How Classic Sci-Fi Inspired the Worlds of The President’s Daughter

One of the really fun/exhilarating/annoying/difficult things about writing an SF book is conjuring up the settings.

I have vivid memories of seeing the first Star Wars trilogy back in the seventies and eighties. That was in the days before CGI and AI art. The guys at Industrial Light and Magic worked on hand-drawn art by Ralph Macquarie and built scratch models of spaceships. Remember that first, wonderful scene in the first movie? Back then it was just Star Wars. Now it’s called A New Hope. Darth Vader’s star destroyer is in hot pursuit of Tantive IV, which carries Princess Leia, who has the plans to the Death Star.

In the movie we’re in space, looking down at a planet. A spaceship appears from the bottom right of the screen, speeding away from us. And then another ship appears – and appears – and appears. A huge, behemoth of a ship, Darth Vader’s star destroyer. I’m surely not the only one who instinctively ducked. And I was hooked.

There were so many more locations. Lucas imagined the desert landscape of Tatooine, Mos Eisley, the cantina scene, the cavernous corridors of the Death Star, the rebel base on its jungle moon… You get the picture. And that was just the first movie.

As I write a story, I need to capture all the places where my characters go just as vividly as George Lucas did so that readers can relate to the locations where the action takes place. Seeing what’s been done in Star Wars and its many derivatives like The Mandalorian, Andor, Ahsoka and the rest have provided me with plenty of inspiration for what works and what doesn’t. Every story is different, although sometimes a setting can be reused somewhere else. In The President’s Daughter I couldn’t reuse anything. All the locations were completely new and came out of my imagination (with some help from stored memories).

But having done the hard work, I get to use Midjourney to translate what I’ve written into pictures. So here are a few illustrations from The President’s Daughter, my story in Pets in Space 9.

The action starts on a luxurious cruise liner in space.

Here’s the interior

The planet Thurbass where some of the early action takes place is home to a mysterious ancient culture that predates the Ptorix and Humans. This amazing citadel rising above the misty jungle is all that’s left of their civilization. Nobody knows who built it or why they disappeared.

The story’s male main character Darius (much against his instincts) joins head-strong Cilla and Maahes, her companion animal, in a dangerous quest down there in the misty, spooky jungle.

That’s just a taste of the locations. There’s another spaceship or two and a couple of other on-planet locations, but it will give you some idea.

The President’s Daughter is just one of ten first-rate novellas in this years’ Pets in Space. Have you got your copy yet?