The Grand Illusion
Although I’ve felt like the Assassin’s Apologist in most of your books, I’d like to know when you will write a political novel/autobiography in Exton Land concepts and based on your experience — despite your disclaimer of “boring jobs” involving tedious details.
Unless I change my mind, which I reserve the right to do, the political events/issues in my fiction are likely to be the closest published documents to any sort of political autobiography. It’s also just as unlikely that I’ll write an actual novel around Exton Land, who much prefers to remain a quoted background source, rather than a beleaguered protagonist/antagonist. As I discovered with The Green Progression, fiction that’s truly close to reality doesn’t sell that well, at least for me, and most “political” fiction that sells well these days usually bears little resemblance to what has happened or is likely to — and that’s even more so now than a generation ago.
Love your rant on this website about the state of human society in the USA.
I just finished reading The Green Progression, and really liked it.
I love SF that closely resembles reality, but with a small twist. This book had it, but I think it was the “political” element that pushed some people away. Don’t get discouraged away from “Truly close to reality” Near-Future, Fiction. Just grab another topic. The Solar Express should be awesome, and once it is, feel free to pull the prequel back to a mere 50 years in the future or perhaps only 20.
The attraction to Space is at an all-time high since the moon landing. There are droves of movies and NASA also has planned a lot of great stuff in the next decade. Solar Express sounds like it might scratch that hard-to-reach itch (Hard SF / Space / Near-Future / Modesitt) that I’ve been trying to reach for a while.
I hope the kitchen has turned out the way you wanted.
Cheers.
It wasn’t my intention to suggest that the space-craze today is comparable with what it was during the moon landing, only that it is currently higher than it has been since the moon landing. The past few decades haven’t been kind to space, but that emotion is currently on the up-swing. NASA’s decision to pull away from the satellite / shuttle business was the best thing they could have done.