What is The Derelict Project?

Image by Karsten Winegeart, via Unsplash

As my first novel nears completion, I thought it would be fun to talk a little about what I call "The Derelict Project" and what I like about it.

Back when I was in the darkest days of grad school, I was spending 8-10 hours a day flailing hopelessly at a broken experiment and wasn't sure whether I was going to end up with anything after seven years in grad school.

In those dark days, I wanted something positive, maybe even hopeful, to spend a little of my time on. Something that I had always wanted to try, but never really put any time into: writing fiction. Specifically, science fiction, and, even more specifically, science fiction about people in a future, when spaceflight becomes common, dealing with search, rescue, and exploration of craft that had lost their way for one reason or another.

So, I dedicated a good chunk of my free time in that year (2013) to writing, mostly for fun. What I wanted to avoid was:

1) Focusing too much on scientists or bounty hunters. I didn't want to be too hoity-toity or too violent

2) Avoiding utopian visions of eliminating scarcity

3) A positive vision of technology making it harder for people to oppress each other, while avoiding direct reference to political squabbles

What I ended up with was my first novella, The Hyacinth Rescue, and I went on to write a few short stories and another novella that I still haven't published. Not all of the stuff after The Hyacinth Rescue fits into The Derelict Project, but some might.

Anyway, years later I had succeeded in getting my Ph. D. and spent a few years as a professional physicist. The urge to write returned, and I wrote a few more short stories and another Derelict Project novella, Missed Contact.

And I realized I didn't quite avoid utopianism, because the twinge of utopianism I held onto allowed me to avoid political squabbles. The Derelict Project takes place in a universe where faster-than-light travel is affordable, leading to a universe where people can simply leave for another star if they disagree with local politics. That fact has made what governments remain smaller and better servants of the people.

I really like the characters I created for these two novellas. They're intelligent, professional, and a little bit quirky, but not modern-day snark-fests. They work hard in dangerous and uncomfortable conditions to help people who've run into trouble in deep space. I really enjoy writing blue-collar science fiction with a good helping of mystery. 

I feel like too many sci-fi authors either go too far in the large-scale military direction or too far in the utopian collectivist direction. I wanted to write about regular people dealing with serious but human-scale problems.

My first full-length novel continues their adventures with a longer and more interesting rescue story.

Aric, Bill, and Lew are hired to figure out the mystery of an unoccupied lifeboat that shows up in their system, and it leads to a much larger adventure that brings in a whole team of their friends and colleagues from a security company.

Now that I'm well into the editing process, I'm finally starting to really like this book, and I hope you will too, when it comes out.