The Creation of Dreampath

Dreampath is the sequel to my first novel, Dreamspace.  Dreampath follows the story of astronomer Ikumi Hayashi as she returns to the planet Brokkr, 16 light-years from earth, where the first alien artifact---an abandoned outpost---was discovered two years ago. 

The story is a tale of xenophobia, fueled by a nostalgia and love of a gone Earth.  It's about a regime with a hostility to the very notion of strangers---who is prepared to poison its own children against them, and risk civil war with any settlement open to first contact.  It's also about the continuing self doubts about its lead character, who is constantly musing that she's a human reborn in the body of a machine. 

When I started writing Dreampath, I'd started reading Alastair Reynold's marvelous novel, Revelation Space, which starts off as a mystery about alien archaeology. I didn't finish Revelation Space until I had completed Dreampath, but my novel shares some of the same elements. However, Dreampath, like Dreamspace before it, differs from Revelation Space by exploring the psychology of architectural space, particularly, alien architectural space. This reflects my own training, interest and experience in architecture. Because architecture is rarely broached in science fiction, except as descriptive exotica, I thought it would be worthwhile to make a contribution by discussing it. A premise of both books is that architectural space is a reflection of the way human minds are made, and presumably, alien minds as well. The aliens in my novels associate direction with a field of endeavor, such as technology, history, farming and art. They also like to occupy the center of spaces, unlike humans, who like to occupy the edges of theirs. There are many more aspects which you can discover yourself by reading the books. The human characters in the novels gradually find out about these things, and how they tie into the aliens' interest in humans.

A word about the unusual place names, starting with the planet Brokkr. Brokkr is a fictional third planet orbiting the actual red dwarf star, Gliese 832. It is deemed to be roughly two-thirds the size of Earth, have about 75% of its gravity, and feature a similar atmosphere. Because Brokkr orbits a red dwarf star, I thought it would be nice to bring in a bit of dwarf mythology to give it its naming conventions. In Norse mythology, Brokkr was one of two brothers, the other being Eitri--whom I've used as the name for the real super Earth planet, Gliese 832C. Brokkr and Eitri  got into a competition with the sons of Ivaldi to create treasures for their gods, Odin, Thor and Freyr. I should mention, by way of background, all of the dwarfs were renowned blacksmiths. As an added intrigue, Brokkr and Eitri get into the competition through the connivance of the trickster god, Loki, who wanted to curry favor with Odin, and who was using the dwarfs for his own end. To cut a long story short, Brokkr and Eitri win the competition with their creation of three items: a golden ring, Draupnir; a golden boar, Gullinbursti, and a golden hammer;, Mjollnir. Now, while the name Mjollnir will be unfamiliar to most people, everyone knows it as Thor's famous hammer.  All of these item names feature in Dreampath as the name of places, mostly for asteroids in the system. There are many more Norse place names to boot, and I think they add a lot to the novel's distinctive flavor.

Another unexpected influence for the novel was Hiromi Kawakami's story, The Ten Loves of Mr Nishino. This came about when I was researching Japanese psychology for my main character, Ikumi. Ikumi herself was inspired by a member of my former Toastmasters club, though her details are a lot changed in the novel. I thought I'd dip into contemporary Japanese popular literature to soak up the feel of Japanese culture and gender aspects. Anyway, virtually at random I came across Kawakami's novel in a local bookshop, and to my surprise and delight, fell in love with it. So much so, that I ended up lifting an episode from one of its chapters and incorporating it into Ikumi's story. If you read Dreampath after reading Ten Loves, you'll immediately realize what it was. Which brings me to another great lie of fiction disclaimers---that all the characters are completely fictional, and that any resemblance to real people, living or dead is purely coincidental. In reality, so many characters of fiction are indeed based on real people---how could they not be if they are supposed to feel real? And so it is with both Dreamspace and Dreampath.  However, the individual characteristics and names have been mixed and blended in such a way as to preclude the identification of the innocent and guilty. That said, an astute reader will pick up that Dreampath does indeed include the fictional namesake of its author! Now, go pick up a copy and enjoy!