Colin Barrett: Blog

If you're going to sell something you need to pick a marketplace popular with the people to whom you're trying to sell it.

Spelling out the plan that underlies the whole story.

I usually write short blog entries, just a sentence or two mostly discussing the latest turn of events in an ongoing story. But this one's going to be a lot longer, because we're starting a new story today and I have a good deal to tell you about it.
First off, this is my final entry in the Eden universe. I've written several others, one of which has already been posted here (A Much of a Which of a Wind) and the rest are to be found on Amazon, but they're unrelated. For me, the Eden saga stops here. If somebody else would like to take a whack at going forward, have at it; be fun to read. But I'm done.
I'm opening with a much bigger post than usual-the prologue (which is simply a recital of what's gone before, in Eden and Return to Eden, but please don't just use it to jump into the series; go back and read the other two if you haven't already, you'll lose too much if you don't), and four chapters. Eden Rescue starts a little slow, and I don't want readers to get discouraged from continuing by the initial gradual pace and seeming non sequitors of the first three chapters.
Now, the "science" of chapters 1-4 (this is supposed to be science fiction, remember, meaning fiction based on science): As I've written before, I'm kind of a hard-liner about there being at least some factual basis in presently known science for the fiction I write. Well, the type of nova I postulate here isn't exactly known fact, or even close. But it's certainly consistent with the little that's currently known about novae (plural; please don't say "novas") and with current physical science information we have. But I needed some rational way of establishing human foreknowledge. In his novel The Devil's Eye Jack McDevitt does it differently, but his fictitious FTL (faster than light) travel is different from mine and his plot is more convoluted in that respect (the whole novel deals with the discovery), so I needed a different approach. My hypothesis is at least consistent with such scientific knowledge as we have today, which is as good as it gets.
Finally, I mention the foregoing about science because-unlike the two earlier stories-there's a lot of it in this one. It doesn't overwhelm the story, but it's pretty prevalent. A great deal is like the nova emissions business, strictly speculative and only postulated because it fits into as much knowledge as we've developed thus far. But some of it's real, too-things that we already know to be true. For example, the description of a star's aging process and ultimate consumption as a nova in chapter 2 is accurate according to our present knowledge of nuclear physics. Either way I'll explain to the non-scientific reader (either my speculative explanation or the real one) as we hit each point, as I do in chapters 2 and 4, in as non-boring (and non-technical) fashion as I can. But be prepared for some scientific exposition now and again.
Your votes have been very kind for the first two Eden chronicles. I hope you'll enjoy this one as much.

The end of Return to Eden.
I want to thank all who've voted so well for this submission. As with all of my other works of fiction, I had fun writing it, and am glad others have enjoyed reading it. I'll be finishing the Eden trilogy next.
I'm tremendously pleased about the readership I've received here on SOL. For both Eden and Return to Eden the individual chapter downloads have run a bit over 3,000. That means an audience of maybe 3,000 people or so (not to mention the additional sales am Amazon), which makes me very happy. We authors do love to have our words read. Makes the writing part a true pleasure.
For those who aren't aware, I've written several other non-Eden novels. One has already been posted here, and the others are available for Kindle on Amazon. They're all loosely science fiction; that is, I start from an s-f premise. But even non-s-f fans may enjoy them; the premises aren't that much of a stretch, and while they're central you don't have to overwork your imagination.

Bet you didn't see this one comin'.
To be honest, neither did I when I was writing it-not until about chapter 39, when Meiersdottir was trying to explain Miller's meltdown to the Edenites. Unlike the way many literature professors try to teach writing fiction, I don't work from an outline. I start with a premise and a set of well-defined (in my own mind, at least) characters and turn them loose. From time to time I'll throw a spanner into the works and see how my characters respond. The Edenites' reaction this time struck me as completely consistent with their mind-set, which given their "think-together" approach is likely to be highly conservative, and I liked the outcome-which also gave me a fairly satisfactory conclusion to a story that could only get repetitive and/or strained if I kept pushing it. Hope you agree. Just one more chapter to go, to wrap things up.