What to Expect

Now that The Other Side is published, I thought I'd tell you a little more about it. (Don't worry, I won't tell everything! There are some spoilers here, though, so read on at your own discretion.)

First of all, I have a new cover artist. Her name is Nicole Smith, of Jasper Design Studio. I wanted to try something new for this cover and she was eager to oblige. I think the resulting image captures some of what goes on in this novel.

So what does go on in this novel? Well, first of all, I want to caution you that this one is a little "out there." What I mean by that is that I stretched a bit, I pushed myself a little further than I thought I would.

When I wrote Outsider, I resolved that I would try to avoid certain "cliches" of science fiction. I even had Sean come up with some ideas about space ("purple aliens, flashy spaceships soaring past brilliant planets, glittering asteroid showers") and then I wrote "but he had yet to actually see any of it" because I didn't think any of my characters would. Some writers are able to make the more common aspects of sci-fi work admirably, but I was afraid I didn't have the skill to do so. Because of that, I vowed I'd never have humanoid aliens, gigantic spaceships or a huge evil empire ruling the universe. I mostly managed to avoid those, but I didn't manage to avoid one topic that I didn't think I'd ever approach: alien life.

I guess I should have known better when I had to come up with an explanation for the wormhole construction. Obviously, humans in the near future wouldn't have the capability for such a project, so I just wrote it off as aliens building them. That sealed my fate. I thought I could just ignore the builders, because they were too far away or too ancient, but it didn't work out that way. (Besides, there was the enigmatic Chapter 8 of Another Shot.) After a great deal of struggle, I decided to confront them ... which meant I had to figure out who/what they were.

How many books and movies have been created about aliens? How could I possibly do anything new with the idea? What did I want to do with them? I don't even know if I consciously thought all of these questions, but they were certainly present when I tackled this subject. I can't say I've done anything remarkably different, but I tried to avoid some of the worst cliches. Some of the problems I have with aliens in movies is that they're all humanoid, often cute (or murderous) and easily able to converse with humans. The two species interact with no trouble whatsoever. I realize that this is all creative license and I don't blame the moviemakers because a lot of those movies are entertaining to watch, but I didn't think I could write something like that. I didn't want E.T. or the face-grabbers of "Aliens." I didn't want Superman or little gray beings.

I'll leave it to you, the reader, to decide if I came up with something that works.

I will tell you this: I gave a nod to two of my favorite sci-fi movies in The Other Side, so see if you can find both of the references!

There are a few other things in this novel that I didn't expect when I wrote Outsider, but I'll leave it to you to discover the rest.

I hope you'll enjoy the novel! (If you buy it on Amazon, please be kind enough to leave a review.)

Thanks for reading!