Yep, you got
it. During National Novel Writing Month, I’m working on a hard scifi murder
mystery set on Mars in 2218, Earth years. Book one is outlined, and book two
has a premise and some characters. Book three? Beats me. Maybe none. Right now,
I am itching to start writing book one.
I’ve been
wanting to do a hard sci fi novel for years, and I’m taking this opportunity to
try it on for size. By making it a murder mystery, I’m tapping into a genre I
know well so I can bridge to the new-to-me genre.
For the
non-sci fi folks out there, there is soft and hard sci fi. Soft is when the science
takes a back seat. In hard sci fi, the science is upfront and prominent. For
soft sci fi, the author can take a lot of deviations from real science,
sometimes it feels like fantasy. Hard sci fi, however, is rooted in the science
we know. And though the author can (and indeed should) extrapolate from current
science, still there are traceable science elements in hard sci fi.
Think the
“Mars trilogy” of Kim Stanley Robinson, Larry K. Collins' McGregor Chronicles, or Andy Weir’s The Martian. Real science was the jumping off point in all these
books, and then they extended the science to what could be true in the future.
Of course, the story line must be engaging. A novel filled with science-only
wouldn’t be a novel.
Striking the
balance, addressing real life conundrums posed by the science, and informing
the reader about real science makes writing hard sci fi daunting. But, oh, so
much fun! (I hope.)
My protag is
new-to-Mars Police Chief (Alexandra Rhebekkah, Iskos) who goes by the name Ari.
Chief Ari was Executive Assistant Chief of Police in Phoenix before applying (under
pressure) for a transfer to the U.S. Mars colony, New Washington. She is
escaping some personal issues, and Mars seems like it will be far enough away
to resolve them.
She is faced
with a death before she even exits the shuttle to the planet’s surface. Her
immediate world is populated with no detectives and only two police officers
for the territory of the United States colony. Dr. Robb Otts, the colony’s
doctor/dentist/surgeon/medical examiner and more becomes a close friend whose
mind challenges her to look at alternatives.
What happened
to Dr. Anh Nguyen, the colony’s climatologist and acting-geologist? Suicide?
Murder? If murder, who in this ultimate closed door mystery setting, could be
responsible? The mining executive? A jealous lover? A scientist who disagreed
with her findings? The politician aiming to secede from the U.S.A. and govern the colony? A rogue AI miner? The space
jockey who shuttles passengers from space station to the surface? Or is it
someone else?
And are the AI
miner robots developing sentience? Is that why the mining company erected a
force field around the mine sites? Add in the growing unrest with being a
colony instead of a recognized separate state, and you have a lot of issues
about freedom, independence, and legal rights emerging.
When Chief Ari
discovers that another likely-murder happened a month before her arrival, she
starts to fear that she won’t be able to handle the investigation. How come
nobody told her that collecting forensic evidence on Mars was a whole different
ball game? And that there are a lot of ways to murder people on Mars.
