Do you know what I suspect are every author's least favorite questions? (Certainly, they're *my* least favorite.) "What’s your favorite book?" And, "If I were to try one of your books, which should it be?"
They're both like asking a parent, "Who's your favorite child?"
I recently finished reading The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors, by John Gribbin. This was, unquestionably, among the most fascinating nonfiction books I've read -- and so thoroughly enjoyed -- in years.
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Why start around 1500? Because that was a watershed. The ancient Greeks (as Gribbin points out) had some profound insights. Because they didn't have the scientific method, those insights -- and some glaring misunderstandings -- came of pondering and philosophizing, without confirmation (or invalidation) from experiment or observation. The ancient Romans -- as terrific as they were as engineers -- added little to those earlier musings. The so-called Dark Ages and Middle Ages similarly saw some significant engineering advances, but nothing we'd understand as science.
For months now, the most visited post on this blog -- by a substantial margin -- has been Betrayer of Worlds.
It's puzzling.
Is the phrase "Betrayer of Worlds" inadvertent clickbait? If so, well, the click-throughs must be generating considerable surprise. Because what political content the novel offers concerns alien species, centuries from now, light-years from here.
Now to see what kind of traffic this innocent speculation generates ....
For frequent visitors here, my interest in the the First Contact theme will come as no surprise. My fiction has explored the possibilities fairly extensively, for example in Moonstruck, the InterstellarNet series, and, most recently, Déjà Doomed. In "Alien AWOLs: The Great Silence," a chapter in Trope-ing the Light Fantastic: The Science Behind the Fiction, I address the absence of contact -- so far -- in a nonfiction sense. (Click on cover thumbnails on the blog RHS if you're curious about these titles.)
Why am I so interested? First, there’s the Big Question of are we alone. Whatever the answer, the implications are profound. But beyond that, there’s just so much great SF on the topic. A reader recently challenged me to name my favorite First Contact fiction. So: here 'tis! (And as hard as it was winnowing the candidates to a few, the order within my list is not a further ranking.)
(Oh, and please excuse Blogger's odd word-line spacing of this post.)
The list? Drumroll please ...
Updated March 8, 2022
SF author -- and interviewer extraordinaire -- Edward Willett recently invited me onto his all-about-writing podcast, Worldshapers. Shaping worlds is what writers do -- none more so, of course, than SF authors. What with our common interests (and, as they say, two Eds are better than one), we had a great time. The interview is here.
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Any year that sees two of my books newly released? That's a banner year. Which 2021 turned out to be, what with the publication of novel Déjà Doomed and collection The Sherlock Chronicles & The Paradise Quartet. I even had the pleasure mid-year of announcing a new novel under contract to be written: (working title) Mars: The Great Race. So, this year -- pandemic aside -- couldn't get any better. Right?
Wrong. This month, I signed contracts for two other books.
The first is a novel, On the Shoals of Space-Time. This is a first-contact adventure such as -- trust me -- you've never seen. (For those of you who find the title somehow familiar, it's the novelization of a story arc that's been running behind the paywall at The Grantville Gazette. With expanded and new material.)
You see, new book #2 is the collection The Best of Edward M. Lerner, offering fourteen career- and topic-spanning works at every length from flash fiction to novella. None of these pieces are excerpts from novels -- I don't believe in those -- but many of them did give rise to sequel stories, or novels, or are illuminating in some way about one of my novels. As appropriate, my per-story authorial reminisces explain these happy events. In short, soon, I'll have my answer to those pesky questions (except about my children).
Do you sense I'm ending 2021 on a happy note?
Alternate title: Of tropes, and (interstellar) trips, and sealing wax
Okay, that's enough semi-obscure references for one day.
I was pleased recently to revisit Sci-Fi Saturday Night, one of my favorite genre podcasts. Whereas on my first visit, we discussed my latest novel, Déjà Doomed, this time the topic was my nonfiction book, Trope-ing the Light Fantastic: The Science Behind the Fiction.
(Trope-ing takes an in-depth look at genre tropes -- science used other than literally -- such as faster-than-light travel, time travel, general AI, and the like, including the science that could someday make such technologies possible. The book also offers literally hundreds of examples (from written SF at every length between flash fiction and novel series; from dramatic SF on screens large and small) of the genre using -- and abusing -- science. Here's my original announcement of Trope-ing.) Amazon page
Today's post is to share our delightful, roughly half-hour, chat: Irrational Numbers for Rational Science Fiction. I join the conversation at about 6:50 minutes into the podcast.
Until you have a half hour to spare, the takeaways include, "A trove of wonderful information about the why and how of the science in the fiction. … a must read for any science fiction fan.” and "One of the most important books I've read in a hell of a long time."
You know what I imagine must be every author’s least favorite questions? “What’s your favorite from among your books?” And, “If I want to tr...
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