Princess Leia, 1978
I grew up with science fiction and fantasy and I’m old enough to remember standing in line with my dad to see Star Wars in 1977. I read his Heinlein books, Dune novels, Omni and Twilight Zone magazines. I wrote fan letters to Gil Gerard and played with toys from the original Battlestar Galactica. I lived for Twilight Zone marathons. I watched reruns of the original Star Trek (usually while practicing with my homemade nunchucks, but that’s another story). ST:TNG aired while I went to high school and college.
Today, I am a devoted Browncoat. I still think Data and Worf are mad sexy, and G’Kar is my all-time favorite fictional character. If I ever saw a male Cardassian cosplay at a con, I would find it incredibly difficult not to touch him inappropriately.
But before Stellarnet Rebel, I usually wrote fantasy. I published my first short story The Visitor in Dragon Magazine under the name Llynne Moore, in 1989. Twenty years later, my novelette Wren & Wood: Oak Moon won the 2009 Andrew Britton short story competition. That’s a huge span of time in between, during which I worked as a newspaper reporter, editor and columnist, and a professional jewelry designer.
I never planned to write a novel, until Stellarnet Rebel came to me in a dream. I know that sounds weird, and it was. One day, in May 2009, I woke up with an entire scene in my head. It was the one where Genny talks to Duin for the first time. That conversation, as it appears in the novel, is almost exactly as it was in my head from that very first dream. The rest of the book flowed from there. Well, I don’t know if “flowed” is the right word. “Demanded to be written” is more like it.
When Duin and Genny showed up in my brain, a lot of things were going on. I’d just finished re-watching the entire Babylon 5 series and had started watching the BBC Robin Hood. I was a global sponsor of the “Can’t Stop the Serenity” charity event, so Joss Whedon’s Serenity was definitely on my mind as I made 60 pairs of Browncoat earrings to donate. I’d discovered a new favorite costume drama, North and South, based on the book by Elizabeth Gaskell. I was listening to a lot of traditional Irish music, which is something I pretty much do all the time anyway. I was also on a Les Miserables jag, listening to the old London cast album over and over.
All of these things had three themes in common: Love, social commentary, and the struggle for freedom. Stellarnet Rebel has these same themes, as well.
Stellarnet Rebel also has a lot of technology — PDAs, non-lethal weapons, genetic modification, programmable clothing, recyclable materials, vertical gardening, ubiquitous internet and, of course, video games. Because…
1) I LOVE THE INTERNET.
2) I have a lot of friends who play WoW and I’m an avid PS3 gamer. In addition to spending way too many hours in PSHome (it was research!), I played inFAMOUS while I was finishing Stellarnet Rebel. I am a big fan of William Harms‘ award-winning work on that game. (Note: Bioelectricity is also part of Stellarnet Rebel, but I’d added that element to my book before I played inFAMOUS. It’s based on electric eels, not on Cole.)
3) Alex Steffen and Worldchanging.com, particularly the article “Science Fiction, Futurism and the Failure of the Will to Imagine.” It was important to me that Stellarnet Rebel was neither utopian (like Star Trek) nor dystopian (like most cyberpunk), nor alternate reality (like steampunk). The future in Stellarnet Rebel is extrapolated from current trends as (I hope) a relatively plausible future both grand and distressing, and a realistic — not just futuristic — backdrop for a compelling, character-driven story.
Dreams, music, technology, history, visionaries, video games, and a lifetime of experiences all came together to create Stellarnet Rebel.
- J. L. Hilton
