GHOST PLANET: LIFTOFF!

Today we're celebrating the launch of GHOST PLANET, from Tor/Macmillan! (Click for buying options on Sharon's web site.) Leave a comment for a chance to win a signed copy, as well as a DVD of the film Solaris!* (You can read about the connections between GP and Solaris at SF Signal today.) Need a question for a prompt? I'll repurpose the one from my guest post at Book Chick City!

If you could have the ghost of anyone follow you around (or could follow someone else around AS a ghost), who would you choose?

Other giveaways are happening at the following locations:  

• Drop by the Facebook online launch party for a glass of virtual champagne. Or if you don't like the virtual kind (I sure don't), BYOB, I won't tell!
• Author interview by Heather at The Galaxy Express -- Why I mixed sci-fi and romance, getting to know my characters, and the most challenging and fun parts of writing the novel.
• Guest post at SF Signal: The GHOST PLANET / SOLARIS Connection -- In which I discuss how the sci-fi classic inspired me, and how the two stories differ.
• Author interview at Castles & Guns -- Three things everyone should know about me, advice to aspiring authors, and thoughts on worldbuilding.

{very sci-fi image of my favorite party beverage - please have a glass!}

*Fine print: DVD and signed copy US/Canada only. Otherwise, Amazon gift certificate.

In which we continue to expound about character-driven sci-fi...

Okay, this is officially a trending topic. In addition to the handful of discussions we have going on right here at Spacefreighters, there have been similar discussions and posts going on over at SF Signal and The Galaxy Express.

Last week we had the great quote from Mark Tiedemann (It's Not About the Buttons).

This week we have a panel discussion, You Gotta Have Characters, featuring thoughts from author and The Galaxy Express blogger Heather Massey and five other authors and editors.

http://www.sfsignal.com/

Here are some gems:

Human nature is fairly unchanging and relatively easy to predict. For instance, people were acting like idiots several thousand years ago, and will no doubt continue to do so into the unforeseeable future. This is a good thing, because people doing stupid things is the essence of conflict and drama. Conflict and drama make for good stories. 
- Lyda Morehouse

Not everyone is a tripped out science geek; however, all people know something about, well, people--and also relationships. Therefore, character-driven science fiction offers a built-in hook to pique readers' interest in physics, chemistry, biology, etc.
- Heather Massey

If, as I believe, the heart of fiction is character, then the core of science fiction is character and world building. But however marvelous it may be, a world without characters to inhabit it makes for arid reading.
- Helen Lowe

I think that art and life, when you aspire to something greater, require risk. The risk can take many forms. You can risk your life to go to another planet, risk your body by testing a new nanochip, risk your relationships as you insist upon doing the first two despite your partner's concerns. To me, the story comes from the result of taking that risk.
- Lynne Thomas

I once threw a very famous technothriller across the room because it had nothing that could be identified as characters. Ideas, check. Plot, big fat check. But when I looked for characters, as in real human beings living amid the tech and the derring-do, I couldn't find a single one.
- Judith Tarr

The real discoveries and work that's being done right now is weirder than most professional fantasists' imagination, and the quality of science and technology writing is very, very good. Without characters -- the human heart in conflict with itself was the way Faulkner put it, though I heard it from George RR Martin -- I don't think we can bring anything to the table that can't be beaten flat by reality.
- Daniel Abraham