The above image was made with stable diffusion using the prompt 'painting of a science fiction book.'
My life these days is in transition. Summer is coming to an end and my birthday is right around the corner. The year's big projects have all been completed and my plans for the future are still a little vague. And yet, slowly but surely, I'm getting a sense of the next novel that I want to write.
My initial vision for this book is to do something as epic as The Name of the Wind, set in contemporary society. Something that gets into magic like Lev Grossman's The Magicians, but with more meat in its magical systems. Part of what I want to do is use magic as a device to talk about mechanics of psychology that most people naturally and unconsciously avoid becoming aware of. I'd also like to like to discuss systems theory like this. Of course, the main thing I want to do is come up with a good story.
As currently envisioned, this new project might take the whole year to complete. That's more than twice as long as most of my other scifi novels took, but I'm in no hurry. There's no external pressure to produce. It's not as if readers are pounding on my door demanding new work.
To be honest, I'm reveling in the visioning process. There's something about unformed creative space that I thoroughly enjoy. Possibilities arise and dissipate. Ideas fit together and fall apart. Eventually, the form coming into being begins to emerge for real.
At this point, I'm trying to figure out a good villain. I might try to do a Lord Vetinari character. That would be fun, but I'm also tempted to make my villains pettier. The question underneath this choice is largely one of humor. Do I want the bad guy to be more funny, or more serious?
The choice of hero or heroes is equally important. All I know right now is that the heroes will learn magic. They'll probably start out young. I'm thinking 18 or so, with a target audience consisting mostly of college undergrads. Not that college undergrads these days read actual books anymore.
One thing I'm greatly looking forward to is playing with the fantasy aspect of magic alongside more technology-focused science fiction. I feel like contemporary society is rich with opportunities to look at these things as complementaries, but it's rare to see this explored in literature. Maybe the reason for that is that it's too hard, but I plan to give it a try.
The most challenging part of this new book will probably be keeping the news out of the writing. I've written plenty of fiction that's dated by its news references, and I'd like for this work to be a little more evergreen. Realistically, because news is my job, some will seep into the work and that's fine. I'll just have to make a conscious effort to rein it it.
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