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Hi all, I finished the third review of Attainment, Book 7 of Warner's World. I am really pleased with this book, especially the ending which marks the end of the Warner's World series.

One thing I found very difficult in this final book was killing off some of the characters I had created. A certain amount of attachment occurs with characters you've developed over a significant amount of time. It's a bit like losing someone from your family. But as Dave Warner would say 100% commitment, 0% attachment - that's the key.

 I thought I’d kick off a series of posts on what future technologies to include in future books. I tend to veer towards realism than fantasy when it comes to tech. My approach in Warner’s World was to limit the techs available to those I thought would be readily acquired by the 26th century. I suppose the only ‘unrealistic’ tech that is absolutely essential for any military space opera to work is a means to travel quickly between star systems. Of course you can write a good story from the perspective that we humans are still stuck within the solar system but generally when most people thinks of space opera they think of inter system travel.

In general, inter system travel is affected either by providing some form of faster than light (FTL) or warp drive or by using a means to instantly move between jump points or worm holes. With current science both are fanciful but I reckoned that the worm hole approach was more fanciful than warp drives. I thought of a compromise where you could have a worm hole but it would still take time to travel from point to point. But in the end I opted for warp drives because they provide the most flexibility for a future commander – ie you can warp in and out from anywhere within a system rather that at some predesignated jump point.

So what do you reckon is the more realistic approach  - warp or worm?

I attended my first CONFLUX over the long weekend. Conflux is all about speculative fiction and it's focussed very much on authors. It's conducted each year by the Canberra Speculative Fiction Group (CSFG). I only joined the CSFG a month ago and attended my first monthly meeting at the Canberra Writing Centre. It was great to share some time with other authors and aspiring writers.

This year it was conducted at the Novotel on Northbourne Ave in the centre of the city. It was a good venue for the size of the Convention, which I estimate was around 200+ participants.

The program was very full. With three different streams running, I found it impossible to participate in every session I wanted to. But that's a good thing. I attended the following sessions:

• Politics in Spec Fic – panel discussion
• Writing for a Large Audience – Dave Wolverton
• Steampunk and Science – panel discussion
• Pitch Wars – Sharon Johnston
• Spec Fic Romance – panel discussion
• Guest of Honour Talk – Dave Farland
• Breaking the US/UK markets – panel discussion
• Spec Fic Erotica – panel discussion
• Guest of Honour Talk – Alan Baxter
• Writers of the Future – Dave Wolverton
• Self Publishing Markets – panel discussion
• Writing Enchantered Prose

In addition, I took the opportunity to pitch my work to a number of publishers who attended the Con. These included Odyssey Books, Harper Collins and Satalyte. Pitching can be a nerve wracking process but practice does help. So despite the added stress I found it beneficial and would recommend it to other aspiring authors. I found the time allocated to be short but with an average of 7 to 10 minutes it was significantly more than the three minutes available at the pitch wars session I attended in Sydney last year.

For me the highlights were the Q&A sessions during the talks and panel discussions. It was then that myself and my fellow authors got to engage with the presenters.  I would like to single out Dave Wolverton who gave of himself very generously throughout all the sessions he was involved with. I particularly enjoyed his last session on writing enchanted prose. It was chock full of gems on how to improve one’s writing style.

Overall I found CONFLUX to be a good investment of my time and energy. I met a lot of very nice people. I’ll be pencilling in the dates for next year.

PS Thanks to the CSFG members for organising CONFLUX.