About two years ago, a young friend of my daughter asked me if I would write a science fiction story for a collection his new publishing company wanted to compile. My overall focus had been historical fiction and, more recently, a collection of short stories about a pair of star crossed lovers and music and ambivalence. While it had been a while since I'd read much (any!) science fiction, I realized that I really enjoyed movies of that genre and figured it could be a fun challenge to see what I could do. So I said sure, why not!
The press told me they wanted "hard" science fiction and encouraged me to read some of the classic early stories and novels to get a feel for the genre. Well, it turns out we didn't see eye to eye illustrations and style for the piece, so we've parted ways and I'll be looking to go Indie and put it out as an ebook when the time comes.
And so I got to work, mainly buying collections of classic stories and reading them on my Kindle and/or iBooks. Wow, some wonderful stuff, several I'd read before, a long time ago in a galaxy far away, and I quickly realized that sci fi, while draped in the details of otherworldly places and times, was essentially making statements about the present and politics and society and the problems we face.
Duh!
I also started digging into some of the more popular and highly regarded contemporary sci fi stories and novels, and I found myself drawn more toward the longer form. My reading list included things like:
Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
Sparrow, by Maria Doria Russell
The Dispossessed, by Ursula LeGuin
Revelation Space, by Alastair Reynolds
Light, by John Harrison
Old Man's War, by John Scalzi
The Man Who Folded Himself, by David Gerrold
Hominids, by Robert Sawyer
and several others I may have dipped into but put aside.
Anyway, the latter two novels in that list somehow plucked a string in my creative place with their elements of both time travel and of neanderthals that had survived, developed, and prospered.
Bingo, an entry point!
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