Chris Berman, a Science-Fiction novelist, joined First Coast Christian Writer's all the way from St. Augustine. The knowledge he brought to us was definitely inspiring. He taught us the difference between Hard Science-Fiction and Soft-Fiction Writing!
It was interesting to learn the reason he began writing; Chris took a simple ride one morning to rent a van that he was going to drive to Philadelphia for business from the Budget Rent-A-Car six miles from his home. On the way there, he was in a near-fatal bike accident as he was hit by a car.
He had several injuries that made him unable to sleep lying down for weeks. With nothing to do late into the night, he remembered his wife Laressa, had always encouraged him to write. However, with his work load, he never had the time. During his recovery, he had lots of time to write late at night as the pain would not let him sleep. Every night, he sat there working on his story, The Hive.
He spent many hours in research on astronomy for accuracy of the story. This never bothered Chris as it was his passion. He loved watching the stars and studying the science part of it. So, it filled his time as he sat up for weeks on end.
Chris began his discussion about the books he is currently working on at this point in his writing career! To get a publishing contract, he used the site http://www.preditorsandeditors.com/. He discover Xpress Yourself Publishing that offered to publish his book, The Hive. The Hive is complete and doing very well in major bookstores. He went on to explain that with using http://www.preditorsandeditors.com/ you will find agents and publishers are color coded by green, yellow, and red. The green means they are very good to deal with, the yellow means caution some aspects of their operation seem like scams, and red means total scam don't use!
He also told us about two others books he is in the process of writing. The first one is Red Moon, which is finished. He has sent those revisions to the ARC to be approved. Finally, he has begun working on one other book. This book he has only gotten about four or five chapter completed.
With his book The Hive, he has had the opportunity for book signings up as far as New Jersey, Maryland, South Carolina, Georgia, and of course in Florida! The Hive he continued to explain is more of a "classic earth vs. alien" style of a book. In other words he explained as "we didn't put dinner on for the aliens, we became their dinner."
He described "Hard Science-Fiction has "technology based information, the hardware so to speak." He went on to say the "One author that came to mind was Arthur C. Clarke as he wrote 2001 and 2010. He also wrote the Fountains of Paradise and many others." Those were just a few titles that he wrote, Chris classified those as Science-Fiction books!
He then gave a description of "Soft Science-Fiction" by giving an example of the book River World written by Phillip Jose Farmer. As well as he named several other books written by different author's on both topics. That is on Hard and Soft Science-Fiction books.
He began the discussion about his book The Hive, and talked about the scientific parts of his books; such as the technology of building different rockets, drawing for us an example of one and explaining how the rocket works.
He spoke very highly of the Orion Project and how it worked. This was demonstrated in the drawing. He discussed the different components of the rocket and what each is responsible for. Definitely a lot of research was noted in his discussion of his book The Hive!
He also mentioned how that a theme in his book was to impart there was higher power, and a "God" was responsible for our early discovery of the approaching Hive fleet. A definite struggle between Man's and Hive technology! He has a driven mind and concept in reaching his readers to understand the glorious power of God's great love! That our God given intelligence as well as as a forewarning would be responsible for victory, but ONLY if we acted as a united human family. We wish Chris all the best of luck with his book The Hive and the many others that will come to follow it!
Christine M Ramey, Secretary FCCW
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