{"id":219,"date":"2014-03-03T10:47:21","date_gmt":"2014-03-03T15:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/suzannechurch.com\/wordpress\/?p=219"},"modified":"2014-06-12T08:48:35","modified_gmt":"2014-06-12T12:48:35","slug":"the-wind-and-the-sky-backstory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/suzannechurch.com\/wordpress\/the-wind-and-the-sky-backstory\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Wind and the Sky” – Backstory"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ElementsBelow, dear reader, please find bonus content<\/b><\/u> for Suzanne’s book: ELEMENTS: A Collection of Speculative Fiction<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

This series of posts provides stories-behind-the-stories for each tale in ELEMENTS<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Sitting in the 2nd slot in the Table of Contents is: “The Wind and the Sky”<\/b><\/p>\n

\n

\"neo-op<\/a>I wanted The Wind and the Sky<\/i>  to read as a classic Science Fiction story.<\/p>\n

So I created a space station, populated entirely with androids. <\/p>\n

The station is originally built as a place to store the technological and scientific building blocks of Earth before a meteor hits the planet and destroys the ecosystem. The humans left on the surface build underground caves to keep the population alive until the surface is once again habitable.<\/p>\n

Time passes. All the humans posted to the space station die off, leaving androids capable of self-replicating. They are charged with the task of protecting the Earth’s scientific treasures, and the long-dead humans programmed them to share the storehouse of wealth with the rebuilt human civilization once it’s deemed “ready”.<\/p>\n

The androids consider themselves so superior that the humans on the surface are never deemed “ready.” The androids build in improvements with each successive generational upgrade. I named the various upgrades after elements in The Periodic Table<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In The Wind and the Sky<\/i>  Polnine<\/b> is a member of the 84th upgrade Polonium series<\/i> of androids. His boss, Astfour<\/b> (a member of the 85th Astatine series<\/i>) is a typical corporate manager: big ego, no compassion, and always giving Polnine a hard time for paying more attention to his passions<\/i>  than his job<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Polnine becomes so fascinated by the humans living on the surface that he decides to pay a visit to the surface. The story evolves as this technologically and scientifically superior android interacts with the hunter-gatherer humans on the surface who are scratching their way back to civilization.<\/p>\n

Fun Fact<\/b><\/u> <\/p>\n

In an earlier draft of The Wind and the Sky<\/i>  Polnine’s boss was Asttwo or “AST-2”. (Which in my mind, meant he was the second built of the Astatine series.) But when beta readers told me they thought it read as “AST-TWOW”, the dog with a speech impediment from The Jetsons<\/a>. I changed his name immediately!<\/p>\n

\n

\"ElementsELEMENTS: A Collection of Speculative Fiction<\/i><\/a>  is available in Canada and the USA from EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Below, dear reader, please find bonus content for Suzanne’s book: ELEMENTS: A Collection of Speculative Fiction. This series of posts provides stories-behind-the-stories for each tale in ELEMENTS. Sitting in the 2nd slot in the Table of Contents is: “The Wind and the Sky” I wanted The Wind and the Sky  to read as a classic Science Fiction story. So I created a space station, populated entirely with androids. The station is originally built as a place to store the technological\u2026<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,1],"tags":[3,76,9,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/suzannechurch.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/suzannechurch.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/suzannechurch.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/suzannechurch.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/suzannechurch.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/suzannechurch.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":830,"href":"http:\/\/suzannechurch.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions\/830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/suzannechurch.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/suzannechurch.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/suzannechurch.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}