About | FAQ | Inspirations | Latest news
Note: The stories are being released out of order because after recovering the rights, it is taking time to re-edit and process each as an ebook. It’s not a co-incidence that the short stories are coming out first.
0. What are these stories?
Killgrace is a series of historical and science fiction stories. Two scientists, trapped in the distant past, able to jump off-world once a month, and trying to rebuild the co-ordinates database to get home. After all, if navigating in three dimensions is tricky, navigating in several more – not always consistant ones – is harder. Stories set in their own timeline are historical, those offworld are science fiction and refered to as missions.
1. Where to start:
Anywhere. While the stories form a continous tale from 1920 to 2010, the gist – two scientists and odd events – should be easy to pick up.
2. What are these Eras?
This is a brief shorthand to let readers know what technology and background applies to the story, and roughly where it falls in the series.
- Arrival, first meeting, and set up
Era 1: 1920’s to 1950’s
- Early days of the company
- A vague degree of trust
- Cet using holography
Era 2: 1950’s to 2000’s
- Cet has a human analog
- Susan has access to her own people’s technology
- Killgrace Industries is a corporate giant
Era 3: 2000’s onwards
- Killgrace multinational
- Their past catches up with them
3. How can I tell what’s on-world and what isn’t? I only like history!
There are two sets of stories. Anything with “and the” in the title is an offworld mission. Anything which is one phrase e.g.”In Depression” is their own timeline going forward.
4. Are they involved in every major event in history?
No. As scientists they are trying to observe, and as people who want to get home they have an incentive to avoid important events as far as they can. It’s the ones they can’t avoid that will catch up with them, e.g. The Great Depression.
5. Why does Xhoshe’s surname change?
The same reason Cet changes Killgrace’s first name every twenty years. You will spot several, starting with Susan Wells, Chapman etc. Yes, many of these are shout-outs to science-fiction authors.
5. What are the Cull actually inspired by?
A really interesting article about a natural microscopic creature they had found in deep mines that eats uranium and radioactive ores, or petrochemicals. I started thinking about what happens with a species where these elements are common, which develops to live on them. Earth is a very dead planet from their point of view – the food literally provides too little energy to be worth eating. It would need environmental support almost anywhere than its home planet because its conditions are so different (which is much like humans actually) and life support to keep its radiation levels up. Its respiration would be anaerobic. The cultural impacts, and attempts to manage it – e.g. ditching sexual reproduction for asexual because it reduces mutation – produce a very alien point of view.
Physically? Look up Hydra polyps.
About | FAQ | Inspirations | Latest news
