Who Really invented Science Fiction?
Clue: It involves spaceships older than Islam and Christianity.
Way back in 2021, when this Substack was just getting started, I wrote a post about the origins of Science Fiction. I’m now working on a bigger version of it, intended to introduce an essay about time travel in literature. I might also be working it into my Bright Club standup set, provided I can make it funny enough.
But for now, I have unlocked my post archives to bring you this post, in case you missed it. This was my most popular post in the beginning, and it’s what kick-started this newsletter.
I also wanted to say thank you for the overwhelmingly positive response to the WBTH free day. It’s still live for 48 hours, owing to the fact that I added a few days at the end for anyone who couldn’t be here on the 10th of March. That means it ends on March 13th at 11:59pm PDT.
I’m not usually a fan of emailing people so soon after another email, but I didn’t want anyone to miss out, and waiting a few days before sending this out would mean you’d get an email about the deal only a few hours before it ended. I’m going to go away for a few days so I don’t clog your inbox.
Behind the scenes
For anyone who is interested in the finer details of my WBTH giveaway, and any publishing systems I am building as part of my industry, check out the Halfplanet Press substack later today. It’s full of free writing advice and details of my experiments in publishing. Tonight’s post is going to be about free eBook downloads, and how I realised one of my upcoming novels is actually a series of novellas in disguise.
Spoilers
Your next email will be another part of The Stephanie Glitch.
Technical stuff (you can help me with this if you like)
I’m currently looking into ways to get Stephanie onto an automated system, so new subscribers get the parts once a fortnight starting with part 1, rather than seeing whichever part I’ve posted most recently. Right now my workaround is to simply link part 1 in my welcome email and at the top of all new chapters, but if you’ve just joined and you see “The Stephanie Glitch, part 72” in your inbox, you might rightly feel a bit overwhelmed. You don’t need that in your inbox unless you’ve already read up to part 71, so I’m working on fixing that.
If anyone knows any way to automate that, either inside or outside of substack, please let me know.