…Vut Ees Dees Verd “Research?”

As I mentioned in The Science and History of Avarice Dynasty, I tend to take a lot of liberties in my science fiction because, to me, it makes writing more fun. Certain rules of physics are always broken in sci-fi. For instance, faster-than-light-speed is probably not possible, but it shows up in practically every sci-fi book and movie ever made. However, when dealing with a real-life setting my hands are tied by this pesky little thing called reality.

Not completely, of course. Alex Zabala and I delve into subjects that modern scientists and archaeologists are too conceited to consider possible. But we still have to deal with subjects that are based in feasible reality, and that requires  research. The upcoming short story entitled The Missing Capstone deals with ancient Egypt so my research has gone from esoteric sci-fi particles to ‘what are the names of the pharaohs of the First Intermediate era of Egyptian history?’

Before I started working on Capstone I didn’t even know there was a First Intermediate era. It’s not like school would have helped in this particular area. We didn’t delve into cool Egyptian history, we were stuck with boring American history. I vaguely remembered that there was an ‘old kingdom’ and a ‘new kingdom’ in Egypt but that was about it. That means I have to do research. And lots of it, because I do rather want to get the story right.

So I’ve learned more about Egyptian history in the last nine days than I ever thought possible. Who knew the Great Pyramid of Giza is actually the Khufu pyramid? Not me! But I need to make sure the details are at least believable and possible so that means…you guessed it…more research.

But at the end of the day I still get to go back and have crazy schemes and crazy science involved. I guess it evens out.