Cover Illustration by Becka Moor
Published by Firefly Press on 7th September
It’s my stop on the Blog Tour for Tapper Watson and the Quest for the Nemo Machine, a brilliantly exciting and fun blend of Greek mythology and science-fiction – a real blast of an adventure!
Today, I’ve got a wonderful guest post from Claire Fayers in which she shares her top five sci-fi adventures.
Guest Author Post: My top five sci-fi adventures
Tapper Watson comes out of a long line of science fiction books, movies, radio and TV. If I mentioned them all, this blog post could go on forever, so here are my top five picks.
Guardians of the Galaxy
I blow hot and cold when it comes to Marvel movies. Some I love, others bore me into a coma. Guardians of the Galaxy falls somewhere in between – not as good as Iron Man, but a hundred times better than the latest Thor, which I failed to finish.
I’m including it because Tapper Watson has been pitched as Guardians of the Galaxy meets Dr Who, and I kept the movie soundtrack on my playlist while I was writing. (You can see the full playlist on another stop in this blog tour.) What I like about the film is the chaotic feel of a group of misfits thrown together into situations they can’t handle. And of course there is a talking plant – though Groot was not the inspiration for Morse. Morse, my talking danger plant, has a much bigger vocabulary, though it only ‘talks’ in Morse code.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Nothing beats the original radio show, but the books are terrific fun and the TV series has its moments.
I love everything about it – the improbability drive, Vogon poetry, the importance of towels, and Arthur Dent stuck in the middle of it, trying to make sense of what’s going on. Most of all, I love the sense that Douglas Adams was making the story up as he went along and he was permanently half a page away from everything imploding, and yet he kept it all going.
You’ll spot a couple of references to the Guide in Tapper Watson. Fern Shakespeare would agree that towels are very useful items of equipment.
Galaxy Quest
At the risk of turning this into my top five sci-fi adventures with ‘galaxy’ in the title, I cannot leave out Galaxy Quest. It has everything – adventure, humour, romance, danger, a terrific villain, great music, and some moments of real poignancy. I love everything about it.
The Galaxy Quest crew are looking for the mysterious Omega Device. My crew of smugglers and petty criminals are on the trail of the mysterious Nemo Machine. It’s always good for your characters to have a goal. As Captain Jason Nesmith would say, “Never give up. Never surrender.”
Or, in the words of Tapper Watson, “What if heroes are ordinary people who don’t give up when things get dangerous?”
Blake’s Seven
Leaving the Galaxy theme, here’s a TV show I really wish they’d bring back. I might even admit in a whisper that I prefer it to Dr Who. I love characters who don’t fit into neat boxes and Blake’s Seven was full of them. Ignore the wobbly sets, the stilted dialogue and the atrocious final series. Blake’s Seven introduced me to Avon, the anti-hero; Servalan with her capacity for cunning; the cowardly Vila, doing whatever it takes to survive.
Many of my characters have mixed motives and none of them are completely good or completely bad (with possibly the exception of Tapper’s Cousin Twenty-Three. He is delightfully horrible and was great fun to write.)
The Extraordinary Colours of Auden Dare by Zillah Bethell
I thought long and hard about which children’s sci-fi adventure book to include on this list before plumping for this one.
A boy who can’t see colours, a war brought about by water shortages, a robot called Paragon who quotes Emily Dickenson poetry. The various pieces sound like they don’t belong in the same story, but Zillah is such a skilful storyteller and weaves the disparate elements together into something really special.
Thoughtful and moving, this book is the opposite of Tapper Watson, except maybe that, like Auden Dare, Tapper Watson feels out of place in his world, but he never gives up battling through the many problems that are thrown at him.
So that is my five. There are many others I’ve left out. Look out for the subtle and not-so-subtle nods to Star Wars, Star Trek, The Lord of the Rings (I know that one isn’t sci-fi, but I hope you’ll let me get away with it) and others. And please tell me your own top five selections. What would you include?
Thank you to Claire for this wonderful post.
I’ve had a think about my top five selections which I’ve included below, but there are so many others I could include!
Firefly
Stargate SG1
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Orion Lost by Alistair Chisholm
The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day by Christopher Edge.
Thank you to Firefly Press for inviting me to be part of the Blog Tour and to Claire Fayers for the fantastic post.
Do check out the other stops on the Blog Tour:
Book Craic 