Something completely different

Posted on November 22, 2013 by dahillauthor

I’ve started writing my third book. For those of you who have finished Fuller’s Mine and are (hopefully) awaiting the next installment, the bad news is I’m writing another story first. I am working on outlining book 3 in parallel, and have a broad idea of the story arc, but there are lots of details to be filled in yet – so this is your chance to ask the questions you think need to be answered in the final book!

The working title of my current project is Little Plastic Men: They aren’t green, but they are from outer space!

Obviously it’s still science fiction, but not hard sci-fi like the Emulation Trilogy. More like the sort of sci-fi in Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. Hopefully it will also be amusing in parts, but I’ll be happy if I can be a quarter as funny as Douglas Adams.

Another important difference is that I’m writing it in the first person (or first alien, since the protagonist is not from this planet!) rather than the limited third person* point of view I used in Newton’s Ark and Fuller’s Mine. The big challenge is creating an alien character that readers will identify with!

* Limited third person means it’s in the third person, but told from the perspective of the characters, typically one at a time, vs. being told by a detached, omniscient narrator.

Front Range Retail Outlet

Posted on October 29, 2012 by dahillauthor

From Monday November 5, the paperback edition of Newton’s Ark will be available from the Brainfood Bookstore in Longmont just north of Denver (332 Main Street #C2). If you are in the area check it out and if not, take a minute to like their Facebook page.

They were quite excited to carry my book since a large part of it is set in Colorado and are really looking forward to Faraday’s Mine since much of it is set quite close to Longmont.

Serialized Novels

Posted on October 19, 2012 by dahillauthor

Releasing novels in serial form seems to be making a bit of a comeback. Amazon for one is pushing the concept hard including re-releasing various works by Charles Dickens like Oliver Twist in their original serial form.

I picked that example because it highlights the issue I can’t get my head around. Why would you want to receive a novel that has been completed for over one hundred and fifty years piecemeal?

But what about a work in progress? Wouldn’t it be nice to receive each chapter as it is completed? Sure, but that assumes the writing process is linear. That has definitely not been my experience so far. I’ve written one hundred and sixty pages of Faraday’s Mine, but they are not even close to consecutive. It would be more like pages 1 – 50, 75-100, 130 – 140, 200 – 275. And there is lots of going back and reworking the story as I go along.

Which leads me to my question. I know many people who have read Newton’s Ark are waiting impatiently to see what happens next. Is there any interest in seeing Faraday’s Mine released as each chapter is completed, even knowing that they may change (radically) before it is done?

Fusion Reactors

Posted on September 17, 2012 by dahillauthor

As I have mentioned previously I was very conscious in writing Newton’s Ark to keep the science as real as possible. The most speculative technology I included was probably the micro fusion reactor – a small, highly portable fusion reactor that could power a satellite for decades.

This technology requires us to find a way to build a self-sustaining fusion reaction that produces positive net energy. And then you have to miniaturize it – I’m going to ignore that challenge assuming we can solve the main problem.

This technology has been a decade away for the past sixty years. Will we ever solve this problem? Who knows. It may really be a only decade away, it may be another sixty years away or it may never happen. It’s hard to extrapolate from the experience to date. There has been some progress but not enough to be completely confident that the fundamental challenge can be overcome.

It is still an active area of research though. In fact I recently received an assignment to design a biometric security system (iris recognition) for an experimental fusion reactor facility!

This post brought to you by author of Newton’s Ark, D.A. Hill.

More Sci Fi Keeping it Real

Posted on August 11, 2012 by dahillauthor

I posted recently on keeping the sci fi real in my first novel Newton’s Ark.

I just ran across this article about stopping an asteriod specifically debunking the scenario presented in the movie Armageddon of using a nuke to split it in half.

Here’s a relevant passage from my book:

“Despite all the holo-movies you might have seen where they destroy the asteroid before it hits the Earth and everyone lives happily ever after, it isn’t possible with the technology and time we have available. To nudge the asteroid off course we have to hit it far enough out that we would need to launch now. Problem is we don’t have anything with the range and payload required….”

“Can’t we just nuke the damn thing when it gets closer to Earth?”

“Yes sir we can, but we risk turning a single very large asteroid into multiple asteroids, each still plenty big enough to wipe out a large city. Better to have only one object to track and to limit the impact to a single location.”

I think this quote from the article nicely captures my philosophy:

…fiction is all about the make-believe. But good science can make for a more plausible narrative, making it easier to suspend disbelief.

This post brought to you by author D.A. Hill.

Keeping Sci Fi Real

Posted on July 20, 2012 by dahillauthor

One of the things I set out to do when writing Newton’s Ark, was to keep the science part of the science fiction plausible, by basing the technology of the future either on already emerging technologies or at least on plausible projections of current technology trends.

This article on taking control of drones by spoofing GPS signals is a good example.

Here’s the relevant section in the book:

“The early drones worked exactly that way, Major. They were vulnerable; if communication is disrupted the drone is pilot-less. Worse still, if the signal is intercepted it is possible for a hostile force to take control of the drone. Back as far as 2012 the Iranians captured what was then one of our most advanced drones by spoofing a GPS signal. They convinced the drone that it was landing back at its base in Turkey when it was really landing in Teheran. Incidents like that were the impetus for the EM program.”

This post brought to you by author D.A. Hill

Paper Back Now Available in Europe

Posted on May 18, 2012 by dahillauthor

The paperback version of Newton’s Ark should be available via Amazon in Europe from tomorrow for £5.99 or €6.99.

US pricing for the paperback is $7.99.

If you’re really worried about price though, the Kindle edition is a bargain at $2.99 (or the equivalent in pounds or euros). Interestingly, I make a bigger royalty on a $2.99 kindle edition than I do on a $7.99 paperback.

That makes it hard to see how traditional publishers can justify asking almost as much for the Kindle version (and sometimes more!) than for the hard copy. e-books should be considerably cheaper, not only because they are much cheaper to produce and distribute, but also because they are more restrictive (you can only lend them once ever, if at all, and you can’t resell them) which ought to mean more sales. The disruption of the publishing market has really only just begun.

Plant our Brains in Robots

Posted on May 18, 2012 by dahillauthor

If you find the ideas in this article from Wired Magazine titled Russian Mogul’s Plan: Plant our Brains in Robots interesting, then you should read my book Newton’s Ark (and the forthcoming sequels).

I’m attempting to explore similar concepts through fiction, with the goal of trying to understand how these sorts of technological developments might affect the human experience. My view is that when confronted with ideas this radical, stories are the best way to explore the possible implications. Otherwise it’s all too abstract, all to clinical, all too remote, and therefore all too easy to ignore, at least until it actually begins to happen and we’re totally unprepared.

This post brought to you by author D.A. Hill

Writing the Sequel

Posted on April 19, 2012 by dahillauthor

When I finished my first novel a little less than two weeks ago, I felt like I would need a break of a month or two before starting work on the sequel. One of the things I discovered though was that part way through the characters started to drive the story.

It seems the characters are still driving the story and were keen for it to continue. A few days ago I found the characters were giving me so any ideas for book two that I just had to start writing. The good news is that it is going much quicker this time–I’ve written four thousand words in the past two days. I think that is because most of the characters are already established. All I need do is ask them what happens next!

The working title is Faraday’s Mine.

Newton’s Ark is Now Available

Posted on April 7, 2012 by dahillauthor

I recently independently published my first novel, Newton’s Ark, as an e-book in Kindle format via Kindle Direct Publishing Program I thought it would be worth making some observations for the benefit of other inspiring authors who might be considering this path.

The big change that independent publishing makes is that it removes the traditional publisher as gatekeeper. There’s plenty of stories out there of books that were rejected by multiple publishers only to go on to critical or commercial success or both.

What independent publishing does do though is push back on the author an awful lot of responsibility for the process of producing the book; stuff like editing and proof reading and formatting and design. You can do it yourself but it is not for the faint of heart. You need a combination of skills to get it right. Traditional publishing skills like attention to detail, editing and graphic design, mixed with the technical skills necessary to translate a manuscript in Microsoft Word into a properly formatted Kindle book within the constraints of the Kindle format (e.g. the fact that is has no such concept as ‘keep with next’) and the quirks of the Kindle publishing platform. The good news is that there are plenty of people out there who will take care of this stuff for a modest fee. I didn’t try any of them – I was determined to do this myself – but if you don’t like banging your head against a wall as much as I do, perhaps it is worth trying.

It is way too early to tell whether independently publishing via Amazon will be a commercial success. That seems to me to be dependent on a mix of the quality of the book, the marketing effort and sheer luck. I can control the first factor, am working on the second one but it’s not my strength, and can only cross my fingers in terms of the third factor.

I will also be releasing a paperback version soon, also independently published, this time via a company called CreateSpace (which happens to be an Amazon subsidiary). I’ll report on that process once it is complete.

This post brought to you by D.A.Hill, author of Newton’s Ark.