My Love of Science Fiction

HOW IT BEGAN

I’ve always loved Sci-fi. As a child of the 80’s my main influence was obviously Star Wars, but I fully embraced the incredible post Star Wars craze as well when every production company seemingly brought out their own budget takes and version of the instant classic. Thanks to my movie loving dad, I got to watch plenty of them.

My favourite was a Roger Corman produced flick called Space Raiders––I must have watched that movie a hundred times––but I also loved Arena (which I would love to remake in some way), Battle Beyond the Stars, Flash Gordon, Ice Pirates, and many many more. Anything with matte paintings, miniatures, stop motion and models, I was there. (I miss those days)

Also, back then the original Lost in Space and Land of the Giants was on TV around the same time as our Sunday roast, so I watched those multiple times too, before getting into things like V, and eventually Star Trek. (I say eventually but I was still only about 10 when I first watched Next Gen.)

EXPANDING MY KNOWLEDGE

The older I got, the more I began to watch the classics of the genre, everything from Logan’s Run, Close Encounters, 2001 Space Odyssey, and Forbidden Planet, to Soylent Green, West World, Silent Running and the relatively more recent Ghost in the Shell. If it was Sci-Fi, I’d watch it. It didn’t matter the sub-genre. It could be my favourite Space Opera… or any of the others: Cyberpunk, Hard Sci-fi, Dystopian, Sci-fi horror… I happily consumed all of it, and always wanted more.

I started reading Science Fiction then as well. My early main influences were Arthur C Clarke’s Rama Series, and Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars books. Again, I later got into reading a lot of the classics too (and my intention is to reread a lot more of them over the next few years and chat about them within my Review Section

When I started scriptwriting at the beginning of the 2000’s nearly everything I watched was Sci-Fi as it was the most amazing time to be a fan of the genre––especially with the TV output. (Although there was also the life changing Matrix movie as well)

Farscape was my absolute favourite, but I loved SG1, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Lexx, Firefly, Space Above and Beyond, and had a soft spot for the first two seasons of Andromeda. I vividly remember writing a sci-fi show with a friend at that time––I use the term writing loosely as it’s almost unreadable now––and thinking how I could write Science Fiction for ever…

…and then, I didn’t. Not a single movie, TV show, or book in the twenty plus years after.

THE SCI-FI GAP

I’m not sure what the reason was, but the moment I got better at writing I immediately switched to Horror, writing zombie movies and exploitation flicks. I started creating slashers and cannibal stories, and ended up writing a whole bunch of horror scripts before moving on to horror books. Somewhere along the way, Sci-fi got lost.

I think the Sci-fi genre itself was dying out a few years after those shows ended, and horror was definitely in––and was always a genre I loved too––so it made more sense to pursue horror. I really enjoyed writing horror, and playing within the extremes of the genre. But, all these years on, as I’ve entered my forties, I can’t help but wonder what happened to my sci-fi ambitions.

How have I managed to not write a single Sci-Fi in all these years? (outside of some notes for a sci-fi horror I might go back to at some point) I still watch and read the genre all the time––albeit mostly older stuff, with the massive exception of the brilliant Space Sweepers and The Expanse––which makes the decision not to write in it all the more baffling.

RETURN TO SCI-FI

But now, it’s time to change that, and in a big way! I’ve been working on several Sci-Fi projects over the last half a year, and one even longer than that. I have my first novella due to be published soon, called Unclaimed Outpost, and have began work on two more standalone books.

Alongside the standalone novels, I’ve been writing two books series in the background. One is called Taten Chronicles, which I've already published a short prequel for, and intend to release as a serialised collection over the upcoming months and years. The other is a little more secretive for the moment, but I believe I'll have something ready by April.

Together with these I've also been writing plenty of short stories. I’ve put out one collection already, and will be adding more short stories to the website each month. The intention once again is too always be working on some short story, even if its not my priority

The Future

For me, my future is Sci-Fi. I’ve absolutely fallen back in love with the genre (not that I ever fell out of love with it) and see myself working in it for the rest of my life. I’ll always enjoy Horror and Noir, and may dip back into them from time to time, but the majority of my work will definitely be sci-fi, and that goes for most of my reading too.

I want to build up a good body of work. I may not be able to write at the speed I could during my horror and script writing days anymore, but I think I'm a better writer than I've ever been, and want to take advantage of that in the genre I care about the most.

So, look for plenty of work from here on out. I can’t wait to tell all these stories stuck in my head.