My moon is made of green cheese.

OK…the stories in The Cities of Luna aren’t that cheesy. They’re more hommage than fromage. A long list of writers, including several Grand Masters of Science Fiction, have gone before me.

What does a writer—mostly unknown and in the early years of her professional career—do to pay respect to those writers who inspired and paved the way? I can’t set my own story in the worlds they created. That’s fanfic, and it’s not always flattering. But I don’t want to ignore them. I can’t ignore them; their influence is pervasive in every story I write.

This first story, Grands, is dedicated to two of my favorite lunar writers. Heinlein (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress) and Hickam (The Crater Trueblood and the Lunar Rescue Company books.) It’s a small thing, and I doubt they or their heirs will ever notice (The world lost Robert Heinlein in 1988, but Homer Hickam is still writing. His latest book, Carrying Albert Home: The Somewhat True Story of a Woman, a Husband, and her Alligator comes out in October,) but it was important to me to make that gesture. 

A large part of Grands takes place in the Museum of Lunar History, specifically in the wing dedicated to lunar fiction. There’s a moment when the main characters note that they’re standing at the borderline between stories that were written when mankind was only dreaming about life on the moon, and the stories written after life on the moon became a reality.

One of the characters’ favorite authors is Homer Hickam. His wife’s favorite is Robert Heinlein. Both have elaborate exhibits in the museum. Instead of building on the worlds that H&H created, I extrapolated the very plausible idea that, someday, the Loonies will enjoy the stories that were written centuries before Lunar life became a reality.

My ROW80 update for the week?

1k is an OK day, 2k is a good day, more is a great day, and sometimes writing-related stuff like editing and promo counts as progress although it is difficult to measure.

I’ve been sick. Just a mild cold, but it’s enough to make me feel just bleh and not able to accomplish much of anything. Very little work has been done. I spent most of the last few days sitting in a comfy chair, watching Tiny House Nation and sketching floor plans for a fantastic castle designed for a fabulously wealthy polyamorous family who live on a Ringworld.

I was completely oblivious to the irony.

I’m playing catch-up now. Grands is out on Saturday…YEAH! So I need to do promo for that. With a short story coming out every full moon, I’m only doing some basic, relatively low-key promo for the first couple of months. I have some bigger things planned for November and December, after several stories are out.

Tis the beginning of something wonderful.

Something started long before I was born, by those before whom I bow in grateful adoration. Thank you. Thank you so much.