Dear reader or interested party,

 

I anticipate that most of my speculative writing (especially my collections of short stories) will likely appeal to those readers of fiction and science fiction who respect and hold science dear, who also have a strong sense of wonder, who are intellectually stimulated by the human imagination, and who appreciate subtle philosophy and insights applied to the human condition, derived from the realities of science and the natural world.

I write to honor human imagination, science and art, purely as an artistic endeavor, art for art's sake, realizing that those who will eventually learn of my work, and appreciate my work, will likely represent but a very small segment of the readers of fiction.

I write stories, for the most part, that take place right here on Earth, present day or in the near future. Stories that typically do not involve spaceships, the colonization of the stars, galactic empires, time travel, or a future saturated by incredible new technology. I attempt to write earthy stories, with a focus on character, balanced by a plot that often involves some sense of mystery.

In my writing I also attempt to artistically celebrate the imaginative, the natural world, science, and the human condition while simultaneously embracing knowledge. Thus, when I write sci-fi, I typically don't ask the reader to suspend his or her belief in reality, or to accept what is inherently impossible. I primarily try to write Speculative Fiction, in the spirit of sci-fi author Robert A. Heinlein's original use of the term, i.e., as a synonym for science fiction that specifically excludes fantasy. I believe this nicely complements Arthur C. Clarke defining the difference between science fiction and fantasy as the former being what is possible and can be, the latter being what is inherently impossible and thus can never be.

Although my aim is scientific adherence, I do not play up on the detailed intricacies of science, and I do recognize the significant gray area illustrated by Arthur C. Clarke's 3rd Law—"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"—and I embrace this, with artistic license, but in a careful manner, one which science fiction purists will hopefully respect.

I should add that I do appreciate the genre of fantasy, but when it is presented as such and is not misrepresented as science fiction. (As Theodore Sturgeon—an important writer of the Golden Age of science fiction—once wrote: "So much which is published as science fiction is nothing of the kind.") Because of my love for science, I find myself an adherent of trying not to blur the genres of science fiction and fantasy, as doing so has the potential to dampen scientific literacy and to misinform the public in regard to scientific reality.