Fun Facts for “The Astronomer”
Factoid One
The promotion ceremony with the mock wake, described in Chapter 2, was completely made up by me. To my knowledge, that ceremony is not utilized by any Marine service anywhere in the world. Although once lesbians take over the world, I’m sure it will become a ritual thanks to me. LOL.
Factoid Two
Private Lisa Biehn’s surname comes from Michael Biehn, who played Corporal Hicks in Aliens, one of my favorite movies.
Factoid Three
Originally, I intended the planet nicknamed “Kirk” to be destroyed by the gas giant. I then opted for storyline in which the world could be saved by the technology of the Fordham.
Factoid Four
Related (sort of) to Factoid Three…
Another idea I originally had was to have the Tungstenites appear in the Kirk/Sabrina system and use their generation ship to help off-world as many of the inhabitants of Kirk as possible.
Factoid Five
The name of the Fordham’s Chief Legal Officer, Alice Bell, was made by using the surname of one of the actors in the TV show “JAG”—which came out the year I was born. One of the actors was Catherine Bell. I never watched that show, but I happened to see a picture of Catherine Bell online one day, thought she was super pretty, and decided to use her name.
Factoid Six
Colonel Zola, who is mentioned in Chapter 26, is named after Emile Zola, who wrote one of my favorite books of all time, “Germinal.”
Factoid Seven
The name of the research submersible which Anna’s squad has to rescue in Chapter 22 was named after Robert Ballard, the Woods Hole oceanographer who discovered the wreck of the Titanic. I kind of have a fascination with Titanic lore.
Factoid Eight
The superstition Anna tells Lyrica about regarding Marines having sex less than 10 hours before deployment (Chapter 26) is totally made-up by me. As far as I know (and trust me, I know very little), none of the branches of the military have such a superstition. But, again, once lesbians take over the world, and there is a Marine regiment named after me, yada-yada-yada…
Factoid Nine
The release date of this novel, March 22nd, is my father’s birthday.
Factoid Ten
While writing the companion story, Aleffa, the main character, Aleffa, went through several name changes, as did her planet name, the name of the host star, and what the beings call themselves. I settled on Aleffa for its ease of visual pronunciation.
Factoid Eleven
Of all my books, this one has the most pictures included in the narrative. All of Aleffa’s hand-drawn stellar charts, and the image of the boot print, were drawn by me. The stellar charts were tricky because I had to come up with a way to make Aleffa’s way of drawing what she observed in the sky seem antiquated by our current standards.
