January 2, 2025, is National Science Fiction Day!
Welcome, guest blogger, Susan Kite!
I write in several genres. My first book was historical young adult fiction (My House of Dreams), then I jumped into Young Adult Science Fiction. (Someone once argued that The Mendel Experiment was fantasy, but I allowed it the leeway of sci fi/fantasy.) I then jumped to straight fantasy with two middle grade books about a courageous cat having adventures with a diverse group of allies. Next were several sci fi books: adult and young adult, then an early chapter tall tale.
So why do I jump around so much? That’s not what the pundits advocate. Regardless, I write the stories that flow from my mind. I believe I do this because I read so many genres when I was growing up. I read Andre Norton, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Edith Hamilton, Robert O’Brien, Jacques Cousteau, Harper Lee, Robert Heinlein, Walter Farley, and many others. If you are as old as I am, you’ll recognize everything from science fiction to historical fiction to non-fiction. If something captured my attention, I checked it out or bought it at the used bookstore and then read late into the night.
Still, I mostly gravitated to science fiction, even more than fantasy, although I read plenty of C.S. Lewis, Ursula LeGuin, and others. I enjoyed Star Trek, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Time Tunnel, and the other sci fi shows appearing in the mid-sixties. I loved imagining exciting adventures on exotic new planets, journeying on spaceships, meeting equally exotic but likable aliens. Science fiction was the genre that stuck with me and demanded more than equal time.
After the enjoyment of writing The Mendel Experiment trilogy, I worked on Moon Crusher, which remained untitled until shortly before its acceptance by my publisher, World Castle.
My premise with this one stemmed from my writing adventures with Zorro. The world of Zorro existed in a pre-industrial age of horses, wagons, and single-shot muskets. My thought was: What would happen if a pre-industrial boy was kidnapped by reptilian aliens and taken into space?
Thus, Moon Crusher was a story of a lonely human, surrounded by unimaginable technological wonders beyond his scope of understanding. New language, new culture, creatures of amazing diversity, but most being slaves to the reptile commanders. How would an 1820s Californian navigate and manage these challenges? Moon Crusher, published during Covid, won several awards. Initially, I only planned to write one book, but Diego’s story demanded to be continued. The second book came out last year and also won an award. The third book will be published on January 14th, 2025. (You can claim a copy at BookSprout. Click on the link.) I have two other Moon Crusher stories drafted and another in limbo right now. And Moon Crusher has also been translated into Portuguese—Lua Eterna; Os Herdeiros do Universo. Diego Perez gets around.
In the meantime, I wrote an adult sci fi story called Crossroads to the Stars. Explorers on the moon find an abandoned underground alien base, which turns out to be a treasure trove of scientific discoveries. It revolutionizes space exploration, but also opens Earth to discovery by various aliens, one of which is not very nice.
Another adult sci fi is Voyage of the Sea Dragon; Into the Dream World, which came out last December. These heroes remain on Earth for their adventures because Sea Dragon is a research submarine, although that doesn’t prevent them finding an alternative universe and strange alien creatures. The second is drafted, critiqued, and waiting for editing. I am having so much fun doing under the sea what I have done in space.
And that’s what I love about science fiction. I am not a scientist, but I have read books about space (or at least what scientists know these days), and then let my imagination run rampant. I love creating new worlds, new creatures, and adventures that can only exist in the imagination. Robert Heinlein had no idea what he started when he wrote Have Spacesuit—Will Travel, or Podkayne of Mars. Andre Norton didn’t know her power when she created The X Factor, Postmarked the Stars, or Beast Master. I enjoyed life when I read science fiction stories, and now I create my own, which makes my world, and that of my readers, even better.
You can find all of Susan Kite’s books at: www.amazon.com/author/bookscape