Novel (Syn)Thesis
Wednesday, October 29. 2008
In How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, Orson Scott Card says, "All but a handful of my stories have come from combining two completely unrelated ideas that have been following their own tracks through my imagination." What could be better than two unrelated ideas...but three?
- A hard SF fantasy. I want to create a fantastic world where everything has a reasonable scientific explanation. I've always thought colliding these two genres would produce some interesting eddies.
- FTL travel as a portal to the underworld. Asimov wrote a robot story once where FTL travel caused humans to "die" briefly. What if "hyperspace" were Hades? Of course, ships traveling through it would (usually) come back...
- Magic based on music. Years ago I wrote up a whole fantasy setting based on using sound to produce magic. Can I come up with a scientific explanation, and use this system within a hard SF story?
The interesting stuff comes from the interference patterns between these ideas. I have to come up with a way to make all these bits work together as a cohesive whole. It won't be easy, but it'll be fun...and it should give me plenty of ammo to use in November.
In How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, Orson Scott Card says, "All but a handful of my stories have come from combining two completely unrelated ideas that have been following their own tracks through my imagination." What could be better than two unrelated ideas...but three?
- A hard SF fantasy. I want to create a fantastic world where everything has a reasonable scientific explanation. I've always thought colliding these two genres would produce some interesting eddies.
- FTL travel as a portal to the underworld. Asimov wrote a robot story once where FTL travel caused humans to "die" briefly. What if "hyperspace" were Hades? Of course, ships traveling through it would (usually) come back...
- Magic based on music. Years ago I wrote up a whole fantasy setting based on using sound to produce magic. Can I come up with a scientific explanation, and use this system within a hard SF story?
Craig on :
Brent on :
Craig on :
Jimmy on :
Craig on :