A Passion For Planets: Pursuing Childhood Whimsy  

I’ve long had a fascination for the planets of our solar system, which is likely why I now write my Other Worldly novel series focused on the possibilities surrounding extraterrestrial life on Earth and beyond. But when it came to the actual study of astronomy? Not so much.

As my Other Worldly  protagonist Rowan Layne said in book one, Alienable Rights, her childhood interest was always more about whimsy than hard science.

Indeed, it took me until book three, Aliens Abound, to send Rowan into space, probably because I couldn’t fathom how I’d write about the ecosystem of other planets without possessing science smarts—and without ever having had an appetite for traditional science fiction novels.

Chalk my reticence up to a few scholastic misadventures. First, fifth grade, when I somehow was tasked with reading Dune (at Christmastime) for a flipping book report. Perhaps there are eleven-year-old girls thrilled with endlessly boring prattle about the depressing doom of sandworms, but I wasn’t one of them. And I’m still not, thank you very much.

But you’d think maybe I’d have pursued something astronomy-minded for the eight grade science fair project every kid is sadistically subjected to whether they want to be or not, but no. Several potential reasons why.

First,  astronomy and the possibility of extraterrestrial life wasn’t an “approved” subject fit for tackling a junior high science fair competition (oh they of little imagination), and also my eighth grade science teacher. Let’s just say that in the early seventies, females weren’t considered to have the potential to be future scientists, or to even make their own decisions about what subject to choose for a science project. Especially by his lying, hypocritical, preacher as well as a teacher self. Enough said.

Then, college. A big, fat bummer. Mostly because in my freshman year I took Astronomy 101—because you had to have so many science and/or math credits regardless of your degree (journalism) and one thing was for sure, I took absolutely no math classes. Biology was bad enough. At least I excelled at environmental chemistry (because basic chemistry in high school was an excruciating foreign language and who the hell cares what a mole is anyway?). Which is perhaps why I ended up being an environmental lawyer. But I really wish I’d braved physics instead of astronomy while at UT Austin.

First, the class of roughly five hundred was taught by the teaching assistant because the celebrated tenured professor spent all of his time out in west Texas at the McDonald observatory. Maybe if we could have visited that observatory or even learned what our prof was up to there, the class might have been remotely interesting.

Can I just say that the Big Bang theory is the most gargantuanly boring disappointment of a scientific concept, given it bears an interesting name? The only thing that made my eyes roll back in my head more while reading textbooks in college was the revisionist ravaging of US history, especially when taught by a dude who won a teaching award before I was born and should have been retired by the time I entered higher education.

But in my junior year I made the astronomical misstep of falling for a clickbait course title for yet another astronomy class, this one called “Extraterrestrial Life.”  I dropped it on the first day. Because the professor had the smirking audacity to announce with his very first utterance that he didn’t believe in extraterrestrial life. And to add insult to injury, the shyster scheduled his midterm exam on my April first birthday, and I’m nobody’s fool.

Ultimately, as I launched full-bore into outer space travel and planetary exploration with the drafting of book five, Alien Sensation, I realized one thing. All it takes is letting your imagination soar after researching a smattering of fun facts and actual, serious scientific findings online that strike your fancy. And I have to say it’s been a stellar way of keeping my literary “other worlds” original, not to mention pursuing that early passion in a way I’d never imagined I would as a kid creating mobiles of our solar system in art class.

I (and Rowan) collected marbles in childhood, even naming a few after planets. Especially the one with a red dot and cool blue swirls, dubbed Jupiter, which I still have. But the planet that intrigued me nearly as much was Saturn, because of it fascinating rings.

Rowan Layne visits Saturn, aka Cultura and referred to by aliens as the agricultural planet, in the upcoming Aliens Watch. Therein, I let my imagination run wild upon learning that Saturn’s moon called Enceladus has an ocean with all the elements necessary for life as we know it. You might even say I released my inner child while conjuring potential creatures—and citrus—that just might exist on Saturn and moons Enceladus, Titan, and Janus.

Kick off your new year and engage in a flight of fancy by traveling to Saturn and tasting its bounty along with Rowan Layne in Aliens Watch, arriving imminently at online bookstores in January, 2025.