Finally!

Have you caught up?

Hi!

Many thanks to all our new subscribers for joining.

After the craziness of December it’s great to sit back and relax in January, and do some cleaning! I’m finally done with a full scrub of the little one bedroom apartment I rent with my wife and toddler son. With the chance we’ll be moving to another rental fairly soon, I thought I’d get ahead of the inspections. (This will be my 15th rental in 30 years. Yeah, I’ve been a digital semi-nomad for a long time!)

The downside is less time to write. Still, I hope to get back to that in the next few days. I wouldn’t want to leave Captain Hogart stuck in the situation he’s got himself into for too long, otherwise he might never get out of it!

Thankfully, another author that writes similar types of stories to myself has had time to write, and she’s just made Yufu’s Run 1 – A space opera thriller free until 15th January 2021. It’s the first book in an awesome series. Worth checking out.

There are also some great offers and giveaways happening online. Last issue I mentioned a couple that I’m involved in from Prolific Works. This time I’d like to mention a couple from StoryOrigin.

Firstly, a list of discounted scifi and fantasy in the promotion: New Books for the New Year. Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book Sale! Lots of discounted ebooks available! This one is due to expire on Jan 30.

Secondly, a group giveaway called Lift Off! Sci-Fi Series Starters.
Packed with Book Ones! If you’re looking to start a new series, this collection has a lot to choose from. This one is due to end Jan 26.

Hope there’s something there for everyone.
In Stellar Flash news, The Robots of Atlantis will be released in May for US$2.99. Until that time it’ll be at the preorder discount price of US0.99. You can find out more by clicking on the cover.

Many thanks for your interest in space fiction and the Stellar Flash series. Until next time.

Neil A. Hogan

Alien Frequency: Stellar Flash Book One

Great news! Alien Frequency: Stellar Flash Book One eBook is now available on Amazon, for a limited time, for just USD0.99! (Normally USD$2.99)

Alien Frequency: Stellar Flash Book One

Captain Jonathan Hogart’s first mission to Frequency One seems to be going well. New crew, new flash ship, and a new race of aliens to make first contact with.

But the binary suns start affecting his team in strange ways, the friendly aliens turn out to be not so friendly, and now he finds himself glued to the ground awaiting possible separation if he doesn’t hand over flash relocation technology.

As the sticky situation gets more and more complicated, and the mushroom bugs reveal further surprises, the alien crew discover that it’s not only planet brown and purple that they have to worry about. There is a much greater threat towards the center of the star system.

One that none of them would ever have suspected.

Alien Frequency: Stellar Flash Book One eBook is now available on Amazon, for a limited time, for just USD0.99! (Normally USD$2.99)

Click here to read it today!

The Stellar Flash Dream Team – The Actors and Actresses I would love to be involved if the Stellar Flash book series becomes a streaming series.

When I am writing the characters, sometimes I imagine particular actors in the roles. I find this helps to describe the body language a bit better.

When the Stellar Flash series becomes a streaming series (I hope to begin working on scripts in 2021, unless someone comes to me earlier) then I have a dream team of people I would love to take part, depending on finances, commitments, availability, locations and what producers, directors and casting agencies decide. (!)

Many of my characters are over 40, which means anyone I think would be suitable now, would be a lot older or even retired by the time the series goes into production. Even so, I’ll keep my hopes up until that day comes.

Please note that I have not approached any of these actors and actresses about the potential for a Stellar Flash series. At the end of the day, everything would depend on funding, and the production company may simply not be able to afford to hire performers of this caliber.

My Dream Team

Admiral Victoria Heartness: Nicole deBoer

Admiral Wei Zhou: Liu Yifei

Doctor John Patel: Brian George

Doctor Hiro Watanabe: George Takei

Commander Sue Lin: Lucy Liu

Raj Kumar: Suraj Sharma

Pilot Josie Tonderai: Freema Agyeman

Stellar Flash Avatar: Initially, Koyuki Kato. The eventual plan is for there to be a different guest actor to play the avatar in each episode.

All alien characters will be fully CGI’d, and I haven’t decided which voices I’d like for any of them yet.

Captain Jonathan Hogart: Not sure yet. My Hogart is still a combination of Bakula, Barrowman, Boxleitner and Browder! And looking a bit like Christopher Reeve. I’m hoping a new actor will rise up in the ranks of high tech scifi that has the look I’m looking for. About 180cm tall, thick black hair, pale skin, muscular, brown eyes, clean shaven, square jaw, and with a glint in his eye that says he’s about to either make a joke, or tease someone. Late 30s now.

Any suggestions?

Strong Female Characters in the Andromeda Effect

Strong Female Characters in The Andromeda Effect

While I still like the old science fiction space opera series of the 20th century, I always felt that the female characters were a little too one-dimensional for it to be completely believable, so I make sure all my female characters are well-rounded and have various, albeit a bit macho, backstories.

My main issue though is needing to forego some of the story I want to tell, just to introduce some populist notions to make it more appealing. For years my female friends have told me I must always include some kind of romance, some sort of emotional attachment, some little flirtatious interaction, to make it more interesting. I avoided this idea, believing that the style that writers like Isaac Asimov employed, namely epic scientific ideas with far reaching consequences, pushed along by two dimensional characters, was a lot more appealing than creating a story focused on emotional interactions that may or may not lead to romance, leaving the discoveries in the background.

Several years ago, I finally decided to employ this idea of including a romance in my young adult book Gabriel and the Resurrection of Maldek, after seeing the phenomenal interest in the TV series Doctor Who after the main character started having a romance with his companion (1000 year old alien that looked 35, and a 25 year old human. Hmm!) As soon that Doctor Who romance was over (she got trapped in a parallel universe, and he changed into an even younger but different persona) ratings began a decline that haven’t risen again. TV shows want romance! Romance sells. Most people watching are between 13 and 25 so it’s the main focus of their existence.

But, I finally came to my senses, and realized that writing romance has never been my market, never been my tribe, and even though Alien Frequency has a suggestion of a possible romantic connection between Captain Jonathan Hogart (approx 46yo) and Admiral Victoria Heartness (Approx 55yo) there is no intention to continue this with these important characters. After speaking with a female friend of mine who pointed out that I probably weaken my strong female characters by giving them a romance, I’ve completely thrown this trope out the window. It may mean less interest from readers, publishers and less sales, but at the end of the day we should write what we enjoy writing, and including a romance in something I write feels like selling out. (The same feeling I had when the Doctor fell in love with his assistant. Like WTF?)

So, my latest novella The Andromeda Effect, is going through another rewrite. Probably my 20th so far. I realize that is nothing. Some writers go through 200 rewrites as a normal process of ‘getting it close to right’ but my main rewrite is to add a new character to the Stellar Flash series. A fun, friendly, and hard working individual who is in charge of the State of North Australia’s Space Port, and will be called upon whenever both Admiral Victoria Heartness and Doctor John Patel are taken away from their duties on Space Station X-1a. Welcome Admiral Wei Zhou to the Stellar Flash Universe. I hope you surprise me, and everyone else.

(Yes, Wei Zhou is a popular English transliteration, which I why I chose it. Apologies to the millions of Chinese writers who might already have an Admiral Wei Zhou in their stories. On the plus side, as far as I know, this will be the first female Admiral Wei Zhou in fiction. Chinese written characters of the name would likely to mean either ‘small’ or ‘fern’ and, using the plant theme, I’m thinking of the ferns of Australia that grow 1 meter every 40 years, and there are some that are hundreds of years old. Small, but tough!)

Thank you for your interest in the Stellar Flash series

Thank you for your interest in the Stellar Flash series.

WARNING: SPOILERS

I was originally planning to release the first novel in September but with the launch of both The Orville and Star Trek: Discovery featuring a couple of situations and characters that were quite similar, I’ve done some rewriting to make it a little bit more unique. While there are some scenes to help ground human readers in alien situations, I’m pretty sure no one has ever written a series with this kind of technology before, (well, I haven’t found it so please let me know if someone has) though I think you might find some vague similarities to early Andromeda and Farscape.

Like Discovery, the first story in the Stellar Flash series is set in a system with binary suns. I’d already established that in Stellar Flash: The Pilot, a short story which was released in August, so that wasn’t going to change. However, unlike the suns in Discovery which were backdrop, these play a major part in the plot.

Like The Orville, Captain Hogart has a scene introducing all the crew members, though this piece was more to convey the relationship between Hogart and Heartness, and the alienness of the situation, rather than a simple intro.

Like Discovery, the crew of the Stellar Flash end up in conflict with some black and brown aliens. Though, mine aren’t Kiingons. They don’t have a name and are simply referred to as ‘mushroom bugs’

Stellar Flash also has an amorous blob on board interested in some of the crew, though my amorous blob is female, and she is the doctor, and one of eight main characters.

I was surprised there were toilet jokes in The Orville. I thought I was being original having a few scenes resulting in some alien embarrassment, but no, The Orville beat me to that one, too. *sigh*

So, I just wanted to connect with you here in the blog and say, hey, yeah, we came up with the same ideas at the same time. Isn’t that great! Sci fi writers thinking along the same lines, knowing what viewers want.

Actually, it was more like this:

Stellar Flash The Orville Star Trek Discovery

Thanks for reading. Alien Frequency will be out next week.

And then I’ll start writing book number 2.