Thursday, October 19, 2017

Give Me Lightsabers, Super-Robots, Epic Sagas, & Mythic Heroes

Like others, I'm looking to riff on Star Wars for my own purposes. What I see a lot is a shift of emphasis away from the Knights & Wizards towards the more underworld and mil-SF aspects. I'm wanting to go the other way. Space Knights, Space Princesses, castles in the sky, and fantastic powers capable of wondrous things- including wondrous technologies. In short, more like this:

Flat out going good and hard for the Space OPERA, and laying on the myth and fantasy thick (like how I prefer the frosting on my cakes). There's not enough of the fantastic and mythic in science fiction, and I'm fully behind the #RegressHarder mantra. (And yes, you see it in Legend of the Galactic Heroes, straight and subverted.) If you've ever seen the original, non-Flanderized King of Beasts: Go Lion from which we in the West got Voltron, you will know that "Space Princesses" is not code for "Baby's First Sci-Fi". It's hearkening back to John Carter, but played out on a galactic or universal scope and scale.

Not this week, but next week at the Study I'll start sharing my world-building brainstorms on how I'm going about this. Don't you folks who want the more romantic riffs worry; I've got you. It's just going to be a bit.

1 comment:

  1. Bradford.
    Sounds like blast. Can I suggest a modest idea? Why not include the undeworld with a league of honest crooks and gentleman theives? The idea being that some of the criminal rise to the occasion and get over themselves.
    You can also add a loyal soldier who served honourable in space princess' kingdon and laments it's fall. He also plays the wise greybeard who counsels the princess (how he doesn't know is who she is yet) and helps grow up too.
    xavier

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