I’ve written more science fiction than anything else – a vast series of space opera stories filled with hard-science takes on ancient myths: alien dragons, genetically engineered centaurs, and nanotech vampires. Unfortunately, the Alliance Universe is some of my earliest work and little of my ‘juvenilia‘ has been published (yet). But a few stories from this universe have leaked out into our own …
The first Alliance story published was “Sibling Rivalry“, the story of a scientist fighting a computer gone mad realistically, where the computer has a real motivation to go amok and the scientist must fight it using real artificial intelligence concepts … no talking it to death or improbable back doors are allowed. “Sibling Rivalry” has actually been taught in college courses, and it along with some essays about it have been published as a Snapbook from Thinking Ink Press.
Next is “Stranded” the story of a genetically engineered centauress named Serendipity who runs away from her supercivilization trying to find her fortune and ends up waylaid by a crew of children who’ve crashlanded on a world she hoped to claim as her own. It’s been described as “a gender-divided Lord of the Flies in space”, and I’ll take that, even though I didn’t particularly like LORD OF THE FLIES (Did you know? LORD OF THE FLIES was inspired by – or should I say anti-inspired by? – THE CORAL ISLAND, a similar novel which also inspired TREASURE ISLAND and PETER PAN and through them a host of other works, possibly the entire pirate genre. I felt a little disappointed when I learned William Golding was trying to refute with fiction an idea which is also fiction, but then I suppose my whole Alliance series is trying to refute Star Trek’s odious Prime Directive.) Regardless, the story “Stranded” is the title story of the anthology STRANDED, also featuring stories by the ever-popular Anne Bishop and James Alan Gardner. I am working on a novel featuring Serendipity; stay tuned …
