Dreaming Lemons Into Lemonade

False Advertising Sells

People who watch the SciFi Channel are seeing very little science fiction in that channel’s daily lineup these days. The money makers who run this channel have cashed in on the all the latest crazes, from dinosaurs to disasters. Monsters, vampires, horror, fantasy, diseases and, of course, dragons. People in black leather and black hoodies. Capes and swords. Witches and warlocks and shape-shifters. Flying sailboats. Ghosts. That kind of stuff.

It’s not science fiction by any stretch of the imagination. But it certainly sells.

The bottom line.

(Author's Note 7-22-09: A year after this posting, the SciFi Channel changed it's name from SciFi to SyFy. What that tells most of us is that the little bit of science fiction and the overabundance of Fantasy programming we'd been seeing now fits the channel's name. In other words, SyFy = Science Fiction and Fantasy. With all the monsters, vampires, ghosts, creepy characters and romance, I'd say the name SyFyHorSoap should be the official name of the former SciFi channel. What's next? Cartoons?)

Homeless Dragons

I'm going to take a lot of heat for this but, after five years as a science fiction author, this has simply got to be said.

Pictured here is one of the biggest enemies of any science fiction writer. This creature belongs in the realm of Fantasy and not Sci-Fi.

Enough said.

Science Fiction for Thinkers

I don't write comic book sci-fi. There are no capes and swords, no hooded ghouls or superheroes in my books. That's called Fantasy which is often confused with Science Fiction.

Someone once asked me if I write the kind of books Stephen King writes. I told him no, that I don't write Horror. Besides, when you unmask real life, what you see is a lot spookier and astonishing than anything purely imaginary, and that's what I do.

I take an average American town or an average day in the life of an average man or woman and I peek under that rock and expose the supernatural roller-coaster ride that runs beneath it all. And on that ride many battles are won and lost and many unlikely heroes emerge and all of it seems so real. And that’s because most of it really is. And that's because there's a lot more to life than what we see, hear, smell, taste or feel. And much, much more than we think.