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N.A. Ratnayake
engineer ~ educator ~ writer ~ adventurer
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hard sf

Review of “The Andromeda Strain” by Michael Crichton

March 8, 2019Nalin Leave a Comment

Great premise and I love that it’s bio hard science fiction, a sub-genre that I wish there were more of. Especially given recent advances in genetics, neuroscience, and prostheses, I feel as though there are lot of questions related to… Continue Reading →

Reviews hard sf, scifi, biology, crichton, disease, mutation, exposition

Recap of MarsCon 2019, Saturday

January 20, 2019Nalin Leave a Comment
This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series MarsCon 2019

Most of my Saturday at the con was taken up by meetings for RavenCon programming (in particular the new Science Track, for which I am very excited!). However I did get a chance to browse the dealer floor, the art… Continue Reading →

Events MarsCon, cons, publishing, hard sf, self-publishing, fiction studio, small press, near-future, ravencon

Sci-Fi Story Elements That Really Hook Me!

May 5, 2018Nalin 2 Comments

For well over a year now, I’ve been spinning my wheels on a sequel to Red Soil Through Our Fingers. Despite the well-known writing advice that the first draft will be crap and you just have to power through it,… Continue Reading →

Writing, My Stories, SFF Genre space opera, identity, science fiction, hard sf, fantasy, elemental genre, literary fiction, characters, futurism, plot, ideas

Camp NaNoWriMo: Red Soil II

June 26, 2017Nalin Leave a Comment

It’s just a few days to July, and I’ll be using Camp NaNoWriMo to jump-start a first draft of the sequel to Red Soil Through Our Fingers. Having moved from Boston to a much lower-stress pace of life in Virginia… Continue Reading →

Writing, My Stories drafting, nanowrimo, red soil, mars, hard sf, first drafts, colony, politics, loyalty, treason, terrorism

Design of The Hellas-Dao Mars Colony

January 13, 2016Nalin Leave a Comment

The story of Red Soil Through Our Fingers takes place against the backdrop of Hellas-Dao, a Mars colony owned and operated by the Rekos-Breland Xenomaterials Corporation (RBX). Though the setting is obviously fictional, I wanted to make sure that I… Continue Reading →

My Stories red soil, mars, curiosity, spirit, rover, planet, solar system, setting, worldbuilding, hard sf

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Featured Posts

#IWSG: Defining Writing Success
Plantsing With the Three Eggs
Sci-Fi Story Elements That Really Hook Me!
On the Finances of Self-Publishing
Why Space?
Avoiding a Corporate Conquest of Space
Language Is…
Panel Postmortem: Is Optimism Just Nostalgia in Disguise?

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