Connecting Science Fiction and Historical Fiction

The wind softly moans through the chinks in the drystone walls. The 2,000-year-old broch tower entrance is half sunk in the ground, and I bend low to scramble inside. Centuries of use as a resource for building stones have reduced it to a shadow of its former self. Still, as I emerge onto the rubble pile inside the old ruin, lit by the fickle sunlight of a Scottish afternoon, a familiar feeling begins to grow. Looking out across the water lies the island of Mousa, with its archaeological treasure clearly visible against the sky - another broch tower, dramatically different than the one in which I stand, for it is the only one in existence that is largely undamaged, standing over 40' tall. Not a single other person, or indeed any hint of the 21st century at all, can be seen in any direction from this low promontory by the sea. There is a sense that comes in places like this for me, an almost palpable feeling of a connection to another time. Mixing passions for archaeology and science fiction together, my mind turns to wonder (again) about the idea that all of time might, in fact, be happening at once. Our limited ability to process time causes it to play sequentially in our heads like a movie. If true, they could still be here, these iron age people, still living their lives, and if I could peer around the right extra-dimensional corner at just the right moment, I might catch a fleeting glimpse of someone from another age drifting past, catch the scent of their smoky peat fire and hear the murmuring of speech in a language long lost.

Chuck asked recently why I think we both enjoy historical fiction. I confess to being an incurable archaeology enthusiast, but archaeology only gets me partway to where I want to go (which is probably why I'm not an archaeologist!) I like the context and framework that history and archaeology provide, but I also feel a need to fill in missing pieces and detail with imagination. Historical fiction adds the meat onto the bones (sometimes literally!) It also helps paint a more detailed picture of time periods that relate to the stories we write.

The Sellenria book takes place over a year or so, but Sellenria's history stretches over many thousands of years, and Stenn Gremm's tale is only a small part of an immensely broader continuum. Sellenria's history is the bones upon which to build the characters and plots of the books. The human period of Sellenria's history, devoid of the technology that cannot exist there, bears no small resemblance to the late Medieval or early Renaissance times, and even occasionally to the late Roman Empire. Reading books set in these periods helps gain a better understanding of how Sellenrians might handle different situations.