 43,000 words and still has some way to go, but my mind is already flowing with ideas for another story: the journey of a girl named … Continue readingCrystal Cities in Other Galaxies
Now here’s a topic I haven’t covered before: worldbuilding flags. Visually flags, coats of arms, emblems, and symbols are a pretty big deal when creating fictional settings and sometimes in real life as well, so I’ll offer some thoughts to fill that gap in this … Continue readingWorldbuilding Flags: Some Thoughts
Having been on a Star Trek kick recently, my mind has turned to space-operatic exploration and discovery, and how that will be affected in the far future of my space opera sci-fi setting. The propulsion technology of my science fiction setting is truly powerful, after … Continue readingMy Space Opera’s Far Future: An Age of Navigators?
I’m pleased to report that I’ve already completed 14,000 words of my latest novel, the story about the group of party girls encountering the hermit of Ariel on an expedition to one of the outer solar system’s countless oceans I mentioned in a previous post. … Continue readingThoughts on Ariel and the Adamas Nemesis Girls
“What?” you might ask, “Worldbuilding with Dunbar’s number?” Dunbar’s number, simply put, is the reality that as human beings we can only conceive of a limited number of people in our minds as fully-formed, concrete, flesh-and-blood human beings instead of abstractions. Dunbar’s Number Although the … Continue readingWorldbuilding with Dunbar’s Number
No, I’m not boiling a wicked brew for Macbeth, or for anyone else! You readers and your melodramatic imaginations. Tsk-tsk. Anyway, after the completion of my most recent short story, “A Trip to Starlit Spa”, I have several ideas for my next effort that I’m … Continue readingDouble, Double, Stories and Trouble
With my mind still focusing on worldbuilding for my next novel, “Warp Dawn”, I have fleshed out and expanded some of the races and groups that are out there in my far-future space opera setting, a thousand years after the events of my first four … Continue readingSisterhoods and Hives of my Space Opera
In the course of writing my next novel, provisionally titled “Warp Dawn”, I’ve done some brainstorming for the various alien races the leading man and woman (and their baby daughter!) will encounter during their voyage of cosmic exploration beyond the frontiers mankind has yet reached … Continue readingThe Strange New Worlds of “Warp Dawn”
Why is so much modern science fiction dark and “gritty”, even “dystopian”? We live in dark times, so seeing characters navigate a dark world might speak to our hearts and minds in a way a bright world cannot. Far less excusable in my view is … Continue readingRomantic Realist Science Fiction: A Sublime and Beautiful Future
I haven’t even finished my latest novel yet, though I am writing at a brisk clip, and already my mind turns to my next story. For some reason I find the prospect of setting a story in the far future of my space opera setting … Continue readingTaking my Space Opera into the Far Future