Why I Write Sci-Fi

The next couple weeks, we're talking about what books/dvd/tv series influenced us to be the writers we are and why we write in the sci-fi genre! Personally, I write sci-fi with a little bit of comic book super-hero epic story-lines. Reflecting on it, I'd say this was my first big influence:

That's right folks, Terminator! And yeah, showing my age spots a bit here, but I was actually a kid DURING the 80's, and I watched this movie over and over!!! The cheesy sci-fi lasers seemed like awesome special effects at the time. The shocking post-apocalyptic future, the time travel, the twists of destiny where Reece turns out to be John Conner's father, I ate it up. It seeped into my subconscious. When the Internet boomed in the 90's, I worried about Sky-Net becoming a reality.

In other words, I've always been ripe to write dystopias--to wonder and tell myself stories about what things in the world that seem like wonderful advances today could turn twisted and sideways into oppressive regimes tomorrow.

So yeah, in my debut, Glitch, I explore the questions/societal fears about the integration of humans and machines. Maybe it starts as medical advances--memory chips in Alzheimer's patients brains to help them with memory, computer chip implants to help the deaf, GPS tracking chips to keep track of the ill or elderly--but what could it become? If power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely (as the saying goes), how might such initial "technological advances" be used as a means of control? And how could super-heroes fight the aforementioned regime?

Dun, dun, Duuuuuuun! As for other influences... yeah, lots of kissing books. You'll see plenty of my romance genre influences when Glitch debuts too ;)