I grew up in a household of teachers. They taught me the history and pre-history of the earth. My mom was my teacher in grade five and taught me about the explorers those who believed the earth was a sphere. She used to tell me to look out of the plane when I flew, see the curvature of the earth.
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My father was my teacher in grade seven and taught me why the northern hemisphere is cold in winter. Again, all about the curvature of the earth.
I have completed the painting for the cover art of the fifth book in the Meniscus Series … Meniscus: Karst Topography!
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Here is a sequence showing my process in doing the painting:
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The painting ‘walking among the stars’ shows my character Kathryn as she navigates a holograph of the galaxy and finds the planet Meniscus.
When the Slain return from an excursion, they discover the women of the Village have been taken by a Dock-winder transport. They set out on a dangerous journey to Prell-nan to find the women, risking their lives in the dirty streets, sordid brothels and creepy buildings of Dock-winder-run Prell. They find Vicki, Madoline, Kathryn and Meghan, but where is Odymn?
Writing science-fiction involves ‘world-building’, the process of creating an imaginary world. This fictional world can be represented with maps, illustrations and descriptions of setting. The constructed world should be coherent, and can have a history, geography, ecology, demographics, and so on.
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For my series about planet Meniscus, most of the world-building has been on-planet, inventing deserts and forests and the ecosystems found there.
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in Meniscus: Crossing The Churn, my main characters have to cross a desert, find shelter from a sandstorm and cope with scarce water
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However, just as with ‘character-building’, a writer is wise to develop as much information about the setting as possible, even if that information does not get included in the story. This information will inform the story and provide context.
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For that reason, I have developed a setting beyond planet Meniscus itself. I have given Meniscus a ‘solar system’ and invented some basic information on the planets there. After all, my characters spend a lot of time looking at the sky and who knows what they may see!
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In Book Five of the series, ‘Meniscus: Karst Topography’, one of the displays in a museum will be a holographic presentation of the solar system and the larger galaxy. When one of the characters ‘explores’ the holographic system, she will be able to experience returning to her home on Earth and to express her ideas about living so far from home.
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The fictional solar system where Meniscus is a planet is small — only four planets and their moons.
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‘Sel’ is the fourth planet in the system, a huge water planet. The white areas on Sel are frozen water; the blue areas are upwellings of liquid water, located in surface ‘hot-spots’. The life-forms on Sel are microbial, evolved to live in a watery world. Most of their lives are spent in a dormant state, waiting for intermittent thaw, or in the small air pockets in solid ice.
off planet 