ROAMING THE EARTH IN OUTER SPACE
The science fiction I write is my way of exploring Earth and humanity in the setting of the Milky Way galaxy. While I have an MA in Archaeology from UCLA, and have done fieldwork in the American Southwest and Northwest, my reason for being multi-cultural in the tales of a lone Human surrounded by dozens of Alien species is simple—I love it!
Long before it was common to include folks from Asia, Africa, Europe and South America in one’s writing, at least in America, I did that in my first published sci-fi novel, Retread Shop. It tells the tale of a lone Human youth orphaned on a giant Alien-run space station that is millions of years old.
In this novel I developed my idea of the Forty-Seventh Florescence, a galactic civilization where talk and Trade deals are faster-than-light via tachyons while physical travel is by slow sublight starships that use suspended animation to let passengers survive years-long journeys. And I used evolutionary biology to come up with Alien species that are not simple duplicates of humanity.
What is there to Trade? Well, I was convinced Humans and Aliens would have the following needs in common: food, scarce resources, need for living territory, sex and greed. Yup, I think greed is universal!
Also, I chose to write about people from India, Northern Ireland, Brazil, Canada, Japan, China and other cultures in outer space because I am convinced that when we visit other stars, Humans will be the New Kids On The Block who find a pre-existing galactic culture of thousands of space-going Aliens. These Aliens Trade, share technology, explore philosophy and in general do what Humans do at a shopping mall.
A second reason I have multi-national and multi-cultural crews on my Human starships is I was very very lucky as a young 18 year-old. My father went to work for the United Nations in Geneva, my sister, Mom and I followed, and I spent my first year of college in Paris, and my second in Tokyo. All this during the Vietnam War period and the Hippie Era!
So in my current novel Stellar Assassin I tell the tale of Northern Ireland native Al Lancaster, shipwrecked in an Alien-run star system and forced to be violent in order to survive. Al hates his job of industrial thief, bounty hunter and sometimes assassin for deadly Alien merchants. But he discovers that his Human predatory instincts may end up saving an entire star system from decimation by a deadly plasma Alien.
In my upcoming novel Galactic Avatar, I mix hard science fiction and mythic fantasy elements in a tale of the last 16 Human survivors of an Alien attack that destroys Earth. My survivors flee the attacking Skrill and head for Andromeda Galaxy at near lightspeed. The Skrill attack them both physically and psychically. The Humans resist with the help of the gods and goddesses of Earth, of which they are the avatars. Their starship includes folks from Brazil, Kazakstan, Indonesia, Canada, Samoa and other neat places. At 155,000 words, it is an epic tale! It comes out May 1.
One thing I love about storytelling is the chance it gives me to travel and to meet new people. Years ago I
visited London and Stratford-On-Avon with my parents and sister, and in 2010 my wife Cathy and I spent three months touring Europe from Paris to Prague to Rome and Barcelona. I hope my novels give readers as much fun and excitement as we experienced on our travels!
You can find all my books on my Amazon author page and at my T. Jackson King pages on Facebook, Goodreads and LinkedIn.
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