Short Fiction

It is amazing how things can change—some you can predict even when you try to keep things going as planned and others take you by surprise. Last week I posted a blog entry about my new short story I was going to write. The short story was going to be a Space Western. Well, it is going to be a Space Western. But it is not going to be a short story. Instead, it is going to be what I feared it would be—a novel. Many of my readers probably saw that coming an astronomical unit away.

The surprise change that took me by surprise is the main character. I originally designed Herne to be based on my Welsh part of my ancestry. However, several thoughts have caused this to change. As I was planning to design the “universe” in which the story was set I was thinking about the American Old West. My nation was created through the sweat and tears of many races: there were White cowboys and settlers, Black cowboys (a great number of cowboys were Black—a fact that is often forgotten) and settlers, Native Americans, Chinese immigrants, and Hispanic cowboys and settlers.

As this was on my mind, I had a conversation with a friend about a Mexican comedian she had seen. Part of his routine was about science fiction. He joked, according to her, about Star Wars being an example of the future—“filled with Whites, some Blacks, but where were the Hispanics,” he asked. This statement, as a seed on plowed earth, began to take root. I thought about all of the science fiction I have watched and read. Hispanic characters are rare. So, I have now designed Herne to be of Hispanic descent.

I will soon be starting a new blog dedicated to Herne’s Law, so please watch for it.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for more information about the novels and blogs that I write.