Tag: science fiction
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Researching a Novel:
Trekking the Rain ForestThe untouched or virgin rain forest was called primary jungle. Primary jungle was what most people thought of when they thought of rain forests: huge hardwood trees, mahogany and teak and ebony, and underneath a lower layer of ferns and palms, clinging to the ground. Primary jungle was dark and foreboding, but actually easy to…
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Researching a Novel:
Lost Worlds above the CloudsIt was a dull gray landscape, and as I gradually deciphered the details of it I realized that it represented a long and enormously high line of cliffs exactly like an immense cataract seen in the distance, with a sloping, tree-clad plain in the foreground. That’s George Edward Challenger describing the Amazonian plateau in Arthur…
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Researching a Novel: Into the Abyss
It glows by night, filling the air with a blood-red cloud. By day, its rising steam billows dull gray from an active crater. Either way, it’s a wonder to behold, a doorway to a hot spot of subterranean fires that recalls the opening lines from Canto Three of Dante’s Inferno: Only those elements time cannot wear Were made…
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Researching a Novel: My Lost World
Rain forests, deserts, volcanic mountains, green-sand beaches. They’re all part of the alien landscape of a novel project that links and expands my novelettes “Daughters of Prime” and “The Others” (both of which originally appeared in F&SF). Since the alien setting will feature ever-more prominently in the book-length version, I figured it would be a good idea to experience such…