I was approached recently by literary renegade and force of nature Bernard Schaffer to take part in a big and exciting science fiction project called Confederation Reborn that will involve a range of authors and should generate a network of tightly or loosely connected narratives.
I don’t want to say too much about it mainly because I don’t really know how it’s going to hang together myself yet, but here’s what Bernard has to say about it.
So Bernard has a three-parter in the photon torpedo tube ready to fire, and he has another three-parter in the works with punk sci-fi swashbuckler Tony Healey, who I’m reliably informed has been set to stun. To add to this, I’ve just finished the first draft of a stand-alone short within the same universe…and I enjoyed writing it so much that I’m thinking of expanding it into a series. Maybe, I don’t know, a three-parter?
I don’t even know what other pieces are coming down the line from the other authors that Bernard has lined up. All in all it’s pretty exciting. I’ll keep you posted.
PS Here’s a pro tip for writing science fiction: just write any old story, then when you’re done do Find & Replace and change “car” to “spaceship” throughout, then whatever the big thing is in your story (a murder, a drug-fuelled trip to Las Vegas, a boy getting stranded on a lifeboat with a real/metaphorical tiger) just write that an alien did it.
Simon John Cox 