So I Make Things Up

I’ve been doing some SEO (search engine optimizing) on my website and in the process ran across a review of The Key. It wasn’t a bad review, but the review commented that my science fiction wasn’t just soft, it was squishy. All I can say in response is, “Heck yeah.”

At the time I wrote The Key I didn’t know I was writing anything even remotely science based, though I did know I was writing fiction. I confess that all my books are completely, totally, utterly…made up. Characters, plots and yes, science. All fiction.

I am now aware that hard science fiction readers are sometimes not fond of soft science fiction and squishy soft science fiction can make them foam at the mouth (though I have had some lovely comments and reviews from hard science fiction readers, so they aren’t all created equal). Had I known I was a) writing science fiction; and b) known this about SF readers, I’d have had my my publisher post a “squishy science fiction” warning on the cover of the book.

As it is, all I can do now apologize to any readers who expected my science fiction novel to be, well, less fiction in its fiction-ness. Or something like that.

I guess I should have realized this. I tried to run some science fiction past my hubby (geologist) and he told me it wouldn’t work because it “wasn’t real.” I thought maybe it was one of those Mars/Venus moments that men and women have and tried to explain that my fiction is fiction.

We have agreed to disagree.

But my fiction is totally made-up. Really.
Perilously,
Pauline