(Part 3) Best products from r/scifiwriting

I see this occasionally in the self published SF/fantasy market, a type of sharecropping where someone opens up their world to other writers. It would help the project to have a couple of books already published and visible.

I've seen Hugh Howey doing this with his Silo and Sand worlds. (Wool Gatherings.) Ann Christy wrote a series set in Silo 49 that some are saying is better than the original works, which is I suppose a risk you take opening things up. But, hey, it's a built in pyramid scheme, and I mean that in a good way, because popularity downstream is always promotion of the original works.

Howey was a bit unusual as a self-published writer during his Wool years, in that he was super involved in social media promoting his writing. I remember seeing him on Youtube and Facebook being very outgoing in an effort to make fans.

I have no idea how Howey structures the rights for his ideas, and this is clearly a critical issue, you could take royalties or create a Creative Commons license.

You'd want to have a 'bible' of boundaries, parameters, restrictions in addition to your worldbuilding file, so potential writers would know how far they can change things, Susan absolutely cannot go to Dartmouth, that sort of thing.

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Does either of your novels use an "outsider POV seeing the culture for the first time" convention?

I have been conducting conversations with writers in fantasy, science fiction, poetry, education, and few other random genres. artist, illustrators and other content creators types and have begun to turn them into podcasts.

I am not 100% certain how to direct you all to find it. My feed url is:

http://www.bryanaiello.com/podcast/feed/

I looked it up on podcast republic by the name:

Origin: Stories on Creativity

You might be able to search by my name also Bryan Aiello.

I also welcome anyone interested the opportunity to chat. I do hour long conversations and enjoy artists of any stripes, especially writers, birds of a feather and all that.

Also if you would like to check out some of my fiction I have a novel up on Amazon called "Compounded Interest" its a character study on the opiod epidemic written in the urban noir style.

Also my website is my depository for all of my fiction and poetry. Its the best place besides reddit and twitter (@bryaiello) to communicate with me.

My first self-published novella, Assiyah Rising, has just been uploaded to Amazon:

Genre: Science Fiction

Size: 29,000+ words

Link: Assiyah Rising: Part One

Description: Assiyah (ah-see-YAH): Noun. The physical world we currently live in. A world of action. The fourth and lowest realm of existence. A place where the Creator hides from its creation.

A young Army intelligence officer, an NSA agent, a DARPA biologist, and an unassuming man from the Midwest are swept into a powerful current of events cloaked in secrecy and driven from the very top of political power. They soon discover an intelligence that has descended upon the Earth, forcing humanity to reconsider their position in the world and in the cosmos itself.

Below is an extended description just for my fellow Redditor's...

Did you know about Vasili Arkhipov and Stanislav Petrov before they were cool?

Do Buddhist Sutta's float your boat? Do you like prime numbers (who doesn't)?

We have prime numbers. Are you intrigued by Jewish mysticism? Do you giggle

with joy when you come across SHA-256 keys? Interested in alien contact? I'm

not saying it's aliens...but it's aliens.

Now, you may be saying to yourself, I don't have time for this jibber jabber

Mr. Throwaway reddit account. But hold on. What if I told you that this

mish-mash of topics have somehow been compiled into a steaming hot bowl of

tasty word jumbalaya that will make your brain buds sing and satiate your deep

hunger for an interesting story? Well then, cast away your doubts and fears and

give it a shot. If not, give it to Mikey, he'll read anything.

TL;DR Please read my novella

wq

Cool! Thanks for the opportunity to give myself a plug :)

The Northland Chronicles: A Stranger North is a post-apocalyptic story of survival and adventure set in the forests of northern Minnesota.

It's currently available from Amazon, B&N, Google Play, and will be available from other retailers soon.

Book description follows:

Nine years ago, the Desolation decimated Earth’s human population. Now the survivors struggle on, living in small pockets of civilization scattered across the globe.

In one small northern Minnesota community, the winters are harsh and wild predators lurk among the shadows. Life isn’t easy, but the people eke out a peaceful existence as hunters and farmers.

That all changes when John Osborne — survivalist and sharpshooter who answers to no one — comes to town. His arrival ignites a chain of events that will change the north forever, as various factions vying for control of the still rebuilding society hope to swing Osborne’s allegiance to their side.

Where do Osborne’s true loyalties lie? And what’s his dark secret? The answers begin here, in this first episode of The Northland Chronicles.

As a science fiction fan, I would ask you to please not go the Pinocchio 2000 route with your AI. That is, you make it either a creature that winsomely wants to be human (think Data from Star Trek) or which is just a human being, period.

If you are going to create an AI think about how they might be DIFFERENT from humans. One of the best examples I know offhand is a story I read about a robot private investigator (not R. Daneel Olivaw -- might have been Hard Luck Hank) who was great at surveillance because he could put himself on standby during a stakeout ... just sit there, eyes glued to the window or whatever, nothing active going on in his mind, just his eyes waiting for something that indicated motion. Took all the tedium out for him, and for the reader.

Worst examples of Pinnochio 2000 consistently occurs in hentai, in which female sexbots don't like to have sex, not because they're programmed not to like what they are programmed to do, they just don't because ... female? Think about that, won't you? Or don't.

Oh, and they haven't mentioned the absolute best SF artificial intelligences ... Iain Banks' Culture minds.

Second Class Supers

Superhero
95k words

It isn't easy to avoid growing up, even in a world where super powers are real. Kya Roberts is a thirty-two year old geek hiding away in a dead-end job, hoping to scrape together enough money to purchase her own Super.

Dealing with the torments of her super powered boss and co-workers, Kya searches for a shortcut to a better life. When her friend, Amelia, finds that shortcut, it leads Kya down a dark path.

Through it all she has to deal with the growing class warfare between the haves and have-nots which will lead her to the answer to a question Kya has never asked herself: "where do Supers come from?"

Amazon Link for eBook

I kind of find myself wondering what makes you want to write if you don't actually read to begin with. I mean... what's the point?

Anyway.

First off, read Foundation by Isaac Asimov. It's not on Kindle, because someone apparently hates money. Either way, buy the physical book and fucking read it. In fact, read the whole trilogy. All the books are brilliant, and are a really easy read. Written in the 1950s, it's set about 20,000 years in the future, charting key moments in the fall of the Galactic Empire and the rise of the "Foundation", a nation set up to shorten the chaotic interregnum and bring about a Second Empire.

In terms of that kind of price range... there's a metric shit-tonne of absolute wank on the Kindle Store, and all for free. Like, more than you could ever read in a human lifetime. It's incredibly over-saturated. The challenge, then, is cutting through that and finding good stuff. Here's some stuff I found:

The Time Machine. A classic, and a must-read as part of your cultural education, never mind a desire to write. Free.

The War of the Worlds. A classic, and a must-read as part of your cultural education, never mind a desire to write. £0.80

This is a selection of Philip K. Dick's short stories. Free.

Consider Phlebas. The first book of the fantastic Culture series. £1.59 (don't know what that is in US dollars)
Don't start there unless money is a really big issue. It might be the first one in the series, but it's also the worst by a significant margin. Fork out a bit more money and read The Player of Games or Use of Weapons. All the books in the series are standalone stories with no major connection other than the universe. So you're not missing out by starting on one of those. It's set in a civilisation at the absolute peak of technological advancement, where most things are run by machines.

*

Now, here are a few other books outside your stated price range, but which are worth reading:

Dune. A classic and a must-read. £7.59

The Martian. A very modern book and different from the others I've posted. Fun and engaging, even when its roots as a web serial stand out jarringly in places. £4.99

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Do you hate laughter? Then you'd better not read this. Seriously though, it's the funniest set of books I've ever read, and that's not hyperbole or exaggeration. £4.99**

I'm not sure if you mean a 2 dimensional universe or just a really long flat plane in a 3d universe. Infinity is a pretty big thing, so I am curious how you would explain this outside of fantasy. Does the ground just go forever? How does this impact the physics of other planets? The sun? If it is infinitely flat, does that mean that it is infinitely wide and long as well?

That being said, you might want to read Flatland by Edwin Abbott Abbott. It's about a 2 dimensional world and does a pretty good job working out the technical details. It's free on Kindle.

Hi there. I've been writing for a long time, mostly flash fiction and short stories, but a few years ago I decided to branch out into novellas. Humour is my usual genre but I am oddly fascinated with bees and colony collapse disorder so I tried writing a short sci-fi esque story about it. 30k words later I ended up with The Colony.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M6A8LLK

If this sounds like something you might be interested in but you don't have a kindle or $1 I am happy to send free copies to people in PDF, just send me a message.

You can check out my short stories and flash over at http://www.todayschapter.com

No Such Thing As Werewolves

Sci-Fi thriller

Book one of the Deathless Saga

Link to the book

I just finished running my first Kindle Countdown deal and sold almost 300 copies this weekend. That brings me up to about 3,000 in the book's first three months! The audiobook has been a huge sales driver, which is beyond awesome. Still amazed by how much people seem to like the book.

It's a unique take on werewolves, not your typical fantasy and DEFINITELY not a romance.

My novel Exiles of Raifor is free for the next two days 5/20-5/21.

It's a soft sci-fi novel about a a specific group of characters and how their actions will impact the galaxy they live in for years to come. It's the first in a saga, but don't let that deter you I feel that I wrapped things up pretty nicely in the first book, while leaving enough doors open to continue.

Feel free to check it out, and if you have any questions just shoot them my way, but hurry because this promotion is only today and tomorrow.

Near the beginning of his career in the early seventies, Dean Koontz wrote a book called Writing Popular Fiction, and although it's a little dated in other respects, the section on science fiction—which takes up much of the first half of the book—is the best guide to the subject I've seen. It's definitely worth picking up a used copy online. Other books I've found useful, along with Card's, are How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy, and Science Fiction and The Writer's Guide to Creating a Science Fiction Universe.

In the first few paragraphs of Chapter 1, where the descriptions are heavier than later, your wordsmithery felt disjointed, and I had a little trouble getting into a rhythm reading it. The imagery is conveyed tautologically (aka: repeated) and augmented with unnecessary adjectives. In other words, unnecessary adjectives and repeating descriptions.

Here's an example: You can combine the first two sentences into one. "Permeated" and "coming from everywhere at once" overlap, and permeated is a good word choice. Same for "smell" and "stink" and "room" and "apartment". If you pick the more specific of the two options, you get "stink" and "apartment". Then, you have one direct sentence: The stink of rotted meat permeated the apartment. Wash-rinse-repeat for the remainder of the sentences to remove redundant language. I liked the end of the first paragraph, though again it could be tightened up: What did he give up? What did he know?

Besides refining the sentences, you can also start taking a look at the adjectives and adverbs. While some may say to excise them all, they play a role, you just have to use them a little more sparingly. For example: Quickly (six times). And overusing them leads to fluffy phrases, such as: "As quickly as augmentedly possible and with the cover of chaos", which could be more simply stated as "Under the cover of chaos".

Regarding the technology, I'd suggest tossing out anything that's not pertinent to the story. For example: Does it matter that the photograph is saved on an internal hard drive? That's pretty specific, if not dated, relative to today. Imagine this story ten years from now, it may be like writing she saved the photograph on the floppy disk.

Regarding the police, early on there's a statement about them being inept, while they also have these pretty advanced robots running around (ALEPs). Making the character appear stronger or more intelligent at the expense of making the police weaker or less intelligence, at least to me, makes the character just seem more one-dimensional because there's no real danger. How long would it take an average police officer/copper/whatever from figuring out that (a) someone was smoking recently, and (b) the deceased wasn't a smoker?

More technology notes: The implanted communicator - why not make that, or the camera, magic instead of technology? Just a thought.

Once the police do show up, that's is where the story started to hook me. It had a Matrix/Shadowrun feel to it, even if it seemed a bit overblown, it was fun - and capturing readers attention like that, and keeping it, is ultimately what's going to make this work or not work. So, it took a little bit for me to want to read more - about where the action started - and then you lost me Bull said "AWESOME" because, for some reason, that sounded in my head like Dash Incredible. Then again, I read the "Just keep moving, just keep moving" sentence in Dory's voice, so maybe I just have Pixar on the brain this morning.

Finally, check your dialogue. It's a little too, I don't know - voiceless, except for the police, which came across as just being too soft for the situation.

In summary - from chapter 1 at least - there's some fun urban fantasy action lurking in the rough/draft language. My suggestion is refine it a few times to see what comes out, but don't do what I did on my fantasy novel and spend too much time refining, otherwise you'll wind up writing in an artificial/unnatural style that is entirely too hard to replicate for the rest of the book.

You can't come up with radical ideas extrapolated from current science if you don't have an understanding of current science.

Start with research. I think the first thing you need to do is to bone up on physics. Asimov's series is a great popular science examination of physics.

Then read some of the more outre modern popular science books. Hyperspace by Michio Kaku would be an excellent choice.

It's no good trying to write about future physics if you don't have a familiarity with at least high school series physics. A large percentage of SF fans is scientifically literate. If you try handwaving, you'll come off as technically naive. Better to write about elves & vampires, where you can make shit up as you go along.

I want to recommend a graphic novel series called Planetes.

It's all about a character whose primary job involves EVA work collecting trash in Earth's orbit.

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Planetes-Book-1-Makoto-Yukimura/dp/1591822629

There is an animated series as well, but I prefer the GN. It has some good, science-based fiction concerning zero-g environments and speculation on how humans would deal with those challenges.

• The Book of Ralph
  
  
• First Contact
  
  
• 80,000
  
  
  A message appears on the moon. It is legible from Earth, and almost no one knows how it was created. Markus West leads the government’s investigation to find the creator.
  
  The message is simple and familiar. But those three words, written in blazing crimson letters on the lunar surface, will foster the strangest revolution humankind has ever endured and make Markus West wish he was never involved.
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Book-Ralph-Christopher-Steinsvold/dp/1942546343
  
  My debut novel made it onto Publisher's Weekly Fall Sci-Fi roundup, here: https://twitter.com/PublishersWkly/status/744964339661156352
  
  And I recently got my best (advanced) review from a sci-fi author (Simon West-Bulford):
  
  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show?id=1672584573