{"id":351,"date":"2015-01-09T12:00:39","date_gmt":"2015-01-09T17:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/?p=351"},"modified":"2015-01-03T18:05:04","modified_gmt":"2015-01-03T23:05:04","slug":"my-favorite-book-star-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/2015\/01\/09\/my-favorite-book-star-time\/","title":{"rendered":"My Favorite Book: Star Time"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Star<\/a>
Star Time<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a college student, I wrote a novel in long-hand, in three-ring binders.\u00a0 There was a genius inventor who fought an aerial battle with aliens using his high-tech car to rescue the girl.\u00a0 This was even before I could type, and it wasn\u2019t all that good.\u00a0 But that germ of a novel was re-written many times over the decades until it acquired real characters and a more in-depth plot. I don\u2019t even think the names of the characters stayed the same.<\/p>\n

During this long growth period I wrote many other stories, some of them appearing in science-fiction magazines, some of them languishing as early drafts in my file-cabinet — but a large number of them shared common history. As I started writing more novels, I also started crafting this very big story, one where individual novels were just chapters in the longer saga.<\/p>\n

With this larger structure outlined, confident of the direction it would go, I began a re-write that became Star Time. The very real possibility of Betelgeuse going supernova (which I overheard being discussed by a couple of scientists at a convention) became the triggering event that splits this alternate history off from our real world. This was a bigger story than the adventure novels I had been writing.\u00a0 The cast of characters ranged from astronomers in Australia, to a telepath in Wimberly, to a race of alien scavengers — but that genius inventor was still there, still willing to put it all on the line for the girl.<\/p>\n

I had started a big playground for my ideas. I could craft an alien race that was very different from us — more than just people in rubber masks — and yet one that had its own history and logic. I could design and use a new kind of physics, with its own limits and rules. And I could write a computer intelligence character, based on research I\u2019d read about with its own limits, but with its own potential that I\u2019d never felt had been properly explored before.<\/p>\n

And I knew, from the beginning that this was just day one of the bigger story.\u00a0 Not all sub-plots had to be resolved in the page count of a single novel.\u00a0 Now, I have an aversion to cliff-hangers.\u00a0 I want each book to come to a satisfying ending, but I had more room to develop the ideas.<\/p>\n

So, when it was completed, Star Time became my favorite.<\/p>\n

More about Star Time<\/a><\/p>\n

Next up — My Favorite Book: Kingdom of the Hill Country<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a college student, I wrote a novel in long-hand, in three-ring binders.\u00a0 There was a genius inventor who fought an aerial battle with aliens using his high-tech car to rescue the girl.\u00a0 This was even before I could type, and it wasn\u2019t all that good.\u00a0 But that germ of a novel was re-written many… Continue reading My Favorite Book: Star Time<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[11,5],"tags":[26,12,8],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4t90x-5F","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":352,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions\/352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}