“Why I Love Reading and
Writing Science Fiction”
by Karen A. Wyle
I'll
start with a caveat. I do not always write science fiction. For many otherwise
fallow years, I wrote picture book manuscripts. More recently, between my
current release and the sequel (still in rough draft), I wrote what I suppose
is general fiction, if a novel in that category can take place in my fanciful
notion of an afterlife.
That
said, I am proud to write science fiction.
I
don't remember when I started reading science fiction, but I'd guess I was
around ten or eleven. I have been reading it ever since. The day I met my
husband, twenty-five years ago, we talked for two hours about Robert A.
Heinlein and assorted other SF authors. As you might suppose, our marriage
exposed me to even more of the genre.
How
do I love science fiction? Let me count the ways. . . .
Science
fiction explores how human beings – whether acknowledged as such, or in any of
innumerable disguises – react to the unexpected. How do they – how would we –
cope with the fulfillment of anything from dream to nightmare? How will the
future we anticipate surprise us? How will we surprise ourselves when we
confront it?
Science
fiction's imaginative settings allow us to examine familiar themes and problems
with a fresh eye. (Star Trek, despite its flaws, was often excellent at using
the trappings of science fiction to explore issues like racism, war and peace,
patriotism, gender identity, ambition, love versus career, et cetera.) I am a
lawyer; I am writing a series of short stories which will eventually include
legal issues raised by certain future technologies. I have long been fascinated
by twins: my novel Twin-Bred features
fraternal twins (carried by host mothers) belonging to different species. I
have been deeply interested in parenthood since becoming a mother: I can create
aliens for whom parenthood is in many ways different, and in some fundamental
ways the same.
Science
fiction paves the way. Its authors, often scientists themselves, extrapolate
from current technology and knowledge, and make educated guesses about what we
will be able to invent. Often they guess correctly. It might be easier to
identify the scientific advances of the last sixty years that were not
predicted in science fiction than to list those that were. By working within
the constraints of scientific theory, science fiction honors those who have
spent their lives helping us understand our universe (and any meta-universe
which may include it).
Finally,
science fiction gives the would-be builder of worlds a place to play. While
fantasy does the same, science fiction imposes certain constraints – and as
many a poet would testify, some constraints can actually spur creativity. At
any rate, I find satisfaction in knowing that what I have imagined, or what
another author lays before me, could possibly exist. Science fiction authors
differ in how hard they strive to ensure that the physical features of their
planets, aliens, and technologies fit within our current scientific theories
(or at least, scientific hypotheses held by at least one adventurous scientist
out there). No scientist myself, I still try fairly hard. I use my husband,
whose scientific knowledge runs broad and deep, as my technical adviser – but
if I really want to make the sky green, or put multiple sails on the sailboat,
or whatever, and he is skeptical, I just keep researching until (with luck) I
find some more or less plausible basis to do so. On the other hand, unlike
historical fiction, where the possibility of error lurks behind every detail,
the amount of research need not be too intimidating.
I'd
love to see comments about what visitors to this blog like most about science
fiction -- or about any problems they have with the genre.
ABOUT author KAREN A. WYLE
Karen A. Wyle was born a Connecticut Yankee, but
eventually settled in Bloomington,Indiana,
home of Indiana University. She now considers
herself a Hoosier. Wyle's childhood ambition was to be the youngest ever
published novelist. While writing her first novel at age 10, she was
mortified to learn that some British upstart had beaten her to the goal at age
9.
Wyle is an appellate attorney, photographer, political
junkie, and mother of two daughters. Her voice is the product of almost five
decades of reading both literary and genre fiction. It is no doubt also
influenced, although she hopes not fatally tainted, by her years of law
practice. Her personal history has led her to focus on often-intertwined
themes of family, communication, the impossibility of controlling events, and
the persistence of unfinished business.
“TWIN BRED”
by Karen A Wyle
Can interspecies diplomacy begin in the womb? After
seventy years on Tofarn, the human colonists and the native Tofa still know
very little about each other. Misunderstanding breed conflict, and the
conflicts are escalating. Scientist Mara Cadell’s radical proposal: that
host mothers of either species carry fraternal twins, human and Tofa, in the
hope that the bond between twins can bridge the gap between species. Mara
lost her own twin, Levi, in utero, but she has secretly kept him alive in her
mind as companion and collaborator.
Mara succeeds in obtaining governmental backing for her
project – but both the human and Tofa establishments have their own
agendas. Mara must shepherd the Twin-Bred through dangers she anticipated
and others that even the canny Levi could not foresee. Will the Twin-Bred
bring peace, war, or something else entirely?...
PURCHASE LINKS
Amazon – http://www.amazon.com/Twin-Bred-Karen-Wyle/dp/1463578911/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329597567&sr=1-1
Amazon kindle - http://amzn.to/u2OtVP
Amazon kindle - http://amzn.to/u2OtVP
Barnes &
Noble -http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/twin-bred-karen-wyle/1035146826?ean=9781463578916&itm=1&usri=twin+bred
AUTHOR LINKS
Twitter handle: @WordsmithWyle
Blog: Looking Around, at http://looking-around.blogspot.com
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