I hope you all have gotten your copy of "Darak the Minotaur: Omnibus"! Took me months and months to write those stories. I'd love to hear your thoughts. I am now taking a much needed break from my favorite minotaur...
"The Endurance Saga" is moving along really well. Been working on it almost every day. The story came to me when I was in the middle of writing my other story, "Richter: Tale of a Rat". I had to drop it for a while. I knew this story wasn't going to let go. The story inspired by the popular video game "Mass Effect". With hints of "Star Trek" in there as well. I love stories about a future where we as humans can get along with mostly everyone and we all have a common goal of space exploration. It's a nice break from the middle ages.
I feel as if the sci-fi genre has gone really PG-13, which isn't a bad thing. We've gotten some great films like "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Dune." But my goal is to write something more visceral. That has intense violence and sexual themes. I also did find "Dune" rather slow...even though I enjoyed it overall. So my story will be much faster paced. Not a whole lot of world building in one go, but slowly revealing the world through character actions.
The aliens themselves are two different species. One is sorta like a Komodo dragon, big, brawny fighters. The other is an insect race, heavily inspired by my favorite sci-fi movie, "District 9". I also had to include an appendix at the end, to kind of keep the reader informed as to who the species were and what planets they come from. It's a lot to keep track of, but it's been a joy writing it.
I find this is sorta a re-write of my first novella "Forlorn." It has similar story beats and a similar structure, it's a good way to re-tell a story I'm proud of on the whole. "Forlorn" has really good moments and some good ideas, but in re-reading it I've found that not enough was explained. I really felt compelled to re-tell the story after reading a two-star review of my work. I'm glad the reviewer said these things. It gave me some very constructive feedback. I intend to fix these mistakes with "The Endurance Saga" I hope Erin enjoys this upcoming story! I thank them for that review. Otherwise, I may not have written this sci-fi story the way I am.
My second story is "Richter: Tale of a Rat." I wrote a talking animal story called "Blood in Fur" a while back. It's a story I needed to write. I wanted to take "Zootopia" to the next level. So, when writing my next talking-animal story, I didn't want to tread there again. I had done the human / anthropomorphic animal thing in not only "Blood in Fur" but also in my ongoing series "Darak the Minotaur."
I've taken the approach of "Redwall" and "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH" A world where animals talk to one another, but not with humans.
Richter isn't like most animal heroes in young adult fiction (yes Richter is for teens...so it's not as violent as most of my stuff.) Richter is a muscular rat, more of a Rocket Raccoon type. Kinda rebellious and kinda snarky. I also wanted to make a rat the hero, as in stories like "Redwall" the rats are all bad guys. I love the idea of rodents living in their own societies and wearing clothes. It really is imaginative.
Also, keeping rats and mice and cats their natural height presents new writing opportunities. They can crawl through cracks and they can sneak through tight spaces.
In "Blood in Fur" the animals were tall and didn't match their real life counterparts at all.
So yeah, the story of Richter is much more in the style of a classic Disney movie. My three inspirations "Oliver and Company", "The Great Mouse Detective" and "The Rescuers Down Under." Kinda dark, but not so dark that a tween couldn't enjoy it. That's my goal anyway.
I should get back to writing.
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