This month’s topic is what current issues are important to you. How often do modern social/global issues take place in your stories no matter what era or generation you write?
I write poetry, science fiction, and fantasy. Nevertheless, politics, political maneuvering, the law and how it plays out in real life, discrimination in any form are all issues that are important to me and that appear in my books. My imagined future society is still plagued by the same kind of political chicanery we see today, and they appear frequently in my stories. So does discrimination and clash of values, in my case a clash between my alien society of Aleyne and the Aleynis on one hand and the Terrans and othe Terran Federation on the other.
When I wrote my first science fiction novel which I stared in November of 2009, t my middle son was in the army, stationed in Afghanistan. Not too surprisingly, my alien planet had a desert climate, and the main character’s father was posted to the Terran Federation Guard base there at the startr of the story. Terrorism and a terrorist plot play a big part in the story, but in this case the aliens are the good guys and the Federation, in general, is cast in the role of antagonist.
When I wrote Broken Bonds I ended up making the main character’s trial for treason a centerpiece of the story, and thus legal maneuvering came theo the fore. My father was an attorney, my mother served on the Grand Jury, and I had served as a juror myself, so I was relatively familiar with trials, but I still sended up doing a lot of research into exactly how a criminal trial proceeds and various other aspects of the courts that I wanted to carry forward into my novel in a believable manner. I ended up creating an Interstellar Court, loosely modeled after the International court, as well as the court system of the Federation where the trial of my main character ends up taking place.r
Economics and exploitation of workers is another area that interests me. In Geek Games the main character, a teen age boy, ends up on a tri-p to the asteroids where he observes first-hand the plight of miners who are virtually enslaved by the Federation, which controls all economic activity, including what the miners are able to buy in the way of goods and technology. Writing all this as sci fi allows me to play out these themes with a freedom that I wouldn’t have if I were writing a contemporary or historical novel.
Check out the posts of my fellow bloggers:
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
A.J. Maguire http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Margaret Fieland http://www.margaretfieland.com/blog1/
Marci Baun http://marcibaun.com/blog/
Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.webs.com/
Connie Vines http://connievines.blogspot.com/
Bob Rich http://wp.me/p3Xihq-vQ
Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Helena Fairfax http://helenafairfax.com/
Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com/
Margaret Fieland Unique Visions 