Aliens Angry About Destruction of Wildlife Preserve "Earth"

Earth is a very fertile planet for life.  Really the ultimate "Goldilocks Planet."  So why haven't aliens colonized the place in the past 65 million years or so?  Maybe because they set it aside as a nature preserve.  Their thinking is that the diversity of life here would allow them to harvest all kinds of pharmaceuticals while learning all kinds of solutions to environments ranging from extreme cold to extreme heat and everything in-between.

But then we humans evolve, and we start wiping out all kinds of other interesting forms of life...hmmm...

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The Crosslands: Where Dragon Meets Lightsaber

It was a rumored place, a hidden place.  Parents would tell their children that, in the darkness, the wicked sons and daughters were spirited away to this place.  In flight school, the star guides did their best to quell speculation.  "It's a myth," they said.  "A nowhere place."

They were right, of course.  It is a myth.  A nowhere place.  But that doesn't mean it isn't real.

The Crosslands.  It would be a great meeting place - but you can never be sure you'll ever go home.

Batman vs Superheroes - the Dark Knight Wins

So who would win in a fight?  Superman?  Wolverine?  Dr. Horrible?

Heck no - Batman's the one you gotta call.  And if you have any doubts about that, then you best find yourself a good hospital, cause Batman don't knock twice...

The Ultimate Pirate Ship

I was watching "Last Exile" yesterday, and it occurred to me that all these great and massive pirate ships (e.g. The Black Pearl) suffer a complete lack of logistical support.  I mean, seriously - who on Earth builds a ginormous pirate ship?  Do the pirates go up to the dockyards and trade in some gold and buy themselves a ship?  I don't think so...

God vs Darwin - the Card Game of Evolution and Intelligent Design

Okay, so this idea came to me of a card game with cards for Intelligent Design and cards for Evolution, and the two (or more) players would duke it out in kind of the same way that you would in Magic: The Gathering.

Alpha Element - September 11th

I've come up with a new idea for the "Second War of the Worlds" universe.  In this iteration, the Martians have sent their team back in time to a point a few years earlier than the initial invasion.  Actually, many years earlier - about twenty years early.  And they send children in the insertion team - their mission is to completely blend in with the Americans as sleeper agents.  Except, of course, children tend to develop their own loyalties over time.

Revisions: Selonge Naita, the Martian Spy

Here's another example of Revision at Work.  The following are drafts of chapter openings for a longtime novel project, Jonathan's War.  These sections feature Selonge Naita, a Martian spy participating in a war against Earth.  The Martians have just discovered (in the previous chapter) that one of the soldiers from Earth simply cannot die.  In this second chapter, Selonge will be assigned to solve the mystery of the man who is immune to bullets and lasers and plasma cannons.

Maria Villanueva - Story Openings from "Happy Ever After"

Here I've provided an example of how I go through radical revision/rewriting.  For this story, I was truly stuck when trying to write the opening chapter, so I started over a couple times.  As you read each example, notice how the world I was writing about become more developed with each draft.  I started by trying to write about the setting - by the final draft, I was beginning to reveal the essential character details necessary for a good story...

Aliens and Nukes and Health Care

Forget Health Care - friendly aliens have appeared in orbit, and they have a plan for humanity's infinite prosperity.  "Join our Interstellar Economic Collective," they say, "and you, too, can reap the tremendous benefits of our patronage."  But wait - first, humanity must prove itself.  It must ensure its peaceful purposes.  "Once you have destroyed the last of your nukes and all of your strategic weapons," the aliens say, "you may join us..."

And so you're a senator.  It's a close vote - will the U.S. turn all those nukes and submarines into frying pans?  Or is this one of those peace treaties we'd better skip...

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Galactic Heroes Unite!

So what happens when you've got some poor worn-out soldier who can't die (Jonathan), a poor time traveler who's traveled across thousands of years trying to work out the enigma of existence (Bethi), and a semi-indestructible soldier/pilot/angry-but-silent heroine who wants nothing more than to get rid of the constant feeling that insects are crawling around inside her synthetic polymer skin (Jill)?

The Planet Sputnik

Yes, it's named for the lump of metal that once made a quick orbit of the Earth.  But that's what you get when a Martian starship captain names a planet (they dubbed the other planet Tulip - go figure).

So Sputnik has one natural resource: yellow sand.  It's an oxidized silicon grit very similar to the glassy sands of Earth, except it has more metal ores mixed in.  And there's not as much oxygen in the atmosphere.  And no carbon dioxide, either.  In fact, Sputnik doesn't really have an atmosphere.  It was all blasted away when a nearby start went supernova.  Or maybe it was the end result of that last galactic war they had.  Either way, the atmosphere's gone, and no one can tell if the shavings of metal ore were deposited by natural processes or if, instead, those shavings are all that remain of the society which lived on Sputnik in the distant past.

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The Ocean Planet Tulip

Tulip - It's a planet.  It's the second extra-solar planet that humans have colonized.  And it's a beautiful place - all twelve square miles of it.  That's all the bigger the main island is - the rest of the planet is submerged under a freshwater ocean.  Yep, that's right - barely any salt, but plenty of water, and no continents.  But like I said, it's a beautiful place.  The one island, in fact, looks a bit like a flower as seen from orbit - that's just the pink residuals from the acidic lichen they had to sand-blast off the rocks before dropping down the settlements.  Oh, yeah, the lichen isn't really gone - all the sand-blasting really did was drive the spores deeper into the pores in the rock.

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Jill Nakamoto

Imagine the kind of girl who goes kayaking in an open ocean populated with flesh-eating alien fish things.  And by open ocean, we mean that the entire planet is under water except for this one cluster of islands near the equator.  So if she gets lost out there, there are no landmarks to help her find the way back - it's just an endless stretch of ocean from here to the horizon to the end of the world.

Oh, yeah, and she doesn't believe in using a compass.  And don't worry about her getting eaten - she'd been reinforced with a titanium-alloy skeletal reinforcement and polymerized dermal weave armor.  Actually, you might want to worry about the flesh-eating alien fish things.

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Bethi Sooru

Bethi Sooru is a character from Jonathan's War.  Actually, she's two different characters.  One of them - we'll call her Bethi Sooru Alpha - was born not-too-bright.  The other one - Bethi Sooru Beta - was born to the same parents, but on a slightly different day, and with slightly different DNA.  The two Bethi Sooru's are like sisters, genetically...except that, according to the computer trying to fight a war across two time periods, Bethi A and Bethi B were supposed to be the same identical people...

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Jonathan's War

So the current story I'm working on is about an American soldier - Jonathan Mitchell - suddenly facing an unusual enemy: Martian colonists from Earth who have come back in time to invade the U.S.  And these Martians aren't bad people, really - they're trapped in a war of their own, too.  And they never did like those pesky people from Earth...

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Twelve Hour Island

So here's a story idea that could be realistic or surreal: Imagine an island which has come up just to the surface of the ocean.  During high tide, it's under water - during low tide, it's a wide stretch of damp sand.  And people live on this island.  They've anchored their homes into this sand on stilts, and they live on fish and salvage, and their kids swing across ropes from one house to the next.

Posting Science Fiction Story Ideas Online

Okay, so I know that nobody does this, but I'm going to start posting science fiction stories here, online.  Maybe it will be good advertising - you can take a look, post some comments, let me know which ones you like.  And if you're really interested in an idea, maybe we can work something out where you can write a story from the idea (I'm not looking for anyone's royalties, just recognition.  And the freedom to write the stories that I come up with).

I hope you enjoy the stories I'll be posting here over the next several months.

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Half-Leg's War

So what happens to the walking wounded?  In a peaceful society, they're sent home with a medal.  But after the war gets big enough - and serious enough - they just get shuffled to a different front to recuperate.