What If?

Aren’t most novels inspired by a central What If? Investigating the original What If of my novels or long stories has required a lot of thought. It’s possible that some really never began with a real What If. But I think it has to be there somewhere.

Note that I’m trying to get to the What If that actually made me want to write the thing, as opposed to some marketing hook for a completed work. So this post obviously isn’t a marketing strategy for these efforts, some of which are unpublished and will remain so. Text links go to sortmind.com pages for more background. Image thumbnails do link to a purchase site.

So the following is what I think I was trying to do:

Akard Drearstone. What if I’d helped found an art commune after college?

Asylum and Mirage. What if my artistic refuge proved to be a deluded escape from war and evil?

Balloon Ship Armageddon. What if robots sailed balloon warships above a toxic waterworld?
This came entirely from a Tarot card drawing.

Collapse and Delusion. What if Jack Commer’s novelist son, in exile in Alpha Centauri, revived a cruel, ancient star empire?

CommWealth. What if I lived in a society with no property rights?

“Damage Patrol” in The Damage Patrol Quartet. What if I worked for a corporation correcting everyone’s psychological problems, even against their will?

The First Twenty Steps. What if I were just released from prison and had to rebuild my life?

The Holy Dark Ages. What if I survived World War III in thrall to a madman’s commune?
From a dream, as well as from witnessing immense propane tank fireballs on the night horizon.

Jack Commer, Supreme Commander. What if I had no clue how to lead negotiations with a psychotic alien culture?
The Crab Emperor dream sparked this follow-up to The Martian Marauders, which virtually ordered a sequel in its last pages. It’s also a story of Jack’s inability to handle his new marriage or be a true partner with his wife Amav; he probably even sees her as a “psychotic alien culture”!

Jump Grenade. What if a psychotic teen basketball star killed thousands of fans on a whim?

The Martian Marauders. What if native terrorists challenged Earth’s toehold on Mars?
Keep in mind that the original childhood draft was written 1965-66, and I did see the native Martian “fish-people” as the Viet Cong.

Nonprofit Chronowar. What if I could follow time hyperlinks to change my past or discover my future?

“Perpetual Starlit Night” in The Damage Patrol Quartet. What if undefined crimes were punished by banishment to a motionless space platform?

The Psychobeauty. What if 97% of the world’s populace committed suicide?
From a dream of refugees from unthinkable disaster.

“Randy and Laura” in The Damage Patrol Quartet. What if my best friend and I were trapped at a nightmare tollhouse job in a foreign land?
This story later changed to two new characters, Randy and Laura, amid Randy’s New Fascist Australia delusion. Briefly migrated to the novel Sortmind but was soon set free.

“Roadblock” in The Damage Patrol Quartet. What if a surreal business partner and I encountered a final blockage of all light?
From a dream originally used in Zarreich.

The SolGrid Rebellion. What if Jack Commer’s troublesome son instigated a rebellion against an authoritarian telepathic network?
Jack gets a lot of grief from his son Jonathan James, in three separate Jack Commer novels.

Sortmind. What if a telepathic database uncovered two sets of aliens with opposing ideas for dealing with Earth?
Sortmind in its earliest gestation combined numerous themes, including library career, aliens, art, coming of age, and urban politics.

The Soul Institute. What if I sought refuge at a university in my dreams?
Sparked by recurring dreams, this What If was straightforward, though it opened a generational saga and a complex secondary storyline of middle school drug gangs.

Supreme Commander Laurie. What if hysterical fascists blocked Admiral Laurie’s promotion to Supreme Commander?
I may not yet understand the final What If for this novel I’m still writing.

Trip to Mars, the Picture Book. What if we had to evacuate to Mars from a ruined Earth?
A sixth-grader posited this What If.

The University of Mars. How can I escape to the life of the Mind?
Which meant escaping both high-school-level bureaucracy and fears of alien contact.

The Wounded Frontier. What if a malevolent race destroyed stars to create art?