I recently finished my first science fiction novel. When thinking back over this book, I realized that a lot of the big influences weren’t actually books. But I personally think that’s okay, and, really, I think it’s more common than many writers admit. As a writer, we get our ideas from life, which means all our life experiences, not just the ones that we find in books.
For more on my experience attempting to publish this novel, click here.
So, here is a rundown of the top 7 science fiction works that were big influences on my new book. The influences below aren’t in any order (because I’m terrible at playing favorites), and you might notice that many of these came out a while back. Many of the concepts that went into my book have been bouncing around and gathering inside my head since I was a kid. So this list is also a shout out to some of my favorite science fiction works of all time, and I highly recommend all of them.
Robotech: The Macross Saga
This anime TV show aired in the US in 1985, and when I saw it as a kid, it just blew my mind. It has everything. In it, Earth faces the threat of the alien Zentraedi and their new technology. There’s big action with ace fighter pilots and wars that range across the solar system. There are hosts of memorable characters that stick with me to this day, like the main protagonist Rick Hunter, the stoic Captain Gloval, the dashing Roy Focker, the cutthroat Miriya Sterling, and endearing genius of Maximillian Jenius. There’s the love triangle between Rick, Lynn Minmei, and Lisa Hayes that creates this emotional tension that runs throughout the entire show.
It was also one of the first times I encountered a show that had a long, continuous narrative, and I just fell in love with the ongoing drama. It added so much to the depth and complexity of the characters and the story. Sure, the show has its rough edges, but it is also more than just big, space-opera-style action. As the narrator states, “Human drama is played out against the backdrop of interplanetary war.” I love this contrast of scale: big, huge events are happening, and the people in the story are just people trying to get by. The big events carry out the underlying tension and danger, while the characters provide the emotional connection that makes it all matter. To me, it doesn’t get much better than this.
Babylon 5
I truly love this show. This science fiction TV show aired from 1993-1998 and was revolutionary for its time because it has a pre-planned 5 season story-arc. At the time, TV shows were all series, isolated narratives that presented a problem one week and reset to present a new predicament the next week. There was often little to no narrative development. But Babylon 5 (paid link) was all about narrative development. That, and it has some amazing characters that grow and change throughout the show, such as G’Kar and Londo Mollari, to say the least.
I love the focus on the political, on the lives of ambassadors trying to hold together a galaxy of so many different peoples, and the conflicts that erupt along the way. To be fair, though, this show may be hard for first-time viewers, and if this is you, I would suggest starting at season 2, continue on with the show, and then at some point, go back to watch season 1 after you’ve become invested in the characters and you want to know more. But its focus on telling the stories of people living in extraordinary times and of the power of an individual to change the universe is gold. Can’t recommend it enough.
Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
When you read my novel, claiming this book as an influence might seem odd at first. Of course, Ender’s Game is a science fiction classic from 1985, and I think all fans of science fiction books should read it. But there isn’t much of a connection between what happens in my book and Ender’s time in Battle School to fight against the buggers. That’s because it isn’t the story or the themes that really influence my novel. It is his writing style. While some of his other books became more cerebral, this one seemed to have an immediate, present feel that I think had a lot to do with his sparse use of description.
Card masterfully uses just the “telling detail,” the most important and key details that allow you to fill in and imagine the rest yourself. From a reader’s perspective, this allows the novel to flow and to be immersive, because you feel like you are really there. Likely, this is because your imagination is constructing so much of the details that you are really inhabiting a fictional space of your own. Card only has to guide you through it. After that, the world is yours, which makes this book so vibrant. This is the sense that I wanted to impart in my book through the way it is written, through its style. But, of course, you all can be the judge if I did it even half as well as Card.
Parable of the Sower, by Octavia E. Butler
I think one reason why Parable of the Sower (paid link) hit me so hard was that I started reading it in 2020 just after Covid and the quarantines began. This book, from 1993, is all about the main character, Lauren Oya Olamina, and her life when society collapses. And while her world falls apart largely due to climate change, Butler is such an insightful author that the collapse felt real and genuinely thought out. So, reading this book in 2020, it felt like we could actually be on the precipice of descending into Lauren’s post-apocalyptic world. Then, to top it all off, the concepts of Earthseed, something that with a lesser writer could have so easily come across as corny or preachy, are profound and evocative in Butler’s hands.
It is a beautiful book, and the sequel, Parable of the Talents (paid link), is just as good. But what does all of this have to do with my book? No, I don’t pretend to ascend to Butler-levels of genius. But, similar to Ender’s Game, it is her style that I hoped to learn from. Like Card, she has this immediate, sparse, and vibrant style that feels like you are living in the storyworld alongside the characters, which is really something considering that this is told first-person as the written recollections of the main character. But it is this vibrance and energy that I hoped to capture—in at least some fraction—in my writing.
GURPS Cyberpunk (1995) and Shadowrun (1989)
Both these tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) come in as a tie, because they were both my first introduction to cyberpunk, and I will forever be grateful. Some of you may object that in talking about cyberpunk, I’m not focusing on the influence of William Gibson and his works like Neuromancer (1984). While Gibson is rightfully an icon of the 80s creation of the gritty, dirty, chrome-filled streets of cyberpunk that we know and love today, he wasn’t my first introduction. I encountered his works much later. Instead, I found cyberpunk through role-playing games (RPGs), and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
While I wasn’t, personally, so fond of the high fantasy elements that were worked into Shadowrun, I loved how both these RPGs created a world for you, and then your imagination was free to run with it. And mine did. To me, cyberpunk is a wonderful nightmare of the near future blurring of humanity and technology, all while giving a brilliant critique of big business and the corporate mindset. Unfortunately, I never did find anyone to play these TTRPGs with, but the worlds they opened for me were more than worth the read.
Rifts: Manhunter (1994)
This TTRPG had a huge impact on me in my teenage years. What I loved about it was the lore. It provided a universe with about a dozen alien species, each lovingly imagined, and all inhabiting a storyworld that had an intricate and well-thought-out history. The world felt alive, complex, and made you want to plunge inside to see it for yourself. It has been a long time since I’ve read this TTRPG, and, unfortunately, I now longer own many of the TTRPGs that I once did, but this world of diversity in which humanity is only one of the many peoples—and all the conflicts that ensue—is something that fired up my imagination. With lore like Manhunter, all you have to do is let the characters loose to play together and the stories practically write themselves.
“Twilight,” by John W. Campbell (1934)
This classic science fiction short story is written by one of the biggest influences in the development of science fiction history. This is the story that first introduced me to the idea of “What if we never make faster than light travel, and what if humanity never leaves the solar system?” I was raised on science fiction like Star Wars and Star Trek, where it is a basic assumption that faster than light travel is possible. So, I never even considered the other, haunting possibility. That is, until I read this story.
In “Twilight,” we follow the history of humanity as we grow and advance but are always left to look out, yearning into the darkness of space, unable to ever leave the confines of our solar system. Eventually, we lose hope, lose purpose, lose all curiosity, and dwindle away, ending in the sad twilight of humanity. To me, this story was chilling. “Twilight” presents a view of the future that we seldom see in SF today and is one to check out.
So, there you have my rundown of 7 big influences on my first novel. Of course, these are only a few of my favorites, and I’m likely to talk about dozens of others in my future posts. But until then, check some of these out. If they are new to you, enjoy. If you’ve already run into some of these, I am sure you will agree that it is worth your time to visit them again. Be sure to leave me some comments below. Let me know what you think.
Babylon Five extended tv series is one of my all time favorites too.