The main inspiration for the series is almost a century old. The old 1920s pulp science fiction series, the ones that were written before the Golden Age. There were whole series of pulp stories about exploration and science…
- Tumithak of the corridors – a barbarian rediscovering science in the wake of an alien invasion of earth.
- Professor Jamison and the Zoromes – exploring a universe where mankind had long since passed on.
- Flash Gordon
- Buck Rogers
and then later, the greats appeared. I had a collection of Amazing Stories, then later the little digest magazines.
- A.E.Van Vogt’s Rull stories
- Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles…
…there were hundreds of them. And with a family that thrived on classic science fiction, I loved these books and I grew up on them. And then found that no one was writing them anymore, because there was “no market”.
Likewise on television there used to be hundreds of these: Time Tunnel, Star Trek, Voyagers, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea my mandatory weekend viewing and more. As late as the nineties we had Babylon 5, Star Trek DS9… Now we have one, Doctor Who, and along the way that exchanged the science for soap opera.
Since what I like to read is apparently not being written anymore, and what is coming out focuses on character not science fiction I threw together Killgrace: an advanced humanoid and an alien from a warring world stuck on earth in a low tech era, trying to get home.
The concept for the long journey home was inspired by Nicholas Monserrat’s Master Mariner series, with the cursed Matthew Lawe living through four hundred years of naval history, aging only five for every century:
“To sail the Wild Waters, ’til all the seas run dry”
The supporting cast in the main series do age and die over its hundred year span, which will cause more problems for Susan than Cet. Unlike Matthew Lawe however they are unlikely to be caught in any world event they can avoid, just to stop themselves accidentally popping the soap bubble reality they are currently in.
So there is throughout the element of the Flying Dutchman, the scientists’ inability to settle in one place, and the fact that they don’t age. Not only can they not return to their actual home, but the ports themselves change over time, and even if they return to one it will be very different.
A new world every time.
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