Experts say you shouldn’t write the second book in a series until you know if readers will like the first one. I wrote six. After eighteen solid months of writing, I created a bold new sci-fi series that I’ve decided to announce now. Introducing the Aligned Worlds™ future fiction series.
This is a new genre of sci-fi, one I’m calling Future Fiction. It’s not as dry as hard sci-fi, not obsessed with starships and war like space opera. This is scifi for the rest of us: fun, sexy, and innovative. Remember when reading science fiction was fun? Well, it is again.
There are elements of epic sci-fi, fantasy fiction, utopian and dystopian sci-fi, space opera, cyberpunk, and literary fiction all woven together seamlessly. Put simply, these books are my best work ever. These are character-driven books featuring unique leading characters that span human and non-human organics, artificial life forms (androids, robots, Artificial Intelligence system) and other characters that don’t fit easily in categories. I have always believed that great sci-fi is only as interesting as their characters and worlds in which they are found. That is why I’ve spent a great deal of time in world-building, creating believable societies full of amazing beings that you will identify with.
Take a successful future fiction story and transplant it on 21st-century Earth. If it doesn’t still work, it’s not a good story. These stories would work in any setting. But I’m hoping you love the ones I created.
Each of the novels in the Aligned Worlds™ series is an independent story, meaning you can read them in any order. However, they will be released roughly in the order I have intended they be read. Some of the books (Bohemian Stars, Twenty Million Billion Leagues from Detroit, Stars Aligned) feature and ensemble cast that appears in more than one book. Others (Year 5601, If a Robot Play the Blues) are one-off novels that stand completely separately. (Although there may be cameo appearances.) Importantly, there are no cliff-hangers here. You need not have read any prior book to understand the one you’re reading.
I despise cliff-hangers. They’re mostly an excuse for sloppy writing and plotting.
So, what, you may ask, is “future fiction?” It is broad-ranging fiction that includes what we’ve come to call sci-fi, but de-emphasizes the science element in favor of world-and-character building. I focus more on building interesting plots and surprising twists than spending whole chapters explaining precisely how space-time travel works, or how intergalactic propulsion systems correspond to simple and quantum physics. I’m guessing readers care more about what happens during and after the “jump” than how many clicks wide the jump gate they passed through was.
Ever flown through space in a jaunty convertible? Ever wanted to? Turn on your imaginations and read these books.
Make no bones about it, however. This isn’t “soft” science fiction either. The books are full of aliens, androids, over a dozen worlds, advanced technology, magic tech, sex, war, and rock and roll. You will understand how things work; we just won’t obsess over them. There are flights of fancy, moments of turmoil, with laughter and tears abounding. This isn’t about science. It’s about fiction.
According to MasterClass’s post on science fiction literature, “the classic elements of a science fiction novel include:
- Time travel
- Teleportation
- Mind control, telepathy, and telekinesis
- Aliens, extraterrestrial lifeforms, and mutants
- Space travel and exploration
- Interplanetary warfare
- Parallel universes
- Fictional worlds
- Alternative histories
- Speculative technology
- Super-intelligent computers and robots”
I’ve combined these elements in a complex new universe with elements of fantasy and cyberpunk to form future fiction, which emphasizes what life might be like in the distant future. Importantly, individual story lines are most important that the technology or world-building that surrounds it. Instead, my stories create believable worlds with robust enough detail that you can suspend belief and focus on the characters.
Let’s you and I, together, make future fiction a literary staple. We begin our journey on 2 September 2020, with the formal release of Year 5601. Interested parties can pre-order a version for Kindle software now, on Amazon.
I’d love to tell you which writer’s books these are like, but I honestly can’t think of any. Instead, I can share that I was inspired by John Varley, Robert Silverberg, Douglas Adams, and Robert Heinlein, although I’m crap at remembering what I’ve read and I never read fiction when I’m writing. So inspired doesn’t mean “copied.” It might not even mean “vaguely similar to.”
If you’re interested in a bit more about each book, a brief blurb follows below.
Year 5601 (September 2020)
After 5600 years in space, a young woman is tasked with vetting a planet that might, finally be a home for the thousands of people on her GenShip. More certain is her growing fear that her ship’s captain might be insane.
Mya Landric has lived all of her life aboard the Rebibe, a generation ship that launched 5600 years earlier from a dying planet Earth. Everything aboard the Rebibe is tightly regimented via color-coded bars—status, career aptitude, even whom you date or marry. Mya is stuck in the ship’s middle status layer, unnoticed by anyone and unhappy about it. Now, however, the captain and the ship’s AI have tasked her with the most important job of her life: investigating a planet that might, finally, be a home. There’s just one nagging problem: Mya and her small group of friends are beginning to believe that their captain has no intention of letting them land there.
Bohemian Stars (December 2020)
A group of six talented musicians travel through space-time to the distant future to either save the galaxy from interplanetary war, or have the most fun anyone’s ever while had failing to do so.
Four people from Earth, all of them in dire straits, are pulled through space-time portals to a world thousands of years and half a galaxy distant. There’s Tariq, running for his life in 1935 Mississippi; Estelle, busking her way into deep trouble in 2018’s Venice, Italy; Danika, caught in a violent uprising in 2014’s Ukraine; and Hoshiko, who’s just not like the other girls in 2068’s Tokyo. Once through their portal, they meet experienced “traveler” Jemini Starr, who despite her youthful appearance, is over a century old and Mirajia, an emotionally free, mysterious, endlessly talented alien. Together, the group will either form the most kick-ass band the galaxy has ever seen, or save it from interplanetary war. It is epic science fiction at its best, full of alien worlds, space-time travel, interplanetary war, as well as sex, love and rock and roll.
Ordinary Dust (December 2020)
On a planet where nothing matters as much as status, a twenty-five year-old woman who has always been treated like “ordinary dust” by her family, bonds with her fourteen-year-old nephew and tries to carve a life for herself. When they are both forced to leave home, traveling to distant planets, they will find their idyllic lives will never be the same again. Full of adventure, romance, and suspense, Ordinary Dust is half literary fiction romance and half science fiction crime thriller. Join Eleanora and Finn as they grow up and make their ways on worlds full of alien races, adventure, and tragedy. You’ll end up at the edge of your seat, reading about characters and worlds you will never forget.
Twenty Million Billion Years Past Detroit (December 2020)
A tall, dark, alien stranger from the far side of the moon leaves 1970s Detroit to lead a team to investigate twin planets that orbit a distant star. Both of the planets share the same orbit, but miraculously, never collide. There is something odd going on with those planets, and Herk Delacroix’s team, cruising in the starship Dolomite, needs to learn what it is before its too late. A fun romp through the galaxy with appearances by characters you’ll have come to know and love from the prior Aligned Worlds™ novels, as well as whole new set of imaginative characters. It’s a wild adventure that marries advanced science and magic in a way that’s never been done before.
Stars Aligned (December 2020)
A team travels to distant star system to discover the dangerous secrets of the alien species there. There is evidence the planets themselves might be in danger, and the worlds’ residents are too busy squabbling over technology and magical tech to do what’s required for their own survival. Jemini Starr and Herk Delacroix return to lead the way, bringing a team back to the twin planets of Juvaan and Baache, among others. They have to convince the residents of the planets to cooperate before a burgeoning star ignites and givens new meaning to the word sunburn. You’ll love the ride, the humor, and the tense adventure. Strap in and enjoy future fiction at its finest.
If a Robot Play the Blues Do It Still Be Funky? (December 2020)
An android named Riley breaks free from the cycle of abuse artificials are subjected to and begins a journey to prove his own personhood. He attempts to prove his consciousness through music and along the way discovers that a soul comes with a dark price. Riley wants to make his own way in the universe. His chosen field of battle is jazz, and his weapon, the double bass. He meets up with Monk, a four-thumbed pianist, and together, they start on a path only the jazz greats from Earth’s music heydays have ever seen. There’s more at stake than music, however. Riley’s people back home are in trouble, and only by proving his own worth can he help them. If A Robot Play The Blues is a science fiction adventure like none other, starring a human-like android lead you’ll never forget.
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