Ask the Author: Ryk E. Spoor
Answered Questions (13)
Ryk E. Spoor
Answering this older question (why it never notified me I don't know), alas, that wasn't the way things went in that universe. However, their legacy lived on to the Castaway Planet setting.
Though I did write a (non canon) crossover story in which AJ meets DuQuesne from the Arenaverse setting.
Though I did write a (non canon) crossover story in which AJ meets DuQuesne from the Arenaverse setting.
Ryk E. Spoor
Well, this was a long-ago question but there is a sequel for Princess Holy Aura coming out this year, titled The Apocalypse Maidens!
Ryk E. Spoor
Depends on the books. I'm in the process of having all my backlist re-issued by Novus Mundi press. I have most of my books in ebook form from the prior publications, so I can usually provide one to people for $5 each through paypal. Contact me at seawasp (at) sgeinc (dot) com.
Ryk E. Spoor
Sorry about the delay -- I literally got no notifications on these questions until today. Don't know why.
As a matter of fact, today, yes!
https://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Hyperi...
As a matter of fact, today, yes!
https://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Hyperi...
Ryk E. Spoor
Sorry about the long delay -- I was literally not getting notifications on ANY of these questions until this morning. Don't know why.
That's sorta like asking a father which of his kids is his favorite. And of course it depends on ... in which way.
The most obvious answer is _Polychrome_, as that was the book that FORCED me to write it, and is founded on the Oz novels which were my first big influence, starting from like the age of 6.
_Demons of the Past_ is the story I worked on the most, starting from the late 70s on, and so in a way that's the most important to me -- finally publishing Varan's story after so many decades.
But I could probably argue myself into almost ANY of them.
That's sorta like asking a father which of his kids is his favorite. And of course it depends on ... in which way.
The most obvious answer is _Polychrome_, as that was the book that FORCED me to write it, and is founded on the Oz novels which were my first big influence, starting from like the age of 6.
_Demons of the Past_ is the story I worked on the most, starting from the late 70s on, and so in a way that's the most important to me -- finally publishing Varan's story after so many decades.
But I could probably argue myself into almost ANY of them.
Ryk E. Spoor
Sorry about the delay -- I literally was getting no notifications on questions until this morning.
The Kickstarter not only succeeded, but also the book is now out!
https://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Hyperi...
The Kickstarter not only succeeded, but also the book is now out!
https://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Hyperi...
Ryk E. Spoor
Sorry about the delay -- I was literally not getting any alerts from ANY Ask the Author questions until I got one this morning!
If you only read Digital Knight, reading the vastly expanded (60,000 more words) re-issue of it, called _Paradigms Lost_, will give you two more Jason Wood stories. Several of my other series -- the Balanced Sword (Phoenix), Godswar, Demons of the Past, and LEGEND -- all take place in the same universe.
If you only read Digital Knight, reading the vastly expanded (60,000 more words) re-issue of it, called _Paradigms Lost_, will give you two more Jason Wood stories. Several of my other series -- the Balanced Sword (Phoenix), Godswar, Demons of the Past, and LEGEND -- all take place in the same universe.
Ryk E. Spoor
Dualogy. I originally planned for a trilogy but after I got about halfway through the first book I realized that to make it a trilogy I'd probably have to pad it, which I really really don't like doing.
The Spirit Warriors, which will follow the five from Earth that we saw in Phoenix Rising and later in Phoenix Ascendant, will be a trilogy, though.
The Spirit Warriors, which will follow the five from Earth that we saw in Phoenix Rising and later in Phoenix Ascendant, will be a trilogy, though.
Ryk E. Spoor
Sorry about the delay!
Yes. In fact, if you read Digital Knight, you really want to read the vastly expanded (as in, 60,000 more words) version titled Paradigms Lost, which has two more Jason Wood adventures.
In addition, my two epic fantasy series, the Balanced Sword trilogy and the Godswar dualogy, my space opera Demons of the Past, and LEGEND all take place in that universe. In theory, the short novel Diamonds Are Forever could also be part of that universe.
Yes. In fact, if you read Digital Knight, you really want to read the vastly expanded (as in, 60,000 more words) version titled Paradigms Lost, which has two more Jason Wood adventures.
In addition, my two epic fantasy series, the Balanced Sword trilogy and the Godswar dualogy, my space opera Demons of the Past, and LEGEND all take place in that universe. In theory, the short novel Diamonds Are Forever could also be part of that universe.
Ryk E. Spoor
Sorry about the delay -- yes, I intend to Kickstarter the sequel soon, once I'm done fulfilling the rewards for _Shadows of Hyperion_, the fourth Arenaverse novel.
Ryk E. Spoor
I submitted "Challenges of the Deeps" a couple months ago. I would expect it to come out somewhere around April to June next year.
Ryk E. Spoor
No, I actually had not heard of that particular story until you mentioned it.
When I was writing _Portal_ and had decided that the real climax of the book would be meeting re-evolved Bemmies, I had to work out a lot of details so I knew what these people were like. My general attitude is that while aliens are going to be *physically* alien, they will be comprehensible to us and, often, very much like us mentally.
I wanted them to have metal tools, but the major limitation of an underwater society is that they can't have fire. I toyed with the idea of there being air-filled caves scattered around the bottom, but I couldn't figure out a good way to justify it; even with Europa's low gravity, a hundred kilometers of water exerts a *lot* of pressure.
But then I remembered that the original Bemmies were masters of genetic manipulation, and the reason for there being advanced life *on* Europa was that they had designed and introduced that life so that they could colonize Europa. They would have been aware of the no-fire problem, and would have wanted to address any problems ahead of time.
So... could there be a biological solution?
Sure enough, I found that there were indeed plants and animals that concentrated metals, and titanium in particular, which was ideal as a material for use under salty water. Thus I could justify an engineered strain of plant that concentrated metal to useful levels, and have the new-Bemmies be able to breed those plants to improve or change the resulting shapes.
There was no photosynthesis going to be happening under kilometers of ice, so all life was going to have to get energy from some other source; I figured that would be "black smokers" as in our deep oceans, which are at similar equivalent depths given the variation in gravity. Jupiter's tidal forces allowed an explanation for active geology in such a small body, so I felt fairly comfortable with that concept.
This meant that concentrations of such vents would be good areas for Bemmies to live -- high concentration of nutrients, lots of other creatures living there. Vent areas, then, become something like good farming areas, while the farther from the vent and higher above the ground you go the more desolate and/or dangerous things can become.
Physically, I justified the fact that they retained eyes because bioluminescence was an important marker and useful for living in a world that was mostly dark but had key luminescent factors, but they would have other senses, the most important being a "skinsense" which is based on the lateral line of fish and ampullae of Lorenzini in sharks -- it senses electromagnetic phenomena with extraordinary sensitivity, amounting to something which can sense the activity of life at distance. They would also have sonar, both passive and active, to allow them to navigate even in completely black unknown areas.
I wanted them to be primitive enough that they would encounter us carrying spears, and I based their general behavior around the concept of a tribe or pod-sized organization.
But I also wanted it clear that these were RATIONAL creatures. Their environment severely constrains their technological development, but they would not be uneducated savages at their core. They might have a religion, but it would not dominate their existence, and an intelligent member of their group would be able to step beyond religion and see the truth of the event.
With those thoughts it became pretty easy to write "Skyspark".
When I was writing _Portal_ and had decided that the real climax of the book would be meeting re-evolved Bemmies, I had to work out a lot of details so I knew what these people were like. My general attitude is that while aliens are going to be *physically* alien, they will be comprehensible to us and, often, very much like us mentally.
I wanted them to have metal tools, but the major limitation of an underwater society is that they can't have fire. I toyed with the idea of there being air-filled caves scattered around the bottom, but I couldn't figure out a good way to justify it; even with Europa's low gravity, a hundred kilometers of water exerts a *lot* of pressure.
But then I remembered that the original Bemmies were masters of genetic manipulation, and the reason for there being advanced life *on* Europa was that they had designed and introduced that life so that they could colonize Europa. They would have been aware of the no-fire problem, and would have wanted to address any problems ahead of time.
So... could there be a biological solution?
Sure enough, I found that there were indeed plants and animals that concentrated metals, and titanium in particular, which was ideal as a material for use under salty water. Thus I could justify an engineered strain of plant that concentrated metal to useful levels, and have the new-Bemmies be able to breed those plants to improve or change the resulting shapes.
There was no photosynthesis going to be happening under kilometers of ice, so all life was going to have to get energy from some other source; I figured that would be "black smokers" as in our deep oceans, which are at similar equivalent depths given the variation in gravity. Jupiter's tidal forces allowed an explanation for active geology in such a small body, so I felt fairly comfortable with that concept.
This meant that concentrations of such vents would be good areas for Bemmies to live -- high concentration of nutrients, lots of other creatures living there. Vent areas, then, become something like good farming areas, while the farther from the vent and higher above the ground you go the more desolate and/or dangerous things can become.
Physically, I justified the fact that they retained eyes because bioluminescence was an important marker and useful for living in a world that was mostly dark but had key luminescent factors, but they would have other senses, the most important being a "skinsense" which is based on the lateral line of fish and ampullae of Lorenzini in sharks -- it senses electromagnetic phenomena with extraordinary sensitivity, amounting to something which can sense the activity of life at distance. They would also have sonar, both passive and active, to allow them to navigate even in completely black unknown areas.
I wanted them to be primitive enough that they would encounter us carrying spears, and I based their general behavior around the concept of a tribe or pod-sized organization.
But I also wanted it clear that these were RATIONAL creatures. Their environment severely constrains their technological development, but they would not be uneducated savages at their core. They might have a religion, but it would not dominate their existence, and an intelligent member of their group would be able to step beyond religion and see the truth of the event.
With those thoughts it became pretty easy to write "Skyspark".
Ryk E. Spoor
That'd be quite a list if I were a completist. I realized I wanted to be a writer at the age of 6, and had solidified that desire by the age of 11, so while many other authors afterward influenced what I wrote, the authors from my earlier years would qualify as "made me want to be a writer".
First on that list would have to be L. Frank Baum, the author of the original 14 Oz books. Oz remains an influence on me to this day, and he was the first real author whose name I specifically knew as someone I wanted to read more from, and who I thought of as an example of "author" that I wanted to be like.
By the time I was 8 I found and read all of Hugh Lofting's "Doctor Doolittle" books, along with Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books. While the Doolittle books were of course much more fantastic in their content than Wilder's fictionalized biographies, they were both glimpses into worlds that were, to me, quite alien -- the America of the late 1800s, and the United Kingdom/England of the Victorian era. Not much later, I encountered both Jules Verne and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who both expanded drastically my understanding of what kind of stories authors could tell, as well as both writing in the same Victorian era.
Another influential pair of authors were the D'Aulaires, who produced two magnificent mythological compendiums, one for the Greek and one for the Norse mythology cycles. This was actually my first exposure to religion in any detail; my parents may have believed in something or not but I was never clear as to what, if anything, they believed in a religious sense, and it was in fact many years before I would realize that religion was still a real and significant force in many people's lives.
Robert Heinlein, James Schmitz, and Isaac Asimov became very significant to me by the age of 10, when I really started going through my dad's library of SF.
The final, and in many ways most influential, author was one I encountered when my 5th grade teacher handed me a battered old copy of "Second-Stage Lensmen": E. E. "Doc" Smith. Smith's books were pure concentrated sensawunda, and it was reading that book, and also Christopher Anvil's "Pandora's Planet", that solidified my desire to be a writer into "I want to be a SCIENCE-FICTION writer."
Thanks for asking!!
First on that list would have to be L. Frank Baum, the author of the original 14 Oz books. Oz remains an influence on me to this day, and he was the first real author whose name I specifically knew as someone I wanted to read more from, and who I thought of as an example of "author" that I wanted to be like.
By the time I was 8 I found and read all of Hugh Lofting's "Doctor Doolittle" books, along with Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books. While the Doolittle books were of course much more fantastic in their content than Wilder's fictionalized biographies, they were both glimpses into worlds that were, to me, quite alien -- the America of the late 1800s, and the United Kingdom/England of the Victorian era. Not much later, I encountered both Jules Verne and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who both expanded drastically my understanding of what kind of stories authors could tell, as well as both writing in the same Victorian era.
Another influential pair of authors were the D'Aulaires, who produced two magnificent mythological compendiums, one for the Greek and one for the Norse mythology cycles. This was actually my first exposure to religion in any detail; my parents may have believed in something or not but I was never clear as to what, if anything, they believed in a religious sense, and it was in fact many years before I would realize that religion was still a real and significant force in many people's lives.
Robert Heinlein, James Schmitz, and Isaac Asimov became very significant to me by the age of 10, when I really started going through my dad's library of SF.
The final, and in many ways most influential, author was one I encountered when my 5th grade teacher handed me a battered old copy of "Second-Stage Lensmen": E. E. "Doc" Smith. Smith's books were pure concentrated sensawunda, and it was reading that book, and also Christopher Anvil's "Pandora's Planet", that solidified my desire to be a writer into "I want to be a SCIENCE-FICTION writer."
Thanks for asking!!
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