Robert G. Williscroft is a retired submarine officer, deep-sea and saturation diver, scientist, author of 19 books and hundreds of articles, and a lifelong adventurer. He spent 22 months underwater, a year in the equatorial Pacific, three years in the Arctic ice pack, and a year at the Geographic South Pole. He holds degrees in Marine Physics and Meteorology and a doctorate for developing a system to protect SCUBA divers in contaminated water. Author of both non-fiction, submarine technothrillers, and hard science fiction, he lives in Centennial, Colorado, with his family.
SunLit: Tell us this book’s backstory. What inspired you to write it? Where did the story/theme originate?Williscroft: This is the Second Oort Chronicle. It is a stand-alone continuation of the First Oort Chronicle, “Icicle: A Tensor Matrix.” In “Icicle,” Braxton Thorpe, a very wealthy engineering entrepreneur (think Elon Musk), learns he has terminal cancer. He arranges for his head to be frozen when he dies. He awakens about a century later in an electronic matrix.
Working with colleagues, he moves out into the Solar System where he discovers another electronic entity, the Oort, and learns about an existential threat to the Solar System. Aliens who attacked the Solar System in the distant past are returning to do it again. Working with the Oort and cooperating nations of Earth through the Oort Federation, Thorpe and his allies thwart the aliens’ scheme.
As for inspiration, I constantly read about advancements in science and particularly physics and astrophysics, and ponder how continuous advancements will affect our lives in the future. The entire Oort Chronicle series leads toward an exciting conclusion that will become the fifth Oort Chronicle and also the fifth book in “The Starchild Saga,” another series I have written.
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The individual books carry the reader from inception to the ultimate grand scheme that ties both series together. I also keep up to date with computer technology, and found recent advances in linking computers to human brains fascinating. This upload technology formed the basis for “Icicle” that led into “The Oort Chronicles.”
SunLit: Place this excerpt in context. How does it fit into the book as a whole? Why did you select it?
Williscroft: I selected this excerpt because it has a lot of action, shows the interplay of advanced technology, and gives some sense of the personalities of the players. The excerpt picks the story up just as the Phoenix Starships Ad Astra and Neil Armstrong arrive in the vicinity of the nearest star to Earth, Proxima Centauri.
SunLit: Tell us about creating this book. What influences and/or experiences informed the project before you sat down to write?
Williscroft: “The Oort Federation” continues the story started in “Icicle: A Tensor Matrix.” Its subtitle, “To the Stars” points to where the book is headed — away from the Solar System and out into the Galaxy. For humankind to do this realistically, we must develop some form of Faster Than Light (FTL) space drive. In the last several years, NASA and several private researchers have taken the first concrete steps toward a genuine warp drive that will eventually enable us to reach the stars in our lifetimes. Part of “The Oort Federation” tells the story of how we might actually develop such FTL drives following two different paths.
One of the consequences of being able to upload human personalities is the possibility of greatly extended human life—even immortality. This raises the problem of living space. Part of “The Oort Federation” is about terraforming Mars to create such needed living space.
The Aster star system, home to the aliens who invaded the Solar System in “Icicle,” has two planets that have been inhabited for thousands of years, Frohlic and Rogan. Frohlic is a stagnant, planet-wide bureaucracy ruled by the Boss. Rogan is a free-wheeling, libertarian-like open-market economy with virtually no government. I play these two dramatically different cultures off each other, contrasting the vibrancy of Rogan to the stagnancy of Frohlic.
As I contemplated “The Oort Chronicles,” these matters played themselves out in my mind — advancing technology (especially FTL), extended life and its consequences, and open, unrestricted cultures versus closed, bureaucratic societies.
SunLit: What did the process of writing this book add to your knowledge and understanding of your craft and/or the subject matter?
Williscroft: Having already written nine previous works of fiction, writing “The Oort Federation” did not really add anything to my knowledge of the craft of writing. But the research I did to develop the technologies of FTL and extended life within the story, and studying the sociological impact of open versus closed societies that I imposed on the Asterians opened entirely new areas of interest for me.
SunLit: What were the biggest challenges you faced in writing this book?
Williscroft: My canvas was our entire Solar System plus another solar system with two vastly different cultures. The challenge was keeping timelines accurate and story elements consistent. This was made more challenging because initially, before FTL was developed in the story, I had to take relativistic time compression into account for every trip. I had to keep individual timelines untangled and consistent throughout the story.
SunLit: What’s the most important thing – a theme, lesson, emotion or realization — that readers should take from this book?
Williscroft: One, iIf humans are destined to travel outside our Solar System, we MUST develop a form of FTL. Two, extending human life has positive and negative aspects. And three, the more open a society is, the more individual freedom people have, and technology moves at a much faster pace.
“The Oort Federation: To the Stars”
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SunLit: Walk us through your writing process: Where and how do you write?
Williscroft: I take care of necessities first (eating, bills, etc.), and then I sit down before my PC and write (which consists of research, outlining, and writing). Anywhere I go, if I think I might have a few minutes, I take my PC along, so I can write.
SunLit: Do you create an outline first, or do you just sit down and write?
Williscroft: I always outline. I use an Excel spreadsheet to lay out my entire story. I set columns as chapters, and rows as subchapters. In each cell, I use the “Comment” feature to outline what happens in that subchapter. As I write the story, sometimes a character rebels, and will take the story in a different direction. When that happens, I adjust the outline to take that into account.
SunLit: Tell us about your next project.
Williscroft: The “Third Oort Chronicle” was just released: “RAN: A civilization in Hiding.” An incipient space-faring saurian civilization that has hidden itself from the rest of the galaxy — told entirely from their point of view. We are the aliens. Humans and our Asterian allies have constructed a gigantic domed starship, Andromeda, and set out on a voyage of discovery toward a region of deep space called the Cosmic Microwave Background Cold Spot — first stop, the star Ran in the constellation Eridanus.
The “Fourth Oort Chronicle” will be released in February: “KEID: A Lost Civilization.” Andromeda stops at the Keid triple-star system on its voyage of discovery and stumbles on a derelict Dyson Sphere. The starship is attacked by microbots scavenging one part of the sphere to repair another. They map the sphere, discover several primitive races inside, and meet digital uploads of the race that built the sphere. The sphere’s star is about to produce a superflare, so they attempt to save the uploads and sapient races.
The “Fifth Oort Chronicle” will be released later this year: “Beyond the Beyond: Penetrating the Multiverse.”
Quickly…
SunLit: Which do you enjoy more as you work on a book – writing or editing?
Williscroft: Writing.
SunLit: What’s the first piece of writing – at any age – that you remember being proud of?
Williscroft: A terrible science fiction short story I wrote when I was 15.
SunLit: What three writers, from any era, would you invite over for a great discussion about literature and writing?
Williscroft: Robert Heinlein, Michael Chrichton, and Philip Wylie.
SunLit: Do you have a favorite quote about writing?
Williscroft: “Write…dammit!”
SunLit: What does the current collection of books on your home shelves tell visitors about you?
Williscroft: I am an eclectic polymath.
SunLit: Soundtrack or silence? What’s the audio background that helps you write?
Williscroft: I prefer a quiet background with few interruptions.
SunLit: What music do you listen to for sheer enjoyment?
Williscroft: Light classical, 1940s jazz, and 50s-60s pop.
SunLit: What event, and at what age, convinced you that you wanted to be a writer?
Williscroft: As a teenager when I realized that: “I can do that!” when looking at a just published book.
SunLit: Greatest writing fear?
Williscroft: That I won’t live sufficiently long to be uploaded, giving me a shot at immortality.
SunLit: Greatest writing satisfaction?
Williscroft: Finishing a complex writing project, and knowing that it’s a book I would enjoy reading.