Author Guest Post with Chris Koehler, Alien Plague

Humanity has united under one government and has started to take to the stars.

Welcome to one of the July 28th stops on the blog tour for Alien Plague by Chris Koehler with Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, more guest posts, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

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Author Guest Post

Sci-fi and Fantasy, How to Use Rules

When I was first taking a class in fiction writing, the teacher criticized science fiction and fantasy for making stuff up as they went along. This is an issue, as saying “We can just do that” can solve many problems. But Sci-fi and fantasy are still fun, so how do we get past this problem? With rules for how our world works.

I chose to take that criticism, not as science fiction is bad, but as lazy science fiction is bad. For example, the lazy way of, “we are stranded on a planet, we need a new hyperdrive for our ship.” Might be “Really smart guy can build a hyperdrive out of common parts in his backpack, and various consumer products scattered around the ship.” Without established rules, this would come off as lazy.

However, with some groundwork, this may make sense. One character mentions that their toothbrush has the same crystals in it that make hyperdrives work. Someone else earlier went shopping to repair his computer replacing a part that connected it to a hyperspace Wi-Fi network.

We also comment about how there are occasional engineering challenges to cobble together hyperdrives from commercially available materials. Competitions in which drone ships were made with Macgyvered hyperdrives. We could have our smart guy be a winner of said competition or someone who placed last, or not at all. Or just has heard about the competition and thinks they might be able to do it. This also doesn’t have to completely solve the problem, if the drive burns out, or is too slow, or not ready in time, it might take more quick thinking to save the day.

To talk about an example of this in Will Save the Galaxy for Food the main character is an out-of-work starship pilot in a world where starships are obsolete. Specifically, someone invented “Quantum Tunneling” technology, that allows people to walk through a door onto another planet, even one that’s very far away. It is also used for short-range travel within a city, and the booths that this system uses are everywhere. At one point the main character escapes a mob by using this technology, using a local Quantum Tunneling booth to connect to one in a storage center.

By establishing what can be done, before it is needed to be done we avoid seeming like we are just making things up. The world rather has rules, just as in our world turning on a light is done by a switch, we can make rules for our fictional world. Then it won’t look like we are making things up.

About the Book

Alien Plague
by Chris Koehler

Published 26 March 2022

Genre: Science Fiction
Page Count: 200
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

Dr Avery Hutton lives in good times. All of humanity now lives under the Global republic, a democratic government that works hard to protect the rights of their citizens, expand orbital infrastructure and explore space. The last of which is helped by the relatively new Warp Drive, allowing probes to travel to and from the nearest stars over the course of a few years.

This is part of Avery’s job, helping organize the missions form the ground, his specialty being the analysis of microorganism form other star systems. But this most recent mission will change everything. For while every return mission previously had gone well, and few issues were observed, this time one of the returning samples is a bit… nastier than any previous sample. This time something has returned that could wipe out all life on Earth.

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Excerpt

“It can’t be that dangerous,” said Anna. “Diseases were something that killed our ancestors, not something we deal with today.”

Dr. Foster sighed, “If we could fight it, we could have saved Nicole. Don’t you think we would have done that if we could?”

“Are you saying you’re incompetent?”

“No, I‘m saying that these pathogens can’t be dealt with by modern medicine, and we have no more ways of stopping a Beta Strain infection today, than we did when Nicole got infected.”

But I felt like a dead man in here, like this was my tomb, where I had been taken to die. That if I did not escape, I would die. I knew that was not true, that if I escaped I would either die or live with my location not mattering at all… How did Elia, the man who died on me, and so many of the others keep so calm? How did they face death so well? I wish I could be half as calm as they were… I think I understood the people who rioted… #$%$ this sucks.

About the Author

I am a new author and this is my first book. I started working on this story around 2016 and have been refining it ever since.

I first got interested in writing years ago, I took part in a junior writing fare, and wrote as a volunteer from a teenage perspective at a local newspaper. My parents loved Science Fiction and Fantasy and passed on that love to me.

While this is my first book, I hope it’s not my last, I hope you enjoy it!

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Giveaway Alert!

Chris Koehler will be awarding a $15 Amazon or B&N gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.